mid-night, mid-life, mid-everything

Do you remember how childhood used to be real and we lived inside it?

I just got off the phone with my mom... we were chatting and having a great time, but suddenly she did some time math (it's around 3:00 am here, 1:30 pm in India) and told me to go to bed. 

She also said she would send me 100$ to buy "something nice" on my December trip with my sister and I suddenly felt about 12 years old. When I did the currency math, $100 is like 8400 rupees, and I demurred, but my mom won't let me refuse. 

Something about being hustled off to bed and the delight in my mom's voice about treating me makes me feel precious and small and cared for. And it makes me want to cry. But of course this week, everything makes me want to cry.

Pic: Sanford Woods last week. 

orison for an apocalypse

let us praise the ghosts

tired as they return 

home to us 

let us pry open a time 

until nothing is left

unremembered

let us pray we can shine 

redundantly into a day 

already radiant 

let us practice coming 

to the reopened door 

with hope

___________________________

Pic: This is my favorite thing--sorry not the dead flowers and the gunky birdbath--but yes, the flaking Buddha statue with the verdigris and faded prayer flags and the accidental hole in his thigh and the CHIPMUNK FAMILY WHO SHELTERS INSIDE HIM. 

group shout... out

It was supposed to be a communal scream to rage against the election results. As it turned out, we did a lot of talking and shared info about local organizations doing good work (the Refugee Development Center, The Fledge, and Salus Center, to name a few; a Google doc is forthcoming). 

One person suggested we shout from our diaphragm rather than scream because screaming might hurt our vocal cords and increase our cortisol levels while shouting would make us feel powerful. So that's what we did much to the surprise of the ducks and geese out on the lake.

I lacked the energy to go to yesterday's potluck, so I wondered if I would make it out of the house today, but the person organizing the communal scream was sick, and somehow suddenly I was the facilitator, so I had to go. (I wish I'd stop doing this, btw--at Friday's Faculty Meeting, I agreed to be the humanities rep on a committee because there was no humanities rep and I was afraid if I didn't volunteer then the humanities wouldn't be represented at all.) 

Anyway, I'm glad I went today. It was good to be in community and to meet new people. (I can't say I feel radically unburdened or different though.)

Pic: Sharp Park at sunset after our group scream shout. 

there is no map to the unreal

the long lines won't let go

I cannot even write

who is it that sold the world

who birthed it breaking

words turn, unlatch, and then

run away

I am run over in the middle of 

of nowhere

the journey is now a recovery

just a few steps 

forward and then I carefully

re-turn back 

I'm eclipsed in the small forevers

of amnesias

a place I have all the time I want

to not be here

_____________

 Pic: My today, basically: books, work, puppies. It's sad and hilarious how terrified Max is of the purple ball when it rolls towards him. He was scared of it when he was a puppy and it was bigger than him, and somehow scared of it still although he's much bigger than it now. Perhaps there's some lesson there for me?

Five for Friday: In the Aftermath

1) Yesterday's animus was disturbing, but it is outweighed by all the good memories of other things I've found by my office door--conversations, notes, stickers, buttons, gifts, flowers... I'm not going to let this one (and I hope only) bad experience dismantle all of that. 

2) The college put out a campus-wide email today condemning the harassment--I appreciate how quickly they acted. The email starts "in the aftermath of the recent election" so they're not shying away from why this is happening either.

3) So, so grateful for all the people who reached out or reached back when I reached out to them. I'm not alone in this. I never was. I never will have to be. 

4) I worked from home today. And there's so much work! Student research projects are underway; they're the culmination of the semester's learning and are so exciting. I have two panels to chair at the NWSA next Friday + one paper to write. It's past 3 am, and I'm still putting the final touches on my Gaza class, in a couple of hours... And of course, despite this heavy roster of tasks, I spent too much time today trying to articulate why I should not have been harassed. That's one of the ways racism, sexism, etc. get people to waste their time--by making them try to justify their existence as Toni Morrison explained. 

5) A child in Nu's school died by suicide last night. Friends think it was panic about the election results. Nu did not know them personally but found themselves sobbing inconsolably all day. They told me people were posting supportive Post-it notes everywhere and giving hugs to everyone and that it just made them cry harder because the student who had died could have benefitted from all of this. I want to cry too. I wonder how many people we will lose needlessly in the coming four years...

Pic: Max waits for me to catch up. I'm not usually home at this time, so I was pausing to marvel at all the cool shadows the trees were making in the autumn light. 

the politics of cruelty

When I arrived at work this morning,  my colleague MS told me that a poster advertising his Queer Religion course had been defaced with a Trump picture. We walked over to my office and realized that someone had pinned that same Trump picture to the bulletin board outside my office right next to a safe space sticker. None of our other colleagues on the third floor had received this specific attention. It seems someone on campus wanted to send the two of us who teach queer studies a message. Perhaps one of intimidation?  

It does make me feel a bit weird to think of someone harboring bad feelings for me and walking all the way up to my office knowing I would not be there and leaving me something they think I'll find menacing. But to what end... It's not like I'm going to look at this picture, realize the error of my ways, and suddenly become a white supremacist, patriarchal, heteronormative prig?

In other places in Michigan today: High school boys in Escanaba walked around telling girls, "your body, my choice." A friend in the Ann Arbor area who is black received a text telling them they'd been "selected to pick cotton at our nearest plantation." Clearly, the enabling effects of electing a rapist and a racist to the highest office are immediate.

Pic: I blanked out the more distinctive parts of my name because I'd rather not end up on any more professor watchlists.  LV, my office neighbor tore the picture up like Captain Von Trapp ripping up the Nazi flag in The Sound of Music. That part was so satisfying--as was seeing Big A and At cursing up a storm on family chat.

Hope is a responsibility

I woke up this morning and went right back to work like it was an ordinary day... like nothing out of the ordinary had happened... like I wasn't worried that come January things were going to get very regressive and repressive.

Like I wasn't mad that young voters had given the Dems a clear guide on how to win their votes (progressive policy on climate change, student debt, Gaza, Queer rights, labor), and then the Dems campaigned to Republicans and here we are. (In the meantime, 94% of Republicans continued to vote for Trump--exactly as they did in 2020. Thank God, the Dems landed the Dick Cheney endorsement in an election year marked by some of the largest anti-war demonstrations in the 21st century though. OK, done being snarky.)

But as I say, I went back to work. I got stuff done. I took care of the ones who depend on me. I checked on the kids' passports (Nu needs a new one). There was a stream of texts from friends and groups (mad, bewildered, scared, incredulous). I was mostly kind and supportive. And as the day went on, I was grateful I have people I can let loose and be mad with. There were emails from students that broke my heart. It sounds like the cruelty has already started. I wish my love could shelter them.

I'm craving community. There's a potluck on Saturday to "process and witness," and there's a "scream and fight fascism" on Sunday where the plan is to hike to a nearby lake and scream our hearts out. For today, EM and I got together to work on our presentation for next week and BL stopped by briefly. BL said they didn't have "much bandwidth" to join EM and the fam for dinner but they brought me a cozy hug (I felt the baby kick!) and some beautiful flowers to cheer me up though.

I can't believe we have to fight for the basic stuff all over again. But giving up is not an option.

Pic: Beautiful flowers from BL.