Last night the coaching program I’m in had a teaching call with Desiree Adaway: “Leading difficult conversations on race, class + gender. Writer. Speaker. Coach.” (From Desiree’s Facebook profile.)

Desiree talked with us about intersectional feminism and read pieces from Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider. We discussed anger as fuel, “accountability with care,” the fact that we’ve been socialized to fear each other (and it’s in our DNA), white people forging relationships with people of color, fixing our communities by caring for the person who needs the most help first (and then by default the most privileged will also be taken care of — THIS IS HUGE), that we need to decide what kind of world we want to build once we’ve dismantled the current patriarchy (like, where are we headed as opposed to what are we leaving), and this: 

“What are you willing to give up so that your sisters can gain?”

And we’re not just talking cis-ters, Desiree made sure to point out.

Eventually some of us spoke up. I spoke up. And then had a vulnerability hangover, of course. This old refrain:

​Am I saying the right thing? Am I saying the wrong thing? Jesus Christ, now I’m sacrificing my own integrity and authenticity by worrying about saying the right/wrong thing. And then. Breathe. We’ll get through this. There is so much to gain here.

But first — what to lose. I mentioned on the call that I had decided fairly young I was willing to give up Catholicism and the community there because I didn’t like how women aren’t considered as holy as men (or cannot hold authoritative positions in the church). I didn’t like how women’s rights aren’t considered. That men make decisions about women’s bodies. That homosexuality is considered a sin. Hell, that sexuality is considered a sin. That the people of other religions are looked upon as not “chosen," and I knew a lot of them — Jewish friends, Muslim friends, Jehovah’s Witness friends, and they were all beautiful and holy to me. And then there are some Christian religions where, for example, black people weren’t allowed to hold the priesthood until the 1970s. 

The more I followed my own inner-rudder and what I still intrinsically believe is right and true the more it took me away from a place where I grew up, made the sacraments, felt safe. The image of that schism for me is that I’m floating out in the cold cosmos, beyond the stained glass windows looking in on the warm Saint Gabriel’s church where I grew up, but feeling right about it. Even if the beautifully powerful pipe organ I always loved the sound of seemed to ring out more righteously than my own small voice. I would just have to know in my heart and that would be enough.

I remember one day in my early twenties seeing footage of Pope John Paul II cupping the faces of young girls, who were crying at his touch. They felt safe and spiritually sound. Comforted. Like all would be OK. You could see it on their faces. And I longed for that comfort. But I decided in that moment I was willing to give up that comfort for my integrity and for all the people who weren’t treated how I’d like them to be treated by the Church. Don’t get me started on the children and how the Church dealt with those horrors. So, I wanted that comfort but the price was not worth it to me — being complicit in hypocrisy (and so much worse).

I am also willing to give up the comfort and safe feeling of not having the difficult conversations. Of not correcting people when they say something racist or ignorant. And then doing that with love, as Desiree suggested: “Accountability with care.”

Desiree talked about loving her community more than she hates racism. For me, part of what I’m willing to give up is the comfort of the tribe within some of my community circles in order to foster honesty and love for all without any guarantee I’ll be accepted by all. To continue to share that steadfast integrity that took me away from the Church as a young person (and to continue to dismantle what’s been systemically ingrained into me). I was willing to float out in the cosmos then, I’m willing to float out in the cosmos now. Though I suspect, as I have a blindingly bright community of women, I won’t be floating too much. I’m not even close to alone this time.

And when we ask, “What are we willing to lose so that our sisters can gain,” I think we also should consider: “What are we going to gain when we give up what we give up so that our sisters can gain?” I feel we will gain something far more profound than what we give up. Not that we need incentive to do this work. But it’s there. Because we’re just changing the world is all (and when I say “we” I mean people of color leading the way — because everyone benefits from that, whereas if it’s white women trying to lead the way, we don’t have the ingrained experience of oppression to know the exact spots that need to heal). Giving up the old systems that kept white people feeling the illusion of power. Healing. 

I have some questions, like how do we use anger as fuel in the best way? And how do we learn to trust each other? As we’ve been afraid of each other due to how we’ve been socialized and centuries of oppression. I guess we start talking about it more. And stop talking. (As was also discussed on the call.) Listening. Compassion. The word “compassion” keeps coming back to me. But not expecting compassion from others. Taking care of ourselves with compassion so we are fed and ready.

And I’ll have more questions. And I pray for the strength to ask. But I see a glimmer of hope — the door that was built between women of color and white women by the patriarchy is cracked open, and I hope we can all see at least a sliver of light there. Because the truth is, together we are powerful as can be. Powerful enough to heal and thrive together. The truth is NOT what we’ve been socialized to believe. The truth is deeper and it lies in our shared traumas and joys — whether or not we know each other personally. 

