Is It Not Happening Because No One is Watching?

I post, therefore I am.

Is it not happening because no one can see?

If a tree falls in the woods . . .

I like sharing, I want to share. I do not want 'sharing' to be the singular source of what makes me accountable.

Yes, I feel like I don't really have co-workers right now, so 'sharing' helps me feel connected to my peeps.

That said, there are many parts of what I do in which I am very alone, sitting behind my computer. This is not new.

What is new is the lack of alternation between that and deeply intimate time with others, in which we are sharing sweat, rolling around on the same floor, picking one another up (physically and metaphorically, mind you).

Mind you(rself): You are far from alone in this.

Mind you(rself): We are rarely completely alone in anything, that truth can just be easy to forget.

What perspective are you seeing from? You have several, so try them all on with ease.

Desensitize/d(?)

I've found myself wondering if I am becoming desensitized to the horrors the pandemic is creating.

Early on, the images and videos that were coming out of hospitals made me cry, kept me up at night, made it hard to sleep, and made the sleep poor when it did come. Now, I'm hearing updates daily about areas in the country in which the crisis situation of refrigerator trucks to hold the bodies is playing out either all over again, or for the first time.

Typing "refrigerator trucks to hold the bodies" put a lump in my throat, but didn't make my cry.

I'm not suggesting that I should be crying and losing sleep every day, because the value in those reactions feels to me as though it diminishes the more they happen. The drying up of these wells seems to go two major ways - indifference and action. This also speaks to me as related to the idea that White tears can only go so far in efforts toward racial justice: at a certain point, those tears need to be turned into tangible action.

That said, there is a certain stuck-ness to this idea, as far as the pandemic is concerned. With so much more to know still, action of any kind can feel under-thought out or wrong, or turn out to be wrong after it is tried. While as a truism, chance of failure and/ or set-back cannot be what keeps one from trying, this idea is particularly sensitive in this kind of situation, as it doesn't mean not winning the long-jump trophy, it can mean acute sickness with potential long-term complications we don't understand yet, and death.

I muse about all this with myself and anyone who might end up reading because I wish to hold myself accountable for striking a balance - as I think could apply to anything in life I ponder. I wish to balance awareness with effort. Compassion with self care. Thought with action. 

I think at this moment, I just feel that perhaps I could use to see a few more images and videos from hospitals in the middle of the fire.

Admittance

I LIKE that I don't have to pack all three of my meals several times a week.

I LIKE that I don't have to ping-pong between five different places in one day, multiple times a week.

I LIKE working from home with Kris around, and seeing him so much more. 

I LIKE that we can go on walks together at lunch time too, not just in the evening sometimes.

I LIKE that the frequency with which we can make an evening walk happen is higher.

I LIKE that we bought kayaks, break up going on walks sometimes by choosing to do that instead.

I LIKE that our choice of activities is MUCH simpler.

I LIKE that I am cooking up most of our food from home.

I LIKE that the above causes me to sometimes cook 3-4 times a day.

I LIKE that limitation on activities we feel are safe has caused us to spend more time outdoors at our parents homes, catching up with them.

I LIKE that so much of what makes up life feels simpler for us, for the moment.

There are a lot of things I DON'T LIKE about this moment in time, but that feels like a given. Admitting how many things I DO like about it - many of which I recognize are fueled by not only careful planning but also privilege - almost feels wrong. They feel like secrets I've been holding close to my chest. I'm not sure which entity I've wanted to admit this to less: others or myself.

That said, there is a certain power in being able to do so. It helps be acknowledge that many of my feelings are conflicting right now. Admittance doesn't SOLVE for X, but it does help me feel a little more peaceful about X's existence. It helps me sit with X.

Not Quite Sure Which

But this image caught my attention:

A beacon in a sea of same?

A change to pattern? 

I cannot tell if it is an interruption or a welcomed shift from norm. Not quite sure which.

With something as seemingly trivial as an image like this, it doesn't seem as urgent to determine it's role. With something as daunting and seemingly impossible as figuring out my/ the current world and why it's serving up what it is, it seems far more important to to determine, and far more elusive.

There is sitting and listening.

There is sitting and being distracted. 

Which am I doing at any given time? A little bit of both?

My last post here described my developing understanding of 'fatigue.' I'm realizing perhaps 'fatigue of focus' is also it's own kind.

As much as I wish the opposite, I cannot focus into wringing meaning out of everything all the time. Without pausing to let my hands rest, that wringing cannot be maintained.

So I stare up at the clouds. I cook meals. And then I begin again in wringing meaning out of the seemingly trivial to the seemingly impossible.

Consciousness.

Fatigue

Fatigue.

I've historically thought of this as sheerly physical.

I feel like in the past ten years or so, public consciousness about the concepts of emotional, mental and other kinds of fatigue has grown, along with the idea of needing to take care of yourself in other to best help take care of others.

Perhaps consciousness of these ideas has not exponentially grown, and these are just among the many ideas I've been better able to process as an adult. I still stand by the idea that consciousness about different types of fatigue, and how to come back better from it, has grown.

