Every day is punctuated by small moments. The sentences between can drag on like the fields of Tennessee, or hide surprises like the Cherokee National Forest. These long stretches broken up by fractions of the minutes when my wide-eyed regard of the world drops my jaw as well.

Do you think three Baptist churches all next door in a row are rivals? Like do they have softball tournaments? Maybe gun clubs. If not for COVID i might have been tempted to investigate. i’ve always wondered what Baptist churches are like.

Today i wanted to find postcards. Jasper, Arkansas is an adorable little town that i would visit again with the opportunity. The Buffalo River is a meandering stunner. Loneliness can creep in the moments you realize you can’t camp in a dream spot because you’ve neither a pal nor any phone service. Why this was easier in New England, i can’t say. In Jasper i decided i wanted to remember to return, so i sought postcards. i waited until ten minutes after opening time to stroll into a shop where i was gladly met with some faded beauties of Buffalo River greatness. The shopkeeper said i could just have them. He just didn’t feel like they were worth much, and they were “at least thirty years old”.

In a landscape i’d never seen before, i settled down for a day. Trees growing out of water like “Tennessee mangroves”, according to Viv, but looking desolate in a gorgeous, particularly wintry way. i scared a black vulture, then an eagle startled me (video in previous post). Local people came and went—fishing, looking, one red-faced old man even drove his white pickup with a matching cowboy hat on the dash right up to me to chat. He wanted to know where i’d gotten my tent, but not really. Later, he came back to wish me well and warm. Sure, i didn’t love the advertising: single person in the wilderness, but in the end it was the ominous environs that had me departing before nightfall.

Yesterday i crested a hill with Sorcha where a great blue heron was looking for a spot on a pond. This dinosaur bird flew right beside my passenger window, less than ten feet away, and i managed to maintain my composure even while i could see it neck feathers ruffled by the wind. i swear, in flight that bird was half the length of my car.

These wide open fields, particularly in Tennessee where the space goes on and on, host a wild, unadulterated wind that just does whatever it wants. Birds apparently love this—they glide and bounce just above the ground, going absolutely nowhere against an infinity current of gust and breeze. There’s nothing like a flock of geese puttering around on the ground while another flock bounces around in the air only a few feet up.

i am a slow driver generally, but also i drive a Prius. i also prefer mountain and country roads to highways. i pull over to let other drivers pass often. In fact, i wrote most of this on shoulders of beautiful roads where i’d rather gawk than go the speed limit. i appreciate that Arkansas drivers aren’t as into tailgating as.. well, everyone else so far. It’s not like i didn’t know i was going slow before your headlights leaned into my trunk, North Carolina! Now i’m looking for the shoulder a bit more frantically, thanks. But Arkansas, you dears, leaving as much space between vehicles as between words in your sentences. i am so pleased to find a place to let you scooch on by. i’m realizing now that this is a lot of my comfort with the Ozarks over the Smoky Mountains. Tourist traps, take note.

Tree farms couldn’t possibly be more pleasing to the eye. All in rows, all different type of trees. i couldn’t do it justice, in words or photos, but the organization of those particular fields was, to me, exquisite.

i stopped by a KOA to ask after a hot shower. i was just ripening, and the woman at the desk said, “Cuz of the pandemic i can’t let you use the showers if you’re not a guest.” Then almost immediately followed that up with, “Okay I’ll give you the code but just keep it clean I know you will and if anybody asks you anything you tell em you’re a registered guest and to mind their business.” She was not wearing a mask. She was wearing a Trump hat. She stuck out her pinky for me to lock mine, so i did, “Pay it forward, okay?” i cannot recollect a sweeter shower.

i blow a kiss to every roadkill. Some are really gross, others still beautiful. One was a dog with a collar. Another a chicken. The worst was my own warm bird in Sorcha’s grille. i also spied a live, collared cat hunting in the deep shoulder off the expressway, and several more off-leash dogs wandering around more rural spaces. i like when the cows plod toward food with calves at their heels, and when i catch them playing in streams around midday. Or bathing each other with their weird cow tongues, the best. Sometimes i see sheep; they are big on staring. Nothing beats watching young deer romp, though. A treat.