And of course it's not just about white people and people of color. It's also about classes and disabilities and LGBTQ people for lack of a better acronym and any number of mixtures therein. It behooves the patriarchy that we stay separate. I read a great piece  today including a bit about "check your privilege," which said when you hear that, look down your ladder of privilege toward the chute where someone else might be at a disadvantage or marginalized and see where you can extend a hand and help.

Just because the hegemonic patriarchal systems that be say “You are separate” doesn’t mean it’s spiritually true. Yeah, there’s a lot of pain there. But just like women always do, we’ll figure it the hell out together and move this ship forward. And that’s going to light up the whole sky. I don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves, but it’s a future I want. And yet, it doesn’t matter what kind of future I want (except for any usefulness the heft of my intentions might hold). So I’ll listen and see what I can help tear down and where I can help build.

“Dear Sister(not just cister),
“At the center of liberation is love. Love of self, love of others, love of community, love of humanity.” Desiree Lynn Adaway

Oh, wait, year-wise, this is really the proper Mike Myers flashback reference...

I love that I felt completely safe going to a stranger’s apartment. Happily, I was safe. But we are in a different time now. I felt safe because I had been safe in the past. But today we are more connected. We feel each other’s pain. We say #metoo. All the dirt is coming out. Shit is bubbling up (that's disgusting, but you know what I mean, also, the bubbling shit behavior is disgusting). And we are finally looking at each other’s wounds and knowing that as long as she has wounds I have wounds, too. Our connection to each other has deepened. In part because we see tremendous injustice and refuse to stand it.​

I often think of shared trauma — how women share a “trauma past” because women have been repeatedly traumatized. Systematically. Even though I was not molested I have body and sex shame because my mother had body and sex shame. And I remember my Granny telling me once about when one of my uncles was conceived when her husband was very drunk. It wasn’t even a consideration to say “no.” She did not tell me that last part. She just told me matter-of-factly, like, it's what you do, like putting on socks or peeling a potato.

Yesterday would have been my Granny Bunny Mikus’ ninety-eighth birthday. I just looked up her obituary from 2010 and a wave of grief came over me. I’ve been having this feeling a lot lately that life is just so damn precious. LIFE! You are like a sweet kitten! Let me hug you and pet you! With ill family members and my dad in the hospital for pneumonia (pee-nemonia, he used to jokingly call it), I try to hold onto the preciousness of life, my family, my friends, my husband, my cat. I think of how my dad was so tough to be around in 1999 and 2000 as he ineptly grieved my mother and was terribly mean to me. And how now, with dementia, he's always telling us how much be loves us. Even today my sister said texted:

"He's saying we are all loved, fine, adorable, and that he's doing his best without favoritism because we are all great."

All this from the hospital bed. I mean, it's a total turnaround. I feel bad he's not feeling well (and I'm concerned about him), but I'm in awe of how he's handling vulnerability, when at the beginning of this cycle he was handling it not well. He was handling grief and vulnerability like it was a poisonous viper that he was throwing at me.

I sit here right now and listen to a bird chirping and it always makes me feel better. Sweet, soft life kitten.

This lovely woman who makes me flower essences had posted on Instagram about allowing her tears to flow as part of her self-care. I think this is wonderful. After I was diagnosed with DCIS in early 2016 I decided that I would let myself cry a lot more. ​I mean, I'm not at cafes ordering coffee and blubbering, but I let it happen when it happens. Like putting on socks or peeling potatoes. Funny how our own tears are a thing that need to be allowed, yet only two generations ago in my own family so much more that others did to us was allowed. Hell, even in this generation. We're finally getting to the point where it's safe to say #metoo and "don't treat me this way" and "no."

Sometimes I feel like I’m out in the wind, in the desert, having experienced the losses I have experienced, but I'm out there with these fellow travelers whom I don't personally know but can easily connect with based on our losses. It’s hard to explain. It feels like the buffers are gone. I grew up with so many buffers, so sheltered, so cushy and comfy. Also, people used to wince when I talked about losing my mother, probably because I was still so raw around it. And these days I’ve talked about it so much that I’m almost used to it. It’s my story. And I’m sharing it now — it’s been alchemized into something useful, as in a book, that hopefully will help others feel less alone. It helped me to tell it.

And speaking of using my stories, one of the other things I was doing in 1999-2000 was sitting up in the loft in my apartment on Sumner Road in Cambridge, tucked under an eave, at the desk I bought from one of those unfinished furniture stores and stained myself, with the gigantic old PC, with some tea and a candle burning, starting my first blog on Diaryland. The blog that got me my columnist position that just ended this year. The blog that gave me a refuge from so much. I got to be unapologetically goofy (one of my favorite pastimes) and write about the pop culture I was consuming and religion and whatever the hell I wanted. I have even gone back to Diaryland a few times to post because I know no one will read it and it feels like being on a luxurious radio station all to myself.

