i'm so tired, i wish i was the moon tonight
This week’s title comes from a Neko Case song which shares the title of this lyric. It’s one of my favorite existential anthems.
I have been feeling the weight of the world lately. I remain in a state of inertia, slobbing around my house, not wanting to move or eat. It’s hard to sit with myself when the world is suffering so acutely, when my country and tax dollars fund the suffering, when my government refuses to acknowledge its complicity in genocide, nor it’s own growing anti-semitism. My own complicity is not lost on me. I wait all day for sleep, only to lie awake in bed at night, unable to think, unable to not.
Growing up, I read countless chapter books & YA novels about historical atrocities (s/o Dear America). Asked myself, what would I have done? Answered, I would never have let that happen; I could never live with myself knowing that was happening. And yet, here I am, doing that very thing, every day. I have to. We have to. But it’s weeks like these that bring that reminder to the forefront of my mind and my conscience.
I know my physiological complaints have no comparison to what those in Palestine are experiencing, and have experienced for decades, living & dying in apartheid. It does not compare to the grief of Israelis whose family members were kidnapped or murdered. Thousands of people, mostly women and children. Dead. Violently. I cannot fathom the pain, if the mere idea of it feels too heavy. I do not want sympathy. I just want you to know I, like you, like them, am human. Emotions manifest and become embodied. If you feel this too, you are not alone.
I have to remind myself that days like these require even more self love. Because I do not want to sink into despair long term. I need to find joy to keep fighting for a better world.
So, I learn from these past storms. I make a plan.
Those are my rituals for when helplessness rears. When the darkness encroaches, I don’t fight it; I move with it, through it. I turn towards music. Neko Case, to crumble; then William Onyeabor, to rise. I turn towards movement and fresh air, walking or running or gentle stretching, whatever my body craves. I turn towards nourishment through good food and the words of people I admire. And then I act.
I don’t know what else to say that hasn’t already been said by people wiser than me, but I feel strongly that silence solves nothing. So I leave you with this video, and ask that you watch all 5 minutes of it. As this creator says, oppressors win when you feel apathetic & disengage completely.
Free Palestine.
good things on the internet
"Spirit" by French painter and illustrator George Roux (1885) 👻
Local Seattle designer/artist @danmclean ATE when he created this stunning fit for Megan Rapinoe out of her many kits ⚽
hairpinlegs.com - that’s it 🔨
currently reading
They Can’t Kill Us Til They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib: “It is jarring, what we let fear do to each other; how we invent enemies and then make them so small that we are fine with wishing them dead. How we decide what “safety” is, how ours is only ours and must be gained at all costs. How we take that long coat of fear and throw it around the shoulders of anyone who doesn’t look like us, or prays to another God.”
Dilla Time by Dan Charnas: An obsessively detailed, narrative-driven history of J Dilla, a Detroit-based producer who is the most influential hip-hop artist you’ve never heard of. A good read for any one really into music, music history, or Detroit.
If You Were Dead, You’d Be Obsessed with Death Too by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi: “It’s no secret that we could count our combined friends on one hand. We had each been abandoned by family and former friends to rot in our limited view of reality, our supposed pessimism, our backward glance. But now we had each other.”