Anyone else’s brain feel completely and totally scrambled like an egg? What an absurd question— let me rephrase it. Does anyones brain NOT feel completely and totally scrambled like an egg?
There are a lot of writing demands in my life at the moment. For weeks I’ve been trying to write— I go to writing workshops— I schedule in time— I sit down and then— nothing. I have a piece of writing due at the end of December. This 2x a month newsletter. I have to clean up my new draft of the creative non-fiction manuscript I’ve been working on for a decade to send to an editor I’m working with later this month. I have to start a book proposal for this same book (More on that soon. Some cool and terrifying things are happening for this book.) I’m trying to build a new website where I have to find fresh language. But I sit down and the words are in some kind of chaotic scramble; I can not get them out in an way that makes sense.
Nothing makes sense but what the hell is “sense” in times of genocide? In times of outrageous climate crisis? In times of horrific disparity? In times where governments continue to destroy every life standing in the way of domination? In times where far too many people are meeting the rally cry of militarization. I have never needed to believe a conspiracy theory— I can look at what is right out in the open, it’s just completely transparent, all of it. *
I’ve been thinking about the absolutely overwhelming and fully consuming grief and anger I am feeling, that so many of us are feeling. I don’t know how I can feel more and then I wake up and read the news and I feel myself shatter into emotional chaos.
I’m trying to take care of my body and my health because I am still navigating the fallout of covid and long covid but what is “sanity” and “health” in times of genocide? In the petering out of late/ end stage capitalism? How the hell are any of us doing anything right now besides crying and screaming? I’m feeling how tired I am, my body revolting again and I can’t always listen to what I’m being told. Slow down. Stop. Rest. Take a damn break. The privilege of that. How absurd to listen to my body when across the world in Gaza 97% of water is contaminated. When nearly 10,000 radiant human beings have been killed by murderous state violence? A dozen cancer patients in Gaza have died because the hospital shut down. Many more will die. The list is endless and I really hope you are paying attention and doing absolutely everything you can— writing or signing letters, calling for a CEASEFIRE, no more weapons from the US to Israel, calling for safe return of the Palestinian prisoners held in Israel and the hostages held in Gaza, protesting if your body can do that kind of thing, talking to people you love, holding each person’s complex humanity gently. Some days it feels like nothing and I have to believe that together, as many of us as possible doing it, it’s something.
Again how are any of us doing anything right now?! I feel insane with the repetitive thought loop of “How do we stop this? Why isn’t anyone stopping this?!”
I’m giving myself permission to do a little less here this month. I love writing, I love sharing here, and also— I feel like some radioactive goo right now. I hope maybe if you too are feeling at the end, at the edge of collapse, maybe you’ll feel inclined to do a little less too.
Below a short poem that sputtered out today in my dear friend Seema Reza’s free, open to all, Friday writing workshop through her organization Community Building Art Works. It feels like nothing in the grand scheme of things but it is something, even if small. I’m grateful for a few words to help me understand what I’m feeling.
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I am a spider web. Just one thread severed, my whole body releases into wind, into sky. I try to find quiet Instead I find a racetrack, A mind that can not slow down For fear For fear Of losing it all. I never did understand “sanity” And now I don’t know how anyone feels sane anymore. What a fucking lie, the expectation that we strive for Some kind of mental stability. Sanity is no longer of this world. You say you are, I say you are a liar. Have you not seen the children dying, Rubble covering tiny hands That used to hold the chains Of a swing? Have you not seen the cement grey filling The air Filling the lungs? Each of us a spider web. Just one thread severed, your whole body releases into wind, into sky.
*Please do not send me emails with propaganda, pinkwashing, and nationalism in response to what I share. I am entitled to share my politics and beliefs without coercion and reprimanding. And you are entitled to unsubscribe should you like to.