And I love that girl that I was eighteen years ago. And I’m so glad she started writing again (gosh, I feel like she was cleverer than I am now). And I’m so glad she kept trying to make music (even though most of those times were signing onto other people’s projects instead of trusting her own — but remembering this just makes me really strong in my convictions that my own work is worth it).​

It was all the winter and spring-scented messiness that got me where I am now. The meandering path. The “what the fuck am I?”

​And the answer, all of these years later:

I am me. Using my stories.

​My new therapist brought up shadow work during our first two sessions. Maybe because I come off as a little Pollyanna she thought, “What horrors are lurking under this person’s surface?” I wonder that, too, sometimes. I made music with a guy for a while who wrote on his blog that when you scratched my surface there was something “vain, black and monstrous" there. I’m still waiting to see whatever that monster is inside me emerge, however (and I really hope it’s not like that five-foot worm someone was housing after eating raw salmon on the regular). He did see me eat some McDonald’s french fries once (and he wrote about that, too — I think the word “piggy” was used), so hey, monstrous it is.

​I am gentler with myself than old enemies have been, so I lovingly delved into some shadow work recently — looking at rejected traits and how we project them onto others — and came to the conclusion that my shadow wants a baby. Which is funny, because most people’s regular ego/consciousness (I should look up what this is called) is the part that wants the baby. But for me, wanting a child is a rejected trait. I’ve decided I’d rather create art, hold onto my hard-won autonomy, and save having kids for another life, while maybe eventually teaching some people writing and letting my maternal energy go there.

The idea with shadow work is to start by seeing where you get mad or what triggers you in others and then trace what is mirrored there in your own rejected traits. I noticed I was getting irritated with some children being around and yes, I felt guilty about it. I was getting annoyed at a baby crawling across the floor of my doctor’s office to go bang on a water fountain. My inner huffy Muffy came up, wondering, how could this parent just let the kid crawl up so close to that door that could open at anytime? And then I felt the instant flush of shame for not first being compassionate. But this gave me a lot of goodies to chew on in shadow work. Like, oh, my shadow wants to take up space. My shadow wants to literally create more of my DNA through additional humans in the world because this is a miracle and people seem to do it like it’s nothin’ and it has been a huge question my whole life that I’ve just sort of sublimated for other things. And the ability to “just do that” is a rejected trait in myself.

I also notice how little bandwidth some peeps with young children have (because: young children! Of course! It is and should be the main focus of one’s life when that’s what one’s got going on!). And how they can go large time periods without communicating with friends because they are in the shit most of the time. But since I’m in my own bubble and not in the shit, I explored how my shadow wishes it could go weeks without even giving an extra thought to what someone outside of my sphere might be needing/thinking/wanting. I think too much, perhaps, about how others are feeling, how my communication might be affecting them, and one of my rejected traits is not worrying at all, not having guilt, and just letting ‘er rip, whatever “‘er” might be — kids, going incommunicado, going commando, going Lando Calrissian, what have you.

And now is the paragraph where I let you know that my true heart — my conscious, regular, this side of the consciousness situation (as opposed to The Upside-down) — wants my people to create and nurture their families and live their familial dreams. I have compassion for my friends and for the people with children I see out in the world. It’s the hardest job and the most miraculous. And my shadow wants it. But I don’t. 

So I’m just going to go on letting my shadow want a baby and checking in with myself. And this shadow work is something else. Hey, it’s nearly biblical — it’s like quite clearly taking the log out of your own eye before pointing out the speck in someone else’s. Deal with your rejected traits before you poke at the thing in someone else that is really your rejected trait your shadow wants to express. And then when you start to integrate it, it’s like a whole new you. Or at least a whole you. Even better. Which is really what we want. Whether or not we’re having kids.

​So here’s to wholeness and listening to the shadow. Hey, it’s an improvement over not listening and then, say, snapping out on an innocent kid at the doctor’s office. Not that I’d ever do that. I don’t think. Thank god for therapy. And for not being a psychopath. 

Thank god I’m not a psycho
Don’t kill stuff and think it’s right, so
I’ll keep going my way
And giving my shadow space to say:
“I want a baby”
“I want to scream”
Because it gives big-me
Space to dream
This is getting pretty cheesy
How about
​I get played out
By “Bottles Up” by Jeezy

​My shadow definitely wants to pop bottles and live the pinky ring/mini chopper/teleprompter lifestyle. Here's me gently rocking out (with a cold) to Jeezy:

Oh, hello, old familiar feeling. Like that old boyfriend who always chewed cinnamon Trident and the second I’d get into his orbit again (a few more times than I’d like to admit) I’d be like, “Oh, this again? OK, guess I’ll go with it.” 

