The Amniotic fluid of racism
As a white person in the U.S., I was born into racism and bigotry.
It’s the water we swim in, the amniotic fluid of our beginnings. I’m saturated in it; whether I “like” to believe that or not is of no consequence.
Watchman on the wall
People sometimes ask me if I feel your stomach all the time, or your lymph nodes, searching for a mass, for anything swollen, for a sign, for the writing on the wall.
I don’t.
I don’t want you to feel examined.
I do anti-racism like a capitalist
When you do anti-racism instead of being an anti-racist, this is a clue that you’re doing it like a capitalist.
When your anti-racist practice is not practice, but a series of expectations you put on yourself and then beat yourself up if you can’t meet them all, this is a clue that you’re doing it like a capitalist.
Deconstructing Whiteness: sitting with the bones
There are no shortcuts through the revolution.
As a white-bodied person, I cannot work to dismantle racism in the world around me until I’ve examined the roots of racism inside of me.
Finding my WHY
To evolve as much as I can in this
Lifetime.
To cleanse bloodlines.
Break generational patterns.
To be a good ancestor.
Give them as little to unlearn as possible.
What to do when all you can do is sit
I’ve heard people saying, “Our forefathers went to war for this country and all we are asked to do is stay home.”
Yes, if you’re talking chips and Netflix on the sofa. But to really stay home? To come home to the seat of yourself and stay there?
Barn-Burning
And here we are again, a global inferno.
A universal Barn-Burning.
We are, all of us, mourning the loss of what WAS and we are facing what IS without a roof over our heads, without walls to give us location, protection, reassurance, without a front door to welcome people in.
All of us, standing under the same vast sky, surrounded by the smoldering rubble of what was our lives, no longer protected against the unknown night.
Detox the Busy
I am trying to manufacture to-do lists because they make me feel safe and important and in control. And also stressed and martyred and overwhelmed (which some part of me must like as proof of my importance). I am frantically trying to find new projects of the housebound variety like labeling all the bins in my basement storage area.
“Welcome to the Detox of Busy,” I tell myself.
Start with what’s in front of you
My job: to help Phoenix make it through chemo.
My worst days were the days I googled things.
A Letter to my ten-year-old daughter on the equinox
Dear Kyrie,
I have been dying to tell you.
I never wanted to be a mother.
I was so afraid of having a kid and then messing them up, the way I felt messed up.
Tell the shitty truth
There will be shitty days ahead, friends.
This is just the way of it.
Don’t make it shittier by beating yourself up that you feel shitty.
Tell the truth.
Holding my breath
This strategy: holding breath, has been my chosen coping mechanism for lots of things.
Even now, I’m thinking it could be a good idea.
I find myself thinking, “I just did CANCER. Do I really have to do another hard thing? Can I just hold my breath and wait for this to pass?”
It bears mentioning here that another one of my chosen nightmares was the apocalyptic nightmare.
Nothing is no matter what
Nothing is no matter what.
Nothing is no matter what.
Every bit of everything you counted on can fall away.
You are left with a question: what matters?
Our strength is our softness
The architecture of our lives is cards and toothpicks.
And wrapping toilet paper rolls around it doesn’t make it stronger.
We want so desperately to be safe, to believe we have a home, to be able to close our eyes at night with guarantees the sun will rise and all will be well with the world.
Ashes on my forehead
I belong to a society of sufferers, a subculture called cancer moms.
I wear ashes on my face because I know the truth in my brittle burnable bones: we are dust and to dust we will return, and most of what we do in between is also dust.
These ashes are the visible marker.
These ashes are the “live like you could die tomorrow” bumper sticker stuck to my forehead.
Do not reduce me to survivor
I feel the ground trying to insert itself back under my feet and I’m angry about it.
I crave this undefined in-between.
I’m jealous for my own company, the quiet, and the possibility.
The veil torn, life and death sleeping together in the same room all along.
I want to talk about sobriety
Tomorrow morning at 8:45 am Phoenix gets his biopsy.
I feel very edgy today, very not ok. I’m trying to be ok with not being ok.
I do this by practicing doing what I’ve been doing intensely for two years now: feel my feelings.
The Nana Tree
I start crying and choke on the words.
Of course, that’s what I’m doing.
Of course, I’m hoping the ashes scattered will become Phoenix rising.
Of course, this is why I’ve held on to this little three-inch urn for almost nine years.