Apparently if you spy a kestrel, even from the interior of the car, they will stare you down. i didn’t mean to win these staring contests but in my life i have never felt so seen by a winged creature. i couldn’t look away. i met two separate small raptors in the Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge, where the lady at the desk wouldn’t let me pay the $2 fee because, “all the waterfowl go to the lake every day anyway, so you probably won’t see much.” She told me about how the eagles hunt in pairs, the first one startling a flock as the other swoops in to pin down the slowest bird. She also told me about biscuits with chocolate gravy for breakfast, and where to find elk. All the information was so spot on that maybe i’ll have to try those weird biscuits after all.

(CW: dead bird) This week i peed in the Cherokee National Forest, cruised through the Smoky Mountains, murdered a tufted titmouse with my car, got real lost in West Memphis (would not recommend), later found a waterfall i hadn’t planned on, and got yelled at by an eagle. i’ve cried like two and a half times, but i’ve gotta say my opinion of long-haul truckers has improved dramatically. Shoutout to the sole rainbow OR BLM sign i have seen since Asheville (!!!) and these puppy models who watched over me one night at a rest stop. Honorable mention goes to rooster Ed, who’s hangin in there.

i can certainly see for miles, but it feels more like days. A dog in the valley gets started this morning, which i guess is a Monday. There too is a cow sounding less than pleased, but how else do cows sound? In the pre-dawn light i dragged my cozy, dehydrated, melancholy self from the coccoon of Casa Sorcha (my Prius home) into the atrocious Walmart lights to brush my teeth in a bathroom stall, for COVID safety.

Sunrise over a river is pleasing in the way that makes you feel warm even when its warmth doesn’t reach you. Maybe that’s why the birds are even slower to wake than the cow. Warmth is scarce these days, worth waiting for.

i arrived on this height of rocky outcrop to a few forest band members calibrating their instruments. A coo, a caw, a cheep. Wind comes off tempo as the river runs massive and silent under the gaze of both sun and moon. All have all been here forever, just like this. How slow it all seems, broad and deliberate; in a rhythm kept by celestial objects, the river saunters on. As i take it all in, the full orchestra arrives. Off beat, maybe even off key, i can hear the slow crescendo of trills, toowhees, honks, the cow again. A woodpecker starts its day. Someone new is barking now.

For a while i was the only human, but a pair of people come along, one chatting about the kids playing on these very rocks in summer. The deeper of these voices sounds reflective as it says, “You know if we’d have chosen that other place we were thinkin about we prolly never would’ve made it here. Remember when I tried that Knoxville thing? That really freaked me out. That was probably the most freaked out I’ve ever been.” i can’t hear the exact reply but they sound happy with their lot, together, and they are deeply respectful of my space alone on the cliff.

A train now. Everyone’s day has begun. The waning gibbous moon fades into the blue as the sun’s warmth reaches me, tender.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

This week i was in DC on an occasion worth counting down for, and have been solidly reminded of my love for Chocolate City. Truly i’ve been laughin too hard, creating some art, and searching for that urban nature. Check the last slide to see where i’m headed next, to get uncomfortable with myself. (Suggestions welcome! but i’m not trynna meet y’all friends.) And yes, i sat close to loved ones outside for an hour, don’t @ me.

saltyworld.net/stolen-religion-cultural-appropriation-white-friends-and-mixed-feelings/

i have loved many a human who has made a habit of hating themselves.

It is never as difficult as they think.

Envisioning a fresh world with dear pals, a perfect puppy, and some glorious attentions to detail. My zoom life in 2020 included “Art Club”, during which a beautiful lino stamp was carved by Audrey. As i push at the edges of my comfort zone, this print and the corners of a welcoming home are all treasured reminders: everything is a work in progress, but some art does get finished after all.

i heard a siren in the night and dreamed of coyotes. A close friend mentioned this happening to her when she arrived in New England from DC, oppositely. i get it now. She and i heard them howl on new years eve with what seemed like joy under a moon that was almost too bright. Like in the movies. The sirens remind me.