IThat was twenty years ago, but today I’m talking about the feeling of being in limbo.​ It had been a while since I’d drifted upon its oddly fuzzy shores where there’s not a damn thing to do. BUT — there is also ANYTHING to do. Anything you want.

I made a concerted effort some years ago to change my life. No bigs, right? One of the things that helped the most was being in inadvertent limbo. We were having our bathroom remodeled and the contractor fucked up so we were stuck out of our house for two months one summer. I was livid. But I also was pushed into limbo, literal dislodgment, and that ended up dislodging me from being stuck. I started playing music again and it was the veritable beginning to getting creative again, following my inner star. I should write that contractor a thank you note. Well, not so fast — he also totally fucked up our drain installation, which we found out when it broke several years later and had to get replaced for $$$$.

Anyway! Less-than-attentive and disorganized contractor notwithstanding (also it was my fault for hiring a bar buddy to redo part of my house — I know, I know), being in limbo is so useful if you let yourself go and float there. It’s like hotel time. During hotel time I always get so much done. I reedited half my book in the mornings on vacation in Seattle in October. 

One of my close friends was dislodged recently for a week (and not sure when she would get back into her house) due to some housework that would cause fumes that would be no good for her baby. And she got so much done! Of course she is naturally a get-up-and-go-er, but I loved seeing how excited she was in the midst of the dislodgment. 

So why am I feeling bad about limbo today? Why do I find myself needing to majorly solidify plans, manipulate everything into perfect symmetry on my desk, fridge, face, hair, husband? Probably because I’m ready for the next steps. I’ve laid the groundwork. Let’s go. But also I have laid the groundwork and now I can relax. Sort of. Choosing between relaxing and cleaning/fixing everything is funny. Hey, all my linens are clean as a whistle and I’ve WD-40d the front door and oh, hey, do I hear a squeak somewhere…?

If I let myself ease into it, limbo is not a bad place to be. I love the “and” between things. The liminal space, as it's called. This is why, when I relax and look around me, I actually enjoy airports — it’s the place between places. Everyone is off to somewhere else. No one lives there. There is a freshness to this energy (even if airports are also the place where you get stuck, etc.). If we detach from our traditional ideas about airports and the in-between we might find some value there. Should I go sit at the airport? Nah, that probably won’t make me less antsy.

So, while in limbo, I like to take the creative bull by the horns. This past week I’ve organized two albums’ worth of songs I recorded over the last few years. That’s something.
I’d like to switch gears for a second, however, because my husband just came in and interrupted me while I was writing and now I have totally lost my train of thought. Usually I can swim back down but today I am tired due to being weak from some food poisoning a couple nights ago. This is my own bad. I keep making the mistake of wherever I am putting my desk out in the open. Like, why do I do this? Resistance? I’m so mad at myself. 

Also: PMS.

And now I am in even more limbo because I can’t even finish this piece in a way that makes sense or is satisfying. And I have a headache. Sucks. 

​I guess just ending it thusly makes as much sense as anything else. Limbo! 

I’m going to walk away from this post and come back in a few days.

“The X factor in all of this is a degree of perseverance that you must have. You’ve got to pursue,” Tom Hanks says.

Linda Sivertsen and Danielle LaPorte recently interviewed Tom Hanks for my favorite podcast, the Beautiful Writers Podcast, to discuss his new book, Uncommon Type: Some Stories. The clacking of his vintage typewriter is music to my ears, as are the goodies he shares on perseverance:

There are people out there “that are wicked talented and creative but they’re waiting for permission to do it or they’re waiting to be invited into the process. They’re waiting to be asked or they’re waiting to be discovered. And that’s not the way it works. You have to pursue twenty-four hours. You’ve always got to be thinking of it, you’ve always got to be thinking of a story, you’ve always gotta be thinking of creating your own outlet for the stuff that is inside you. And it doesn’t matter if it goes anywhere. You know, it’s funny, my daughter, who is a screenwriter, she stumbled upon this reality...if she works really hard and makes it as great as she could possibly make it, it doesn’t actually have to become a movie for her to benefit from the work that she’s done — she’s gotta get paid, you know, that’s nice — but just completing it from the beginning to the end is a reward in and of itself that gives her all the satisfaction in the world.”

Well, I sure needed to hear that. Thanks, Hanks. And it reminded me I had written a thang about sweet Hanks a few years ago that I’ll share here.

Ah, Tom. This week I give thanks for you. And writing, the Beautiful Writers Podcast, the Beautiful Writers Group and all of my beautiful fellow writers in it, my husband, my cat, my family, my