i hold steady, but lightly anymore. i know better now than to keep score. All stuff is garbage, all living things die. Change isn’t negotiable; i’m not gonna try.

Steady, i hold, for all beauty is fleeting. But i like to have something to admire of evenings. Still loosely i hold; real treasures come slowly. Most get left in draft states, never crafted fully.

Unfinished beauty is yet equally precious: half-sketches, scratched poems, scraps of confessions. Perhaps we could render the full work with some patience. Perhaps, but the next already awaits us.

“What could be better,” i ask her, a dog with her ball on the beach. All that justifiable worry left waiting, because right now we will play by the sea.

“Nothing is better!” she bounces. A mouth full of sand on the shore. Fears lurking inland cannot touch us. We delight and we play till we’re sore.

i write this knowing it could potentially be seen by those about whom i’ve written, or people close to them. i am sorry that this is the only forum in which i felt comfortable airing these grievances. i would have much preferred to have listened and been listened to in turn, but it wasn’t happening. If you feel like doing that after reading, i am always available. i will always be available for honest, vulnerable discourse. i would love to discuss this with you.

edit: i was asked after by a woman who’d been part of this group but not of the problem, and i thought “fuckit she has been nothing but open, imma tell her.” And she heard me, y’all. She heard and she responded and she apologized for not speaking up.

Those that wanna have a real discourse will (and it can be amazing and i will be so glad!) and those that don’t won’t. i’m gonna live my truth even when it hurts.

– – – – –

One aspect of which there is a particular dearth in the bucolic world is variety of socialization. The kind of socialization that hones a person, helps one truly understand diversity as a path rather than an amorphous concept. Idyllic, homogeneous life seems to lean toward slower talk, an excess of gossip, and less ferocity and passion overall. People are unhurried and less sharp, take everything much less personally, make a lot more room for each other’s faults, and forgive more easily, even if they’ll talk about a person in their absence ad nauseam. i found this all fascinating at first, especially that folks would be so willing to divulge each other’s secrets. And so, streetwise, i kept me to myself, and my wits about me.

In the countryside of Maine i learned that keeping my own counsel would actually never be enough. People seem to have a habit of talking over everything you say, not listening to you at all, then telling you they love you. Stories about you will be told, but you will not recognize the main character.

One person is as afraid of Trump signs on lawns as she is Biden signs. i am hardly able to confusedly utter “kids in cages” before being talked over. Another doesn’t “believe” in cultural appropriation. These women speak from above the fray, as if that is a better position than among those fighting to live. It certainly is better in some ways, and that privilege is horrifically clear in these moments. They do not say “the n-word” but use the word itself, in context of course. They spout AAVE like they’ve known a harder world, and it hits my ears each time like a fist to my skull. It is this kind of privilege that startles me most as the reality of it all sinks into my naïve awareness.

Anger is not welcome. Neither is discourse. You can agree or be talked over—these are your choices. Perhaps you would like to offer a different idea on how we might achieve the unity among people that some profess to pine for. i try to suggest “listening”. The continued refusal to do so makes it seem like what they really want is to skip the understanding part and go straight to the part where people on the margins stop making trouble. We have to unify! But nobody here plans to work for it.

“I don’t engage in that fear,” they say.

i realize along the way that i have code-switched. In an effort to say my small piece, carefully, not to offend but perhaps, if i say it just right, i can be heard. You already know: i will not be heard. In fact, despite my best efforts to speak clearly and directly about my own personal feelings about my own personal life, i am told exactly what these feelings are (incorrectly, claro). And now i know, better and more painfully than ever, what being marginalized truly feels like.

Despite spending an excess of time listening carefully to these new perspectives, i have been pushed aside routinely, both culturally and philosophically. There is only room for theories professed by and for their own people about the future of humanity and the future we might hope for. i watch as these folks reach deep into themselves, and their pockets, to discover their new world. My world, also what i think is the real world—the one that is burning, that chokes my tender heart and breaks me open with every death of the marginalized at the hands of the many—is wholly ignored. So too are my values. We don’t discuss any of them—revolution, reparative justice, feminism, nonmonogamy, queerness, anarchism, etc—unless it’s to hear the opinion of anyone not me. It starts to sink in that in this space, nothing is free from colonization. i am heartbroken.

There is a prevailing seriousness about aliens, as in extra terrestrials, that cuts deeper than expected. i am beyond nonplussed and fundamentally bewildered by people who can want to connect with creatures from other worlds but not their own. There is actual work being done in “Becoming Supernatural” but nobody is learning anything about the aliens of Earth. The human beings here suffering do so precisely because they continue to be ignored. In this place, that includes me.

i am also surprised to hear that people who put up BLM signs are ignorant and just following as they are told. Suddenly i feel closer to those strangers than to the group of people i’ve spent this time trying so hard to understand.

“They’re just widening the divisions among us.”

After some weeks of this i reach out to my most beloved firecrackers of friends and make sure they are still revolutionary. i bounce all of the new-to-me ideas i’ve learned off of all the heads and hearts i most trust. i thank fellow white folks for staying the course, for being safe harbor in a storm of misinformation. i start to recognize the very real pain i’ve been stifling in this situation in which i was continuously unseen, ignored, unaccepted. And told i was loved.