The drive down to these cities was less than eight hours. i saw so many hawks along the way. One roosting comfortably, close to the road, another in flight overhead, one that had swooped low toward prey. i’ve seen several in the cities since. Today a hawk perched just beyond the edge of a dog park, which is also a cemetery, which is a gorgeous piece of real estate in which to stay away from strangers as we watch all the dogs play.

At some stoplights there are groups of masked people who will wash your windshields whether or not you pay them. One guy told me, “I got you regardless” and i gave him a few bucks. i snuck a pair of sunglasses off my face through my slightly open window to a woman who asked politely if she could have them. It was bright in the sun and i had other pairs. She said she loved me. i laughed extra loud to be heard through my mask, loving her too. Everything managed for safety in the delight of strangers, and thank fuck for the opportunity of small kindnesses.

Everything is much quieter than i remember. Subdued. Everyone is masked: truly now, good fences make good neighbors. i’m delighted when friends ask me to visit their city backyards, then start fires to warm the distances between us. My fire-building skills have truly leveled up, but i still enjoy watching my pals do their fire-tending thing, blow torches and all.

The day down here is longer. In the evening we take the puppy to the cemetery dog park, and the time is near six before darkness starts to hide her from us as she galavants among friends of all shapes and sizes. Nighttime hits different in the cemetery than on the sidewalks, and as we turn onto the well-lit street outside the gates, there are sounds of wild engines in the distance.

The Wheelie Boyz are known dirtbike aficionados who love to drive as a group through certain cities pulling breathtaking 12 o’clock wheelies on bikes that weren’t really made for pavement. This is a daredevilry i can get behind quite often, though it isn’t always this particular group—inevitably, there have been times when some owners of similar equipment have allegedly decided to be pretty tragically dangerous. It’s rumored that’s why the police won’t pursue these outlaws: city dirtbike riders are said to follow no rules, which means that if chased they may cause more mayhem than if left to startle the traffic of city streets at their leisure. i simply love the spectacle. i appreciate that the unfamiliar, rowdy engines signal to traffic that there might be an impromptu stop, as when sirens are nearby. Memories surface of hanging outdoors on a crowded, drunken street as the bikes, along with three- and four-wheelers, careen through nighttime traffic. Sometimes i can’t count them! Other times i have spied femmes among the boyz. i dig the dramatics, the thrill-seeking, the way this is a big fuck you and also scary. This time we see only two riders, which seems strange, but they do not disappoint as they rush past. They raise their front wheels straight toward the sky, proud and haughty the way kings could be.

As i gawk, my friend notices the next upcoming extraordinary traffic. In the wake of criminal glory proceeds a line of several armored tanks through the same intersection. They head in a different direction, past barricades, toward the US Capitol Building.

Early in the morning, the puppy whines awake, so i meander to her crate and let her out for a wee. i settle back in my couch bed and she snuggles up behind my knees. We rest a while, swapping spoons, before the activity of her family upstairs comes closer. Soon, Louis Armstrong’s “La Vie en Rose” will play softly in the kitchen amid the smells of coffee and chocolate. A fancy meal and decadent beverage are placed in front of me unceremoniously, though i feel all the brilliant pride of being a spoiled guest.

After a year of gorgeous wilderness and fresh fresh air, i thought the concrete jungle might be alarming. Instead, i feel welcomed by these cities full of friends. These are my stompin’ grounds, and i can come home again.

