everyday i pray for love
hey if you’re reading this i hope youre in a moment where you can deeply breath the air in, in a way that anchors you into your body. i try to write these love letters to you with a lot of intention and time spent deciphering my own understandings in this being human experiment. so, feelings report from the group sensitive. . .
i was cooking in a pot on the stove earlier and my brain could not register the handle was burning hot. or i just had too much confidence in my hot pad fingies because i would not stop grabbing the handle. so when i was rinsing the burns, i thought maybe this was a clue-esque metaphor from life telling me i don’t have to do it all. the grace of accepting your limits. because if you’re paying attention, it’s can be a heavy load to carry, especially alone. (good thing we are never not connected)
and i’m watching the news about shootings once again. and i’m hearing friends in their own pain portals (i mean i have to believe they’re portals, not trying to dismiss anyone’s pain. the way i see it, if it’s all an illusion, i am choosing just enough delusion to get by.). it feels like the whole world is bleeding out and we are just supposed to be ignoring it so we can have food on our tables and a roof over our heads. and yet, this is all evidence we are here feeling it together.
i’ve been here in michigan for over six months now. spring, summer, and autumn fly by. the next six months will be a very snowy and cold winter. life is slower and quieter in many ways. busier and moving in other ways. holding both the challenge of feeling thrusted into a place more than choosing a place AND the gratitude for not having to race too hard for a roof and food, to practice real presence, in pressing impermenance, with both my child and my mom. and as a spell: i welcome in streams of income that help me more easily meet the needs in teaching & loving my 13 year old, caring for & supporting my mom in her chronic pain, & devotedly tending to my own needs in staying mentally healthy.
i am trying to see it as a type of training for whatever comes after this, which appears to be lessons in middle school education, connecting with self through the body, delicious nutrition, the vulnerablity of aging & singleness, the lack of actual support in these federal systems of healthcare/social security/food assistance, lots of different ways of being consistent, equitable relating & community care, and facilitating creative process. (reach out if you have any resources or resonance to share)
lots of handquilting lends itself to lots of time to consider the timeline of surviving trauma, now just still enough to take inventory from there to here. what’s hidden from most people i know is how much fear fueled by pain that still remains here, how easily dysregulated i get and what keeps me from letting love reach me.
when i think back on my life, it’s amazing how many people—who were once strangers— offer love with no moral high ground, no promised return on their investment, no entitlement to my time and energy—just compulsion to love, resourced and clear with themselves. maybe for a reason, a season, or a lifetime—all equally important since longevity does not merit success and nothing real can be threatened. one day i will write a book and i will name each chapter after a person in my life and tell everyone about how i was saved by them in some way. how i’ve had several tiny deaths and several tiny births. how i was brought back to myself over and over again. and how freaking generous the reflection of a good friend can be to an aching heart.
and how aren’t all of our hearts aching? on one hand we have a world on fire, grieving a succession of headlines before we can even consider what we just lived through the year/month/week/day/hour/minute before. how the new norm is living broken heartedly & collecting the toolkit to sustainably do so. our broken hearts serve as evidence. let us remember that every single one of us is made of star stuff and belong to this earth, in some cosmic connection. our fates are intwined, in each other’s hands and in our own. we are one part of many parts in the blanket web of interconnection/oneness —even when you do not feel it, it is true.
one discpline i’m working towards looks like daily rolling around on the floor to music and that sometimes turns into dancing and sometimes it’s yoga. i don’t really label it more than “movement” and it is enough. something about filling your bucket and meeting your needs in a best foot forward kinda way. I want to love from a place of real power and not need, not scarcity and see what blooms from that. for me, that’s an embodiment practice that helps me healthily differentiate my emotional energy from anyone else’s without having to turn away from hurt.
lately i’ve been trying to practice letting many different emotions co exist at the same time within me, even if they seem in contradiction. more than one thing can be true. it’s also been helpful to frame the emotional experience as information/grist for the awakening mill. to keep sorrow tempered with pleasure, balance anger with peace, etc. WE MUST INSIST ON OUR OWN HAPPINESS AS A RADICAL ACT TO SURVIVE THIS MOMENT IN OUR COLLECTIVE R/EVOLUTION. i know it’s really fucking hard to live through this sometimes without looking away so please do what you need to for yourself to stay in steady footing.
may love reach every single one of you, imperatively your own.
//
MAPLE SEEDS BY LYNN UNGAR
most of the leaves are gone from the maple
other years it’s glowed with color,
but in drought the leaves just
turned brown and dropped.
sometimes you just can’t afford
that kind of gaudy joy.
but now there are seeds
by the tens of thousands,
the sidewalk heaped
in little brown wings,
flocks of seed angels come to earth.
i know i’ll be grumbling
as i pull sprout after sprout
when the rains come.
but for now, let me be a witness
that letting go
is not the same
as giving up,
that we could forego glamor
for the sake of the next generation,
that creation is the first principle,
to which we all belong.
//
// FIELD NOTES
this video shared on the quilty nook of textile artist hayakawa yumi is my dream.
speaking of the quilty nook with artist zak foster, it’s an $8 monthly subscription to a solid community and load of classes/workshops/shared skillsets/inspiration for fiber artists with near daily google meet sit and sews with the most interesting topics and generous huemxns sharing, encouraging, living. . . truly special. zak has some really beautiful gifts in teaching and holding space that come through in this internet corner.
november’s theme for an “unblock” block was SPACE to be interpreted as you wish. i had just read a letter written from a mother, in consideration of a snow globe she gifted her daughter, “in the center of the ball is the red lily pad, which is you and all around you beautiful billows of space—never let anyone invade that part of you. it is your creativity.” and i can’t stop stitching. more on that next time.
this soul salve of a song by the sweet larry yes
deconstructing karen and a shared reality it created for mom and i.
two thoughts on this new world we are making next to the old world:
painting with john on hbo features john lurie, creating through blocks of lyme disease. . . has both a calming presence and salty silliness i’m here for.
more on the exploration of quantum entanglement. . . . a baby wormhole
this issue of ALICE is dedicated to artist & activist, YAYOI KUSAMA. (who has a book called “everyday i pray for love”) in the 60s, she would perform demonstrations opposing the vietnam war like naked body paintings and “love-ins” all over nyc. significantly traumatized by her upbringing, yayoi struggled with mental illness—moving back to japan and voluntarily living in a psychiatric asylum since the late 70s. fascinated by her use of dots as mark making, i learned of her visions and her heart: “Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos. Polka dots are a way to infinity.”
thank you for reading these words. thank you for caring. thank you for your presence. thank you for your broken heart. thank you for your witness. thank you for your connection. thank you for your encouragement. i love you. let’s keep going.