In the end i am simply so sad. My heart aches to know of these well-meaning people who so readily talk over marginalized people to tell them about themselves. i am immeasurably disappointed in people who describe their paths as healers, spiritual, woke, aware, free-thinking, enlightened… yet listen not at all, hold space only for themselves and anyone in agreement. Oh wow am i devastated to learn i cannot address this, have had no effect in all these many hours, days, weeks. And bonus distress: i realize that so many of my loves know this story. So many hearts i hold dear know this feeling all too well. This is far from new, though i have only just experienced it. If nothing else, i’ve learned.

i went down to the river and got a bunch of rocks together. They were all remarkable in small ways, and i found myself contemplating the children’s book Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.

An adolescent donkey is wandering his local meadow when he finds a remarkable little rock. He, Sylvester, holds this rock and thinks some thoughts. He realizes that the pebble he holds will make his wishes come true! Then suddenly, right in the act of considering his new future, Sylvester is interrupted by the appearance of a lion. This poor ass spots the predator, panics, and immediately wishes he were a rock. Then he spends like a year as a Sylvester-sized rock before the thrilling conclusion (i’m not gonna spoil it, it’s sweet).

Was the moral of the story not to panic, even if one sees a lion in a meadow? Maybe not to plan too much, or rely on magic? Perhaps we were to learn that blessings are capricious, at best. Who knows what children’s authors, the best ones, are ever really planning. (You might also reference: The Night Kitchen, The Napping House, or anything featuring Frog and Toad.) Maybe William Steig just thought it was a cute predicament for a donkey boy.

Here’s the thing though: there is, in fact, a lion in our meadow. And i’m out here organizing pretty pebbles.

Because the lion has been there all along. It is hungry and i have hidden away. It preys and i grieve. It takes up space and i have made myself smaller. It growls, and i scream. i strategize its demise, but it is so very big. The lion has been there all along. And i’ve finally learned: to be out here organizing pretty pebbles.

Because the rocks have also been here all along. They weather rain and snow and rivers and valleys. They clunk against each other and tumble down mountains. They don’t need anything from the lion, or me. The earth, in all her glory and graciousness, has been here all along. She invites us all to revel in our own individual insignificance. (This is my favorite thing to do lately.)

Only recently have i learned to live with the lion without panicking. The earth, more than anything else, has helped me with this adjustment. i now know some true things: life is fragile but certain, grief is the constant partner of joy, and fear is inevitable, but vulnerable to love.

i also learned that i don’t want to be the donkey.

And honestly, i don’t want to let anyone i care about (that’s you!) be an ass, either. Please, for the love of everything that matters in this world, give up doom-scrolling, put on your mask, and go outside to make sure you and your neighbors all get along. Plan your next revolutionary act. Send love (in any form!) to someone far away. Dance! Hug everyone you are allowed to hug. Ask people if they need anything, and give what you can. Enjoy whatever it is you have right now instead of worrying yourself into a hard pebble of a person. For the love of all those who love you, please reach out if you need to.

i reached out desperately this spring. Thankfully, crucially, lots of loved ones reached back. i survived because of this, but none of them have been physically with me. The earth has been here though, teaching me her dirty lessons on sowing, growth, death, reaping. Cyclical lessons, over which i’ve no control. Rain can come for days, sometimes frozen, but maybe i can sunbathe in November. Perhaps i will be met with generosity among strangers; they might become loved ones, or not. Lots of days i feed and hang out with birds. Some days i grieve deaths. Many days i’ve helped to harvest. One of my favorite new pastimes is cooking things i picked with my own hands, and sharing the meal. i also fucking love eating the food right off its plant, or right out the dirt. Today though, i simply went to a river and got a bunch of remarkable stones together.

The thing about hoping that things will be different because you checked the internet today is a lot like the thing where i tried to arrange my pretty pebbles in a way so that none of them shadowed the next. How silly! The sun moves, will always move, and so will the shadows. The relief you seek is a moving target, no matter what form you want it to take. There is a moment, as i arrange my rocks, when none are outshining another. It is a fleeting, besparkled moment, and if i want to keep it i too must keep moving, adjusting, compromising, trying. i probably still won’t really get to keep it.

There has been plenty said and written about how the outcome of this farce we embarrassingly call democracy ought not have any effect on how we behave as neighbors and revolutionaries. i would like to add that we might take this moment to accept the most palpable truth of this year: one can rage and love, grieve and dance, laugh and cry, be disappointed and hopeful… all at the same time. We used to think of these feelings as mutually exclusive. Turns out laughter and tears are both well within reach at all times.

i’ve also learned that everything i seek is a moving target. i can adjust to follow it, or i can simply watch as nature takes its course. Nothing is static, nothing is permanent, everything goes the way it’s supposed to. Nothing goes the way i want it to, unless what i want is for it to be itself. You can’t know the earth and miss this truth. It just is. And i wanna let it, for the most part, be that.

If anybody needs me, i’ll be out here crying and laughing. i can tell you how remarkable you are, if you need to hear it, exactly as you are. Because you are trying and growing, you are perfect. The moon sees you and loves you no less for your worry. The wind will come to dry your tears. Leaves, then snowflakes will fall, inviting you to dance. And the sun will always rise, whether or not you can see it, to bring you a new day, another opportunity. The earth is here for you, has been all along. i cannot stress enough that you need not force anything, nor compromise yourself. Consider simply that we must live with the lion nearby, strategizing certainly, but enjoying the meadow no less.

in this big, wide world //

we are unimportant //

in this broad, vast expanse //

we are everything //

of the earth and stars //

we are