When a grinning face i already appreciate leans into mine with purpose, like they have been waiting for this invitation. A light inside me is seen, and sought; i welcome the approach with equal thrill. The spark driving their own delight is being extended that i might breathe fire right back, and i will. i have found this is a smile i’ll hold dear for much longer than it’s in my life. These are the lips of which i dream. The real stuff of those who’ve kissed me thus has since faded into simpler, more dependable memories: raging parties, empty city streets late at night, rocks with lapping waves. i can revisit the feel of a couch on which i trembled, a sidewalk i swaggered alone, the stench of salty brine, the sweetness of small kindnesses. Recuerdo nos raímos. Smiling, desirous faces so wholly, equally welcomed to share of each other. Sometimes we smiled so hard our teeth touched. Often i’ve been shaky, a little delirious. This is the kind of poetry that doesn’t hold through multiple seasons. It could be a fire that burned hot and fast, or sparks that didn’t fully catch. A sweet, bright bit of warmth in my heart’s hearth. We cannot repeat these moments, memories. Some of this exceptional heat will be felt again though, somehow: a surprise necessarily, an adventure inevitably. Indeed, i will settle for nothing less.

Camilo joins our family just as i depart the great white north toward long-overdue reunions, and unexpected magical gifts. Did you know chickens love radical honesty and maximum creativity? And unlike anything police have ever done, bread by mail was a resounding success.

Rilke reminds me to be “carefree and quiet and immense.” i practice tracking with my favorite hunters. Vermont snow falls soft and pretty, like the ennui that sometimes joins mudita. Not pictured: leaving my family, some real ugly cryin’, and belly laughs with a beloved. If you love it…

i don’t know where i’ve come from but i am escaping as fast as i can, which is about forty miles per hour faster than i can run in real life. i am also agile as a wild cat. In this dream i am not by myself, and among us allies we carry useful objects which i understand will serve people like us by their relocation. We have taken these things from wherever they were before, and we have a phenomenal head start. Whoever is chasing us are unarmed but we are aware that they are better equipped. They are able to communicate quickly, attempting to surround and scatter our unsystematic squad. These hunters aren’t dressed in uniform but when i glance back to see their faces i recognize actors who play cops on whatever shows i watch in waking life. At one point i toss my precious cargo to a comrade just before being cornered by an attacker. i am backed up on a cement doorstep, against a wooden door carved with flowers. Me recuerdo Salamanca, la luz allá. My aggressor slavers in their solicitous attempts to convince me of their righteousness, my own offenses. In their pathetic face i laugh not unkindly, as if at a small child who has made a cute blunder. How tragic to be so wrong. Without more than a scuffle, i scoot out of their grips and away in a flash, unscathed yet shaken. i join back up with my crew quite easily as they stream through the streets as though running with the bulls. We who have liberated these necessities for our survival turn corners as a motley team with nearly cartoonish rounding at full speed. Someone tosses me their burden as they enter a skirmish of their own. There is a playfulness among us that is irreverent to an extreme, full of flare, brazen with a bright audacity; Merry Men and Lost Boys only wish they’d had this much gaiety. ¡Entre lobos debemos aullar! Our rebel platoon weaves and whirls through a city that is a melange of worldly beauty as only dreamscapes can deliver. My brave friends and i skirt temple steps, rush past food vendors, and smack the water in fountains as we careen through neighborhoods of cobblestone and cement, pavement and metal. We know our way because this world is ours. Once in a while a bystander tries to assist those in pursuit, but we are always there to scoop each other up. i land a right hook in the face of someone who has caused one of my brethren to stumble. A mal nudo, mal cuño. The assailant collapses as we scurry away, i lamenting my torn knuckles with a shit-eating grin. Despite our successful evasive tactics and the ever-increasing distance between us and them, our pursuers are undaunted. Indeed, the majority of us are fully aware that they will never quit. Others from our side though have sensed victory and gone to hiding, or collapsed with exhaustion. We urge each other on by turns. i run and run, panting and pushing my wild hair away from my sweaty face, whooping in cheers as i aid y protejo mis compas, “¡Corremos juntas!” We must not stop, no matter how inevitable our win. We continue to run as though our lives and joy depend on it. We help each other. The crusade goes on.

