when in doubt
follow the paths of artists and poets, make something good to eat, cultivate strength, endure
I make zucchini and red pepper cornbread using the most perishable things from the fridge so I can defrost and replace the evaporator fan, spinning a globe in my head, looking at it like I am a little satellite, there it is, the mini-world, my orbiting eye takes in a view from nowhere1.
I hand-crank vegetables through the little red grater, eyeball amounts of cornmeal, flour, baking soda, salt, Cajun seasoning, squash, onions, peppers, cheese, eggs, buttermilk, think about how fucked up things are, stir it just enough to break up the lumps, preheat the oven and an olive-oiled cast iron loaf pan, pour batter into the hot olive oil, make some coffee and bake while the world burns.
I am stunned, in pain, my legs are starting to feel heavy like they do right before I crumple to the futon on the floor — how can I stay awake to pull the cornbread from the oven, what I could give of myself to make war stop, reverse climate change, restore oceans and forests, how can I not think for a second that the theater surrounding elections and big international conferences is a distraction from the urgency of important things happening right now, which rogue will be aiming our weapons, which candidate will spawn the most future candidates, how much power is for sale, how many of us have buying power, why is the price of justice an imaginary resource that the most people have the least of but work the most for, and why do the people who have the most of this strange abstract powerful wealth deploy it so destructively?
The oven dings. The cornbread is perfect, delicious, crisp outside, steams when I break it open, and the coffee brings back a little bit of energy. Hot breath from cornbread and coffee fog the kitchen window, drips to the leaves of the overwintering hibiscus braid. The air outside is cold, misty, inside it is comforting, my cheeks are warm. Why is everything that was so damp and clammy instantly warm and cozy just from making veggie-drawer-o-nade from vegetables that were probably a day away from being thrown on the compost, how is all of this comfort and coziness possible at once — how can this sort of magic be exponentially magnified? Some people live by waterfalls, others restore forest chateaus, some farm according to seasons on land held for generations, and some help women give birth in war zones with no anesthesia while their farms are razed to the ground and buildings crumble around them — these are all happening now, today, this minute.
Due to our recent bout of “probably covid”, and another round of “living in an old house” trials, I’m slowly extracting myself from fog and pain again. Since there is so much information out there about covid and its mechanisms, communicability, constant demands for remedies for shifting symptoms, difficulty in maintaining baseline health, difficulty of navigating labyrinthine corridors of paperwork and proof to seek benefits when fatigued/foggy/in pain by an entire cohort of people suffering with no treatment or way to make a consistant and stable living, I am not going to opine on hearings and medical journals too much. It is easier to provide links and occasional brief summaries, and even easier to footnote with “here’s some good info about MAST cell activation,” or whatever — that way if I casually refer to these things I obsess over, there are some reference points.
At some point I would like to do a patient’s POV of what covid does and why some of us can’t shake it, but right now I’m actively fighting the menace and it might take awhile before I’m comfortable doing much more than bitch about fatigue and pain and drop links about either long covid things or videos I’ve been bingeing about transparent desserts, walking tours, restoring a chateau, making cave shelters, pirates, and collapse.
So, a brief follow-up about the HELP long covid hearing — the full transcripts and video can be found here. I thought that Dr. Ziyad Al-Ali had a concise overview of the disease and made good recommendations — the video below is queued to start with his testimony, however I think it is worth watching the entire hearing — the patient/caregivers in the first part of the hearing breaks down the challenges of getting care and being believed, and the doctors in the second part are informative and blunt about not having the resources they need to help people and combat further spread of the illness. The senators, well … if you see one from your state, pay attention to them so it can inform your vote, but for the most part there are a lot of personal anecdotes that fall a bit flat — what can you do, politicians are like that. If you need to speed through the boring parts, I think it’s safe to skip them.
If you need to catch up on what is new or current in long covid news, Long Covid Weekly Newsletter on Substack is a very helpful resource — link below:
It is becoming an absolute madhouse in this state. Which fire do we teeter into — descending into more chaos to the detriment of pretty much everyone (the Shelby Park standoff) or having some dumbass Jade Helm ridiculousness get deadly? It is like the most reactionary baddies are pushing harder all over the world at the same time to prove it is flat by forcing it to be that way. The real tangible things people suffer and die from are not their problem, but they’ll slander immigrants and asylum seekers as rapists and murderers2 to crank up fear so that their racist border policies have support — like they care about support when they are essentially dictators, lmao. They want an excuse to shoot people without consequences and are trying to weasel immigration laws or secede to make it okay, this has nothing to do with safety, this has to do with wanting to be John Wayne.
I want to be in the streets about this, and at the moment all I can do is hurl very focused mental darts of fire, curses, and hexes on them at their pressers every time a kid unloads a gun in a classroom or grocery store,
every time a family drowns in the Rio Grande,
every time a tank farm explodes or a hospital is crammed to the rafters with covid patients, every inch surrendered to these monsters by so many people in Texas to make this place a Hell on Earth for everyone except rich white right wing conservative probably evangelical guys who simply want to shoot captive zebras on game ranches in peace. For them it’s great — I mean maybe they think they are always being cancelled but they are louder and more cantankerous than ever, bullying everyone who dares to protest, comme d’habitude. Despite my best efforts, the laser focused energy directed from the most concentrated light in my imagination to the spot between the hemispheres of their slick, wrinkle-free brains has been unable to short them out, but I persist.
