A Lull in Winter
Gray, gray gray.
I’ll be honest— I didn’t want to write this newsletter. I had two drafts, both about different subjects and both nearly fully formed, but found myself at a loss this morning when tasked with finishing them. So, I’m writing this to you on my phone from my bathtub on Sunday evening; not because I feel obligated to, but because I want to. I’m wondering- are you feeling as numb and sad and okay as I am? I feel so grateful for so many basic things: my bed, steady employment, nourishing food, my yoga practice, meditation, my functioning car. Yet I know that I am living precariously, paycheck to paycheck, a product of having chosen the luxury of living alone in an expensive city. Yet my precariousness isn’t what it seems. Despite not having much family, I know there are people who love me and would help me if I were to fall. I also know there are so many people in the world and in the U.S. without those safety nets, and I think about them often. I see them often, too, living on the streets of Seattle. One night on my way home I saw a masked homeless person rocking back and forth sobbing, their sign discarded, and I want so badly to be able to help everyone, to solve their problems, to give everyone what I have. The basics that we all deserve.
I think part of my sadness comes with the realization that the news cycle isn’t slowing down after Trump’s departure from office, and it still feels like America is in dire straits. It feels like many of us are addicted to that drama. We need stillness and calm, and yet the last presidential term stoked the fire of the capitalist media machine. With capitalism everything must grow to thrive, and we’re hungry ghosts. I picture the poor monster in Spirited Away, spitting up gold coins and gobbling whoever takes them.
In the midst of everything, I’m struggling with my own non-binary identity. Presenting as a woman but not feeling like a woman- not feeling gendered in my body at all. Wanting to wear makeup but being scared that others will assume things about me if I accentuate my femininity. Hating my breasts. Wondering if this state of unknowing is perpetual, a product of growth or immaturity, or a bit of both. At work I hold a family together, but I don’t have my own family, and I notice my self-consciousness around that, and around the expectations, self-imposed and societal, of what my life should look like. At home I am mostly alone, and my apartment is often filled with the mechanical voices emanating from my computer. I do everything online. We all do now.
I remind myself that my life is my own.
Sometimes when I am feeling extra alone I picture others alone in their homes feeling extra alone. I picture us in a kind of montage, floating on a screen together. I know I’m not alone, and you’re not either. We have each other. Many of us are kindred spirits who haven’t yet met in person. Despite what the news cycle says, the world is filled with mostly good people who would help someone if they needed it. I see a lot of bills handed to hands outside of car windows. It’s not that we don’t want to help, but that the machine is kind of broken. We have to keep searching for how to repair it.
No links today. I’m reading the Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevson. I watched the Britney doc and it made me sad and angry. I’m doing a lot of yoga. I love you, and I’ll write more next week.