My love, let the memory that has brought heat to your cheeks also warm me next to you in the telling. Do not keep your loving smile a secret, i beg. Your full heart disclosed is such welcome happiness these winter months. When my heart is a child unsure of a stranger with whom its parents are friends, offer your happiness to hold close and carefully. As you share your joy, my own tenderness peeks out from behind my bones, hopeful. Lend me your bliss to press against my breast so that i might draw out my own heart who in this chill refuses to wait patiently for something still unknown. Your delight is my comfort in a time of caution. How grateful i am to be thus kept from the cold.

“letting go is the same as letting in”

Too much bread this time, with lots of help! A fancy homemade balm, Cleo’s tiny snores, and the reminder that meaninglessness is actual bliss. i accidentally found out i can rock a mullet, threw my egg, and said some goodbyes. Adventure awaits.

Maybe if i can collect pretty days i can string em together. This year’s would be spaced weirdly to remember the time of strange distances. i’ll hang them all over my memory. Combing through time worn photo books of all the lives i’ve bothered living. Retrieving every love’s sweet warmth.

i’ll decorate my interior with the times we laughed til we cried. That crowd in the elevator all sparkles and cheer; unforgettably ringing in 2008. We are now on several different continents. We are still so young and beloved to each other. Plenty more memories since. They’re all here, somewhere. Piled up haphazardly, waiting for me to stop by, sift through.

If i ever feel lonely i might meander these passages rediscovering well-spent moments. So few have physical photos. Too few. i can press back into the depths where i keep spent time, and forage for solid details. i’ll slog through the morass of nostalgia to mine gems compressed by years. i can restore the artwork to its original glory. Decorate my whole psyche.

This is also where i’ll come to have good cries. What is a better grief than one of lost joy? Perhaps all sorrow is really only that, anyway. Sometimes you just gotta listen to sad music for a while. Sometimes i visit these parts of my story to feel the absence of happinesses that once felt immortal. To laugh-cry at myself for expecting such. Sometimes i have to grieve.

And oh, how long and winding these hallways are! This palace where midwinter tucks me in. A collection of pretty days, all strung together, equal parts sorrow and joy for having happened at all.

being a “disciplined student”

wherein i take three baths, eat too much of Viv’s Solstice pork feast, lean into pigtails, and start feeling a lil cooped up.. just in time for my favorite holiday to usher in the energetic revolution.

Last year i went to the beach with my brother around new years day and whispered that i’d like to quit smoking. In August i successfully did so. (With the less-than notable exception of a puff of some hot guy’s hand-rolled ciggy one time,)

i have been without tobacco for nearly five months.

This year i think i’d like to take up smoking.

“Nothing is wrong”

In which i make (more) bread & a cargo net all from scratch, Max makes music, Viv makes cozy, and Ashley spots ducks.

A few days ago i visited my favorite pot shop for the first time in a couple months. The dude there was like, “Ayy you’re back!” This felt nice until i tried to say something about being memorable and he responded with, “No,you could be somebody I just met in the grocery store once and I would remember you. I’m an empath so that’s just me; I love people.”

Bruh.

Not that i am any sort of gatekeeper but i believe that a textbook empathetic moment would not have included discounting my hopeful “i like being memorable” by negating it. i teed up a nice little compliment there and this guy just barreled on through. Whoops!

How do you do empathy? Do we all do it? i have long wondered whether a lot of folks are actually projecting. Sympathizing?

Weed bro aside, here’s how i’ve witnessed the general role of “empathy” in the current zeitgeist: first, a person decides that they know what another is feeling. This is often followed by preempting the other’s response to that feeling. Generally this all comes from a place of genuine care and concern.

But wow, is it rude in practice! The “empath” here makes a lot of assumptions at once, the worst of which being that one can know better than another about the latter’s own needs. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be sad.” But like, didn’t you want to know, despite whatever emotional response you’d have? This kind of empathy removes a human’s autonomy, disallows their freedom.

An empathetic response, if i’m reading the definition correctly, is one that corresponds with the needs of the person with whom one is empathizing. It is not for the empath to do what they’d prefer done in this situation, but to understand that subject of concern has their own needs.

