Thank you to everyone who subscribed last month! It means so much to me. I’ll be donating all of the money from last month to the National Domestic Workers Alliance Coronavirus Care Fund.
This month, I’ll donate all subscription funds to the Undocu-Worker Solidarity Fund, which supports undocumented immigrants in Western Massachusetts who have lost their jobs or had their work hours reduced due to the COVID-19 crisis. The fund is for people who do not have work permission or are undocumented, and who will not receive any benefits from unemployment insurance or the federal government.
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[Image description: I’m wearing a floral print mask and flowered dress, looking over a river under a blue sky filled with big, white, fluffy clouds.The banks of the river are lined with trees not yet leafing out.]
Last year I decided to return to tracking my meetings, appointments, and plans in a paper-based datebook. My Many Moons 2020 Lunar Planner arrived in November with a shiny full moon on the cover. It was hefty, full of space to write future events, plans, and dreams. It offered promises of a year full of activities and developments.
These days, I’m writing in it with pencil.
When will we next be able to gather again? Hug each other? Share space?
I have a lot of questions, as does everyone.
How will we emerge from this moment, as individuals and as a collective?
Many of us are spending these days of social isolation dreaming and taking action toward the emergence of a different kind of world than the one that existed a few months ago. Will we succeed? Or will those determined to return to the previous status quo have their way?
What will it look like the day we can leave our houses? Where will we be—physically, emotionally, existentially—a year from now? A decade from now?
I write “Horseneck Beach” across the week of my August birthday. I write “family reunion” the week of Labor Day. I write “book release planning” in the winter months. In pencil. With the clear understanding that these and all of my carefully laid plans might be upended. Canceled. Changed.
I commit to expending less energy on trying to bend the future to my plans.
~~~
None of us can ever know what the future will bring. This has always been true. But the COVID-19 pandemic has driven the point home with stunning clarity.
As I slowly come to terms with this truth, I find it just a little easier to be present. To attend to what is in front of me in the moment, rather than worrying the past or future.
I just listened to Roshi Joan Halifax on the podcast Irresistible on this topic, and she said:
We’re in an extraordinary time where we’re called literally to make an ally of not knowing, to come to terms with the actual truth of uncertainty, to understand that looking for security or pulling data from the past to protect and predict the future is not going to be useful.
Even though uncertainty can bring anxiety, I’m starting to appreciate this concept of making an ally of not knowing. On good days, it gives me a feeling of expansiveness: of new possibilities blooming from the space we create by not knowing or trying to know. I can see it as an invitation: What can I step into now, when only now exists?
The funny-not-funny thing is, I’ve been trying to do this for years. It’s taken a pandemic for me to learn how to enter into the present moment. It’s taken this season to teach me how to relinquish, if only for a few seconds, any illusion that I have control over things that I really cannot control—like the actions of the racist maniac in the White House.
But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up, throwing my hands in the air, and letting whatever happens, happen. I’m focusing on my own actions in the moment, understanding that they will have consequences, though I can’t determine what those consequences will be. I write, I call elected officials, I share my resources, I cook and share food, I make connections across cyberspace and video, I get quiet inside myself.
~~~
The author Arundhati Roy wrote a piece that named this moment as a “portal,” and it’s taken hold of many people’s imaginations.
When I listened to her read that passage, I was reminded of the first time I heard her speak. It was a year after 9/11, and the U.S. was gearing up to attack on Iraq. I have a clear memory of driving down Oak Street along the panhandle of Golden Gate park, the sharp scent of eucalyptus filling my car.
On that day, Roy’s voice came through the radio on Democracy Now!, calm and confident. “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way,” she said, “on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.”
Chills ran up my arms. Yes! I thought. Yes.
I was full of confidence and outrage. I was young and sure the world would wake up, our leaders would get it together, we’d step through that moment into the world both Roy and I knew was possible.
Almost two decades later, that world feels farther away than ever in some ways.
But we don’t know. We don’t know what will happen. We have been offered a rupture, as Roy calls it. A rupture has torn through our lives, like and unlike 9/11. I don’t know what that world will look like when we step through the portal. Neither does Roy. Much has happened—to her, to India, to the U.S., to the world—in the intervening years. But she hasn’t given up fighting. She still hears that other world breathing, beyond the portal.
That’s where she’s headed, and so am I. With little expectation this time. Less optimism. But with clearer eyes. In community with so many people determined to not go back to how things were. With an understanding that my thoughts, actions, and feelings of each moment will open up the pathway to the next moment, and the next, and the next. Knowing this is the only certainty we have.
Please consider subscribing if you aren’t already. You can subscribe for free, or choose a paid subscription. Everyone is getting the same content right now, but any money I raise through paid subscriptions this month will go to the Undocu-Worker Solidarity Fund. Thank you!
Prompting
What if not-knowing was your ally? How would it support you, help you, challenge you?
Write not-knowing a letter or a poem.
Put it in a sacred space—your altar, your bedside table, your kitchen counter, your favorite book, whatever sacred looks like for you—for three days.
On the third day, read it, and then write a letter or poem back to yourself, from the place of not-knowing.
Put both letters or poems in a sacred space for another three days.
On the sixth day, read both letters or poems. Give an offering of thanks. And then let them go—recycle them, compost them, shred them, burn them, or bury them in the ground.
Engaging
What else I’m reading/listening to/thinking about:
On Being’s interview with organizer and co-founder of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Ai-jen Poo. This beautiful conversation was recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic season was upon us here in the U.S., but Ai-jen’s wisdom and observations on the caring revolution are even more relevant now.
Still Processing’s episode on the documentary “How to Survive a Plague,” about the AIDS epidemic. I really appreciated Wesley Morris and Jenna Wortham’s thoughtful conversation about the film and what it can teach us about where we are now and where we go from here.
I was lucky enough to attend a beautiful virtual healing session hosted by 18 Million Rising, led by Spenta Kandawalla, who is an acupuncturist, herbalist, somatic trainer and coach, and old friend. I highly recommend checking out Spenta’s recent series on “Immunity and Community.” This one includes one of the somatic exercises she led during the session.
Community/Announcements
#ShareMyCheck. My stimulus check just came in the mail (because as a former war-tax resister, I refuse to give the IRS my bank account info). Because I have a steady gig for now, I will be passing that money on to local mutual aid funds and organizations working to create systemic change. If you are able, and haven’t done so already, you can do the same.
Loves You review. Lots of people are reading more poetry and cooking more in this season. Might be a good time to check out poet Sarah Gambito’s mouth- and heart-watering book, Loves You, which I reviewed last month over at the Georgia Review.
Happy birthday, Mom! Today is my mama’s birthday. If you know her, send her some birthday love! :)
Image description: Three photobooth photos of me and my mom. We are smiling in two, and sticking our tounges out in the middle one, which includes flower, cherry, and heart stickers. The bottom text says “Tokyo” and there’s a graphic of Mt. Fuji.
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