Which leads me to this: is there fatigue of memory?

This morning, I noticed, again, my tendency to associate hypnotic summer smells with my younger years, growing up at my parent's home. In a way, these associations create beautiful nostalgia for me. In other ways, they make me wonder if my memory is fatigued (or potentially lazy?) enough to just keep directing the taking in of these smells toward generalized times in my life. Memory fatigue?

Like many things, it seems to me there is a fine line between this 'memory fatigue' and nostalgia, between nostalgia and 'wishing things were like they used to be.'

I have no desire to be younger of live somewhere else, or, really, for any major components of my life to be different. I love my current life. That said, nostalgia is powerful.

And can I be blamed for feeling a generalized sense of 'wishing things were like they used to be?' The world is pretty fucked right now, and we and she are, on the whole, doing our best to grapple with the hand that has been dealt so that in the future, it doesn't feel like we are gambling, but painting with purpose.

Wishing things were like they used to be . . . clearly, not everything should remain as it was. This seems a pervasive thought, at least in my own circles and in what I take in to process what is happening. 

How do we balance the good feelings nostalgia can offer with a drive to let these hypnotic smells continue to gather positive associations? Beyond that, and perhaps more importantly, how do we recognize the potential for nostalgia to cause feelings of 'wishing things were the way/s they used to be,' and balance that with pushes to let new ways of being - that are better for ALL of us - bust up from the cracks in our psyches that seismic societal and personal shifts have caused?

I suppose my 'how' is in the right now. My own work of 'build the capacity to notice.' For me, this comes in the form of my 20-60 minute walk each morning, in which I flex my 'noticing,' or perhaps 'consciousness' muscles.

This morning, this practice allowed me this train of thought.

I've come to better-notice my own grappling with the nostalgia-fatigue-nowness-change spiral. From here, I'm going to try to use it to work toward nostalgia as positive reminders of the past, poke toward associating newness, recognition of potential fatigue, and that as reminder to examine where that fatigue lies.

I commit to positioning my own fatigue not as an enemy to overcome, but as a friend issuing reminders to keep wearing my mask, to keep distancing, to keep making choices with which I feel comfortable in the midst of a global pandemic, and to remember that my choices are not and will not be everyone elses.

I commit to positioning my own fatigue not as an enemy to overcome, but as a friend issuing reminders that it's ok to be uncomfortable amidst developing anti-racist perspectives and efforts, it's ok to be 'wrong' as long as I continue to seek 'rights,' it's ok for emotions to become unbalanced, as long as they are allowed time and space to rebalance before losing stability again (and again). It's not just ok, it's important. It's necessary for wide-ranging change that will move us toward new ways of being that can work for everyone. 

Fatigue, you are my friend.

Intersection Dissection

Intersection dissection low-grade stress.

Intertwining.

Imagining the daily, high-grade stress of those whose walks in life are different than mine.

Grounding to the present, hopping forward to the future, trying to ground in the present again, with that not even working to disrupt

intersection dissection low-grade stress.

I heard 'stress' defined on a podcast the other day as something like 'having issues to deal with but not the resources to deal with them.' That really stuck with me. Regardless of WHY one does not have the resources, in the moment when the issue hits, they simply don't have them. Sort of like, regardless of WHY someone is feeling as they are, they are feeling that way. Should resource attainment be worked on? Yes. Should understanding and regulating (not sure that's the right word) one's feelings be worked on? Yes. In the mean time, do the lack of resources and feelings still exist? YES.

Intersection dissection low-grade stress.

I've often found myself explaining to friends, when I find myself within stress, that part of why it is difficult for me is that I'm fortunate enough to not feel it all that often, so when it does happen, it's hard for me. A couple things here - I've said fortunate, because shifting my feelings to manifest in ways other than stress is something I've been working on for a long time. That said, I'm realizing how important it is for this to be another place where my understanding of privilege intersects. Generally, my stress has come from instances of over-scheduling and trying, within that, to deliver. These days, much of my stress is coming from uncertainty and discomfort in all the many forms that I'm discovering a pandemic and civil unrest can create.

Uncertainty and discomfort. Feelings that create what can feel like out-size stress for me because I've had the privilege of not being faced with either a whole lot on a daily basis until now. 

Shifting my understanding of my own experience of stress to note that when it happens, it's often hard for me to deal with because I am fortunate and privileged to not have to feel it all that often.

Trying to discern how to 'sit with the stress,' as it were, to acknowledge it, dissect why it is here, and ask it what it can do for me, and in turn, others. I'm trying to ask it to help keep me motivated to ask WHY I get to feel less stress than a lot of folks on this planet, and HOW I can help change that.

None the less, it feels.

The World Turned Loop-D-Loop

I've been wanting to write. Not being able to write. Glued to the news. Up late into the night watching over the safety of my home and neighborhood.

It feels so clique to say that this past two weeks has given so many people a taste of what it might be like to be less privileged in our world. That said, just like every joke is rooted in some conception of truth . . .