Whenever i deliberately empathize with others, i try to feel it through. i reach gently, with understanding, to very lightly grasp at what it is that might serve them in this moment. That’s the hard part: i will never know better than they what they might need, and i have to trust them to ask for whatever that is. Maybe i go as far as to make my supportive presence known; i leave a door open. Empathy is theoretical, at best. We truly have no idea what anyone else is going through.

A theory: if we are to hope that we can be as caring as an empath might be, we must indulge in the truth of a human’s existence being solely her own. What i want to hear or feel at any given moment is different from the next person’s needs, as theirs are from the next, and so on. Therefore the most genuine act of empathy is to believe in someone’s ability to respond for herself. To allow a person access to truth and offer support as they handle it their own way.

Then there’s that guy, who just got the definition wrong and felt strongly the need to really lean in: “I treat everybody like an old friend! I’m just an empath that way.” And maybe he is! Who am i to say?

: the love of your life lasted a day

: your best sexual relationship was only that

: instead of quantity of days, we went for quality of minutes

: we burned bright, left embers

: longing never ceases, so

: we leaned in

: we loved each other’s freedom

: we let ourselves be free

“There is no attempt to run away from the suffering.”

Featuring an eagle’s aura, snowy days, successful bread, and WAP.

This time i have to leave because i bought and built out this adorable car and i wanna live in it. It’s actually that simple: i’m not into paying rent when i have such a great little home.

i wanna live in the space i built for myself out the depths of my own madness and the middle of an atrocious year; that space in my car as well as that space in my soul.

i am going on a trip i always hoped to do with a partner. Been waiting! Holding off and for what. Someone who loves me sent me a Billie Eilish song where she sings, “I’m supposed to be unhappy without someone, but aren’t I someone?” Yes, Billie. i too am in love with my future.

Isolation will teach you about yourself. Shit that you did not want to learn. Things that can make you reconsider nearly everything. If you haven’t been through this, i’d like to hear what you did this year. It got dark, and darker, and bright, and brilliant for me as i learned to take care of the fragile, courageous, multitudinous creature i am.

After a couple months of car life, i wrote to a pal: “i feel stronger than ever, yet deeply alone in a way that is at once isolating and bolstering.” i don’t feel this every day—that’d be boring—but i feel it. And i don’t quite understand it yet. And i want more.

So, far from my beloved airports and crowds of strangers speaking every language, and much more attached to the earth this time, i’ll go away again. i am scared. i am stoked. Adventure.

i have a recurring conversation with myself and others about how all art is already just garbage, because it’s expendable/excess/not “useful”. And isn’t art, by virtue of its creation outside of those constructs, a worthwhile endeavor?

i realized a while back that in order to create art i would have to remove the possibility of gaining from it. i made everything super low stakes, like at those uncomfortable but cozy cheap diner booths (hallowed be thy name) where i used to build sculptures of all sorts of actual garbage—sugar packets, straw wrappers, those little cream cups and butter packets. All the jellies! Always, just as my masterpiece was looking fantastic, somebody doing their job would sweep it away. i love diners. i did this at every one. It became a joyful thing: creating just to lose.

All of life anymore is creating and accepting that we could lose something from it. We must keep creating even our very own lives in order to continue in ways forward rather than stop. This isn’t just about art anymore. What would happen differently if instead of thinking “life is short, YOLO”, i started thinking: “Life is long! But each experience is brief af”? Everything is already garbage. This moment is already gone.

Anymore it feels like we must pursue only our own personal versions of being alive, both in body and spirit. We are finding out that we have to make subjective rules about safety. We’ve also found ourselves making time to talk to only those we really genuinely want to. It seems like every day is a new opportunity to take good care of each other and ourselves. And a lot of days we don’t get it right, but we are honing in.

Life is sad and beautiful and difficult and sometimes really mean to our hopeful hearts. Everything each of us cares about is so deeply impermanent. Because of this, i think we must care as much as we possibly can about all of it. From the smallest garbage art to the most cherished heartfelt dream. We must love it all relentlessly until its inevitable, always too soon, change.

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