You still hold all the things you ever wanted to be, but for now you are a body in a bed, divided by impossible stairs from the life that still goes on below, a body on a bench, waiting to catch its breath, almost able to reach out and touch the life that continues an arm's length away, a body moving through the slow soup of time, waiting. Waiting -
.
.
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#disability #chronicillness #longcovid #CFS #Fibromyalgia
Posted at 09:45 | Permalink | Comments (0)
We anarchists have this profound faith that human beings are capable of thinking and acting for themselves, and putting that self-determining impulse to good collective use, toward self-organized forms of freedom for all. Not that humans will necessarily, inevitably, or naturally do this. But without this belief that it’s a possibility—or one could say, a potentiality within humans—anarchism makes almost no sense.
Still, there are times, violent and vicious, that shake our faith to its core, like much of this pandemic era, when it’s been too easy to slip into a rage at individuals and then whole categories of them (well placed as that rage may be), and from there feel despair about what humans as a species have done to this world.
We anarchists can be an impatient bunch, though—wanting others to see what is so self-evident to us, through our lens, and think and act sooner, now. There is, after all, a lot at stake.
Perhaps more than impatience, there’s this imperative we feel so keenly: Why should more people have to suffer and die? Why does it too often take someone themselves feeling a cop’s baton at a demo, or someone themselves having a boss or school board that cares little for their health and well-being as long as the grocery or school stays open?
That, alas, is a tension within our faith; learning to do-it-ourselves might entail first learning lessons for oneself the hard way.
So we anarchists need to be all that much more giving when people do reach a point of thinking and acting for themselves—whether they sport a circle-A or not. We know the trauma it too frequently takes to “get here.” And suddenly it seems, there are many, many anarchistic humans who are now there—walking out of their schools, staging strikes at their workplaces, organizing solidarity sickouts, and even if still embryonic, refusing to return, whether to the old or now new normal, instead turning toward forms of collective and autonomous care, and toward freedom.
Our faith, my anarchist friends, needs to burn brighter again, so those who are rising up in greater, bolder, and braver numbers can find warmth and aid in our solidarity.
Posted at 18:30 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Every frightening thing
every cruel thing
everything that I thought made me less than
everything that I was too scared to talk about,
the ceiling, when the unimaginable was taking place
the ground, where my face was planted
everything I thought would alienate me from my fellow human
all that I tried,
all that I feared was weathering me on the inside
the dissonant blue notes of the soul
and the things that I dread
make me a softer human, a stronger human, more dynamic in love,
an urgent artist.
Every frightening thing
every cruel thing,
everything that you fear makes you less than,
all you shudder to bring about in thought.
The missteps, the black cycles, the humiliations,
everything that you think could alienate you from your fellow human/
from the world in general, everything that could/should have broken you up into pieces
has already increased your capacity in another avenue,
(whether or not you have found it).
Sometimes I consider the purpose of shame. I think of shame as an intelligent mechanism for keeping us good and quiet
trapped precisely where we are,
where we have been. Will we beat ourselves up over yesterdays circumstances? Will we allow others to do the same? Will we continue doing it to each other? Will we call ourselves the things we were calling ourselves last year
even when they are no longer true?
Usually, words make things easier. I’m a convert. It helps to have a thing to call yourself, a one-person cult in which to belong
a drum to beat
a scripture (of sorts.)
AND
What is true of language is that it must evolve. Be sure that the world you built with your words is large enough. Test it, see if you fit. If the definition needs expanding, now is the time. You, too, are changing shape.
I cannot stop giving thanks for all that I thought might kill me.
I’m deadly serious. Every day, I find new bones;
strangely enough, they are all mine. They were old forms, necessary forms, essential bodies. Every month I find a new swell of truth;
how can this be? Are we endless?
Is this one of the twisting mysteries of life?
I’m in love with the terror and beauty of it.
Posted at 08:37 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Baked a banana nut bread
Made a butternut squash curry with green beans, onions, cashews, coconut milk
Made a pot of basmati, a giant salad of arugula and radishes, vinaigrette of apple cider vinegar, olive oil, flaky salt
Ate an orange, put the peel in vinegar to make orange essence cleaning solution
Peeled and cubed a pineapple - exotic tropical fruit! Drank a ball jar of nettles infusion from nettles I harvested last summer with big beekeeper's gloves - the sting! Cleaned
the kitchen, fridge, bathrooms. Shook out rugs, scrubbed the sink, changed the bed linens. Bed smells like wedding cake and lavender. Played the piano. Wrote five pages, meditated
Amazed at the quiet
No m80's exploding outside my door, no anti-anxiety medicine
O the turning of the earth around the sun, o time
Nothing changes on New Year's Day
We are alive, aren't we now
Posted at 19:51 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Honor the Winter solstice, the longest night here on the land ... may I digest the nourishment from the seasons we've gone through this year, dropping the leaves of what no longer supports me, so that new buds and leaves have room to unfurl. May the fruits that have emerged against all odds from the focus of the energy that courses through me grow seeds that are vibrant and strong, filled with hopeful seedsongs that will nourish those on the not so distant horizons.
May I move into my wintering phase to tend my spirit fire in a way that feels within my means, that invites in the deep rest that restores the memory held in my marrow.
May you find that sanctuary, as we slow down into a love poem of collective care. May all that grieves inside you find outlet into beauty, falling upon snow as brilliant seeds to come. Blessings to you all in this Solstice season, may you be held and supported in all the ways that you hold and extend care to others
Posted at 12:16 | Permalink | Comments (0)