Anyway, after my family’s last bout with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I lost a little ground, and that is quite frustrating. It could be worse, but I was hoping this would be the viral mutation that would give me super powers, and alas, it just made me incredibly sleepy, thinking is hard and sometimes so is breathing, moving, eating, remembering to take meds. The house got messy and the fluffy cat looks unkempt. I absorb a ceaseless information fire hose blast, fix a few broken things around the house, plan future improvements, bother my kids, sleep excessively, extend my Duolingo streak. My new refrigerator evaporator motor and fan and tools have arrived, so that should be quite an adventure. I think I can do this. It is supposed to be an easy fix. Not agonizing.
Lately, to … idk, get away from the crushing blast of info, I have been watching videos again like when I was much more sick and having difficulty maintaining focus on “story” and that sort of thing and would instead watch people bake translucent blue desserts, restore antique dolls, make little hobbit village hideouts in the woods in France, restore crumbling chateaux, guide tours of places around the world, show how to care for a Monstera, make scones, lecture about volcanoes, earthquakes, mythology, collapse, but then I circle back to this and … there is no coming back from this.
“my brother's wife is now pregnant, there is no guarantee that she is going to go give birth just like other mothers give birth to their children uh there is no cleanliness there is no there are no clothes for the newborn there is no formula milk if needed there is no medicine for the mother if she needs any treatment so it's people many people are dying not because of the Israeli air strikes not because of the bombs but also because there is not any sign of good life there.”
When artists and poets shout in your ears or leave messages along their paths pay attention. They will tell you what you are not supposed to find out about, you will know them from the trail of doors slammed in their faces when they say something transgressive. There have been many artists who have spoken about Gaza who have had their exhibitions and speaking events cancelled. For every blowhard receiving an income to loudly proclaim in public spaces that they are cancelled by woke, there are so many artists who have quietly learned that their events are cancelled because they expressed solidarity with Palestine. Find them and learn why.
From DemocracyNow!:
Artist Emily Jacir: Rampant Censorship Is Part of the Genocidal Campaign to Erase Palestinians
Holocaust Survivor Marione Ingram Decries Climate of Censorship After Her Hamburg Talks Are Canceled
“Many of My Shows Have Been Canceled”: Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei on Israel, Gaza & Censorship
from other sources:
In Open Letter, Artists Accuse Western Museums of ‘Silencing and Stigmatizing’ Palestinian Voices — ARTnews
AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE ART COMMUNITY TO CULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS — ARTFORUM
Bed Bath & Beyond Scion Pressured Artists to Retract Gaza Ceasefire Call in Artforum Letter — The Intercept
not like Haraway’s “God trick” that masks a Western/colonial/white/male/Eurocentric view behind a neutral/universal facade, but a quick escape — from an isolated kitchen view where I am constantly dealing with some sort of ache and pain while also having to maintain some sense of domestic mastery over hunger and the daily clutter — to a more global view that sees my pain in the context of world events and bewilderment that it could be so much worse (this pain, but in a war zone, without food or medicine) and was always preventable (this pain, violent oppression, scarcity, climate devastation) and is not being seriously addressed by anyone who has resources to turn it around (policy makers, robber barons). It is, however, still a partial perspective, as all are.
Haraway, Donna. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14, no. 3 (1988): 575–99. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in Shelby Park, using xenophobia to excuse brutality.
It's the entanglement of details and head emotion bombs that has me reeling, as a writer. The wild crafted jazz of it. I think I'm going to take it and use it my Mind & Earth classes - if, no, okay, when I can get back there, to organising, to teaching - and I think I'll call it the Mayday Song, this style. It's transparent (so easy to learn and extend with) and powerful. Thanks, then, for that ( and yes I noticed the absence of joiners and their poetic replacements, the comma.) It's in the ecosystem of active and grounded Grace that Brian Doyle seeded in the world for us. (Sorry I'm getting teachy, which is quite reflex for me).
So what I'm really saying is thanks for the inspiration. I'm fugueing, which I meant to mean headfoggy, not quite peasoupy, but, when I look it up to check, means forgetting who you are, running away and getting somewhat dramatically hysterical. But I note that in the musical sense it means a polyphonic overlay that builds upon the layers - and there, that's what you do. We're both fugutives, then. (Sorry, I'm competing against my wife for dad jokes. She's winning, but I might be in with a chance for the next half hour or so.)
Of course I relate to all the starting notes for the fugue - tiredness, stress, burnout, body drain, hoping to achieve (while driven to make change). And the frustration rage. I haven't had laser beams, that's impressive.
So, if I haven't made it clear (which is likely), your writing, the place where you're coming from, and how you work through and do it, is inspiring. In that, I haven't been able to get through, and your willpower, despite the setbacks, has given me creative hope. That's pretty priceless.