I've been both really annoyed by AND resonating with the memes people are sharing about how "Maybe 2020 is the year we've actually been waiting for . . ." Waiting for thousands of people to die from a novel virus? Waiting for even more people to be murdered by police? It seems it must be implied that those things are horrible to have to move through in order to get to "the other side," but wrapping it all up into a neat little package of a pale-pink, built-for-Instagram image feels off-base to me.

Perhaps it's not the content so much as the form. The package. Again, another reason why I am committed to hashing out my feels in long-form writing, even if no one reads. That's really not what this, at its heart, is for me.

back to "the other side." I often feel troubled by the use of the words "side" and "sides." It implies there are only two. Yes, I suppose various shapes have various sides, but the context in which the word "sides" has been used in public discourse, at least in the last ten years, in my (limited, because everyone's is) experience, it has come to mean two. This side, or the other one. This context of this word is particularly troubling to me when thinking of "getting to the other side" of "all this." It implies that we are on one side, and that there is one other place to go.

There is not ONE other place to go from here, just like there is not ONE right way to engage with the moment in an ongoing and sustained/able way. There may be wrong ways, but there is no ONE right way. This has become important for me to remember.

If I get hung up trying to figure out 'THE right way' to handle something, action comes swiftly and stays for far too long. The idea of being willing to make mistakes is a powerful one. This willingness is even more powerful when surrounded by people who you trust and respect, and who trust and respect you.

Loop-D-Loop. I was going to write "The World Turned Upside Down" for the title, but Lin-Manuel Miranda beat me to that one (and probably a lot of other people before him - there is nothing new under the sun). Loop-D-Loop. Reminds me of some tune from probably the 50s . . . Palisades Park! It was BreAnn's favorite. The phrase, and the context I've now uncovered for myself, makes this way of summating feel candy-coated. Simple.

It's just where my brain went.

Kris often says that humans want to make things as simple as they possibility can. Sometimes this is beneficial, like in the case of creating areas of focus for life and curating your possessions, if you are so privileged to be able to have the energy to do either or both. Other times, it can be really dangerous, like in the case of engaging with humanitarian issues. I almost wrote 'social' or 'political' issues. That said, I'm coming to understand things like systemic racism and the need for anti-racist action as humanitarian.

Back to 'simple.' The desire for something to be simple seems to often cause people to 'locate their SIDE of the issue and stay there.' There's a couple things about this that are problematic. First of all, it's that SIDES thing again. Like there are only two. This way of thinking can make it really hard to truly consider and sit with not only the fact that there are a multitude of perspectives on any one topic, but also hard to then really consider them. Also problematic: the idea of 'staying there.'

I'm trying the best I can not to pick a lane and stay there, but to find the biggest highway I can and safely move between lanes so I can see what the view looks like from each.

This 'lanes' thing is also feeling like a poor analogy for what I'm trying to express.

Perhaps apologies are not needed. Perhaps it's enough to suggest that the more perspectives you can consider in safe and healthful ways, the better off you are. This concept has really helped me to embrace something Kris and I talk about a lot: that it's possible to simultaneously believe in the efficacy of more than one thing about a topic. I can believe in the need for organized public safety forces (which may still be reformed policing - I'm still and always will be learning about this, and really, everything) while believing that our safety forces as they stand are very problematic in many ways. This is just one (currently really relevant) example.

Loop-D-Loop. A super-simple way to describe the current complexity of the state of our world.

'Normal' as we knew it isn't something we can, or should want, to go back to. 'Normal' wasn't allowing everyone to thrive.

I want to 'get back' to a lot of things in the physical and mental proximities in which I experienced them 'before.' That said, I don't think there is a 'back to.' I think there is a 'forward to.' A 'forward to,' implying there are many iterations of this 'place' that would work. One thing I do know, whichever 'forward to' I arrive in, I know I can only get there if my own and the proximities of many others, in relationship to many things, shift.

Shift like this:

Equality < Equity < Justice

We are witnessing expedited shifts in so many causes that need to level out to being just, causes that I think really boil down to the age-old elements of art:

form and content

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.

.

place and inhabitants

I recognize that I'm simplifying here, and could have named so many specific causes that are in need. I think what I'm doing is simply finding my own simplified board from which to spring to action.

Activism (a state of action)

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.

.

Engaging elected officials

Following voices of leadership

Reading/ Listening/ Watching

Supporting businesses, organizations, individuals - monetarily and with presence

Getting trained

Making art(work)

All of my thought processes in the last week have led me back to what I can and need to do to help causes of place and inhabitants level out toward just. Things I've been doing:

eating 70% vegan, 95% vegetarian

making artwork conscious of, proclaiming and celebrating it's history/ies

donating to causes of place and inhabitants, specifically disaster and refugee relief, environmental and social justice and arts

consuming consciously, from food to clothing to media to art to entertainment

This post has really spiraled, which is honestly how most of my thought processes have been working  in the past two weeks, and really, longer.

I have to get this thing wrapped up. So I'll say that it helped me organize thoughts and try to build new systems for myself that can radiate out into shifts toward justice for place and inhabitance.

 Onward.