everything is sacred
this week mae and i were outside enjoying a moment in the warm summer rain because i try to keep remembering to live when i can. and of course i sang out natasha bedingfield “feel the rain on your skin, no one else will feel it for you, only you can let it in” until mae asked me to stop. i shared with mae how when I was little I thought rain was god crying at the state of the world. mae considered it for a moment and then said that would mean god is crying all the time because it’s always raining somewhere. and i said “hmm, i guess god and i have that in common then.” and we both laughed more than we should have and that felt real true. joy and ease and aliveness are all here with grief and sorrow and overwhelm.
this week, in recounting fragmented memories together to create a fuller picture, mom and i talked about my gramma’s friend shirley who worked for the san diego zoo over thirty years ago, until an orangutan took a chunk of her thumb. i remember going into her house, with a wall of framed photographs. one in particular—a photo of said orangutan with the words “i’m sorry i bit your thumb off” written in sharpie directly on the photo. I love that she had it hanging there, forgiveness gold framed.
this week, i’ve been watching squirrel tv from the hammock. they move in and out of their primal tendencies; to gather food, to bury some of it for later, to eat some of it now. there seems to be some organization—the black, brown, red, and gray squirrels each have their home trees and then somehow mostly know who gets which walnut tree to harvest and when. sometimes there is silly playfulness between them. sometimes there is conflict to act out in self protection, proving they value themselves, their families, their lives at any perceived threat. i watch those same squirrels in their innate wisdom, shake their entire bodies into regulated nervous systems and go back to play or curiosity.
this week, i finished a quilt i felt compelled to start first as experiment and then watched it become something. squares cut turned into lines. letters stitched turned into words. it’s small enough to manage, i wanted it to feel like a hug to the recipient. plenty of sewing together and pulling apart. together. apart. together again. i initially thought that i had no interest in hand quilting—that is several running stitches of three layers of fabric. i don’t know this person especially well and gave myself permission to not have to go through the extra effort to love them more than i felt i was already offering. but then i disliked the machine quilting so much that i ripped it all apart and laughed at how i was pushed to take my love a little further. I went on to hand sew the binding. i learned a lot about quilting, but i also learned a lot about how how much my hands like sewing slowly and imperfectly. and how it connects me to both my grandmothers. and how the stitches become prayers for you and for me and for everyone i know and everyone i don’t know.
this week, i made lunches and did dishes and laundry and wiped counters and some of those times when i became irritable about it or found myself feeling resentful, i sang made up songs about how grateful i was to be caring for two people i love and to have this time in slow motion. most days, i made my bed and opened my window and moved my body sometimes to music and sometimes to the stretch it asked me for. I wrote out a morning routine and a simple budget and some accessible goals. I ushered my sensitive child back into a school environment, one that feels more tense and harsh than years before. holding firm boundaries within connected tenderness. I found the space to wonder about how I might add to it, add to anywhere, make a living of the invisible work. observing what would have been a shame cycle ruled by perfectionism became more like a calling to gentle assignments i loved myself enough to respond to.
this week, i was reminded how we don’t have a lot of rituals around grief and sometimes you gotta just let your child (or yourself) wail without trying to control how or when they emote. how just after the sobbing and the holding, came innate wisdom when mae asked in a calm relief if we could name all the things we love about the community we just left because grief is a form of love. and when we were done, we went to bed and slept soundly.
MANIFEST by Jane Hirshfield
Hawks, rivers, cities, ochre, us.
A species whose right hand sketches its left hand
but can’t draw itself.
Whales.
Geosynchronous satellites.
A truck hauling folded tarps under a tarp.
Wars, hunger, jail cells, praises, pratfalls, puns,
gold circuits on phone-card connectors—
all cargo, manifest,
circling the sun together
each three hundred and sixty-five days
plus a few remnant hours.
A story here ribboned with lightning,
there dimmed by clouds,
on a nitrogen-, oxygen-,
carbon-dioxide-, and dust-cushioned bundle,
whose glaciers depart, insects quiet, seas rise.
To that which is coming, I say,
Here, take what is yours.
But forget, if you can, what-is-coming,
find not worth pocketing,
let fall unnoticed as weed seed,
one small handful of moments and gestures.
Moments mouse-colored, minor.
Gestures disturbing no one,
slipped between the ones that were counted,
the ones in which everything happened.
A petroglyph’s single fingerprint.
A spider awake in an undusted corner.
Let stay, if you can, what-is-coming,
one or two musical notes,
hummed in a half hour that couldn’t be herded
or mined,
made to save daylight or spend it.
Leave one unfraudulent hope,
one affection like curtains blown open in wind,
whose minutes, seconds, fragrance,
choices,
won’t sadden the heart to recall.
FIELD NOTES //
oakland librarian keeps records of found love notes, doodles, etc via friend amanda pants
losing my mind at quilted stitchwork of mutsu
4. lord cowboy coming in hot in new issue of Unsupervised
5. nyt newsletter, with this highlighted sentence fragment, again from amanda.
6. this week i had my monthly coffee meet up with neighbor barbara, a kind and brilliant ceramic artist. i wanted to drive her past this other house with bike wheels as canvases to glued broken glass plates, creating a stainglass effect. just as i said the words about one day being brave enough to knock on the door to introduce myself to the artist who lived there, sandy emerged and proceeded to give us a tour of her entire art garden & invite us to craft together.
7. let life break your heart on the death of Frederick Buechner and the act of noticing things via friend taylor
8. friendlove episode of the brown sisters’ podcast called how to survive the end of the world
9. distaster is not our destiny, neither is democracy episode with resmaa menakem from friend pat that i’m not sure i shared before but feeling too lazy to look back to see. (:
10. this issue of alice is dedicated to writer, james baldwin whose words “i imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” helped me see the pain of the world in the same way ruby sales did with the question “where does it hurt?” and showed me that all hate is really rooted in self hate. baldwin did more than necessary to speak out for change in this country during a time it was a lot less popular to do so. part of these dedications i make is a way i hold myself accountable to researching all the people who transmuted their pain and honored their anger and love/d people enough to speak out at the injustice of this sick society.
I LOVE YOU ALL, FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT, HERE TOGETHER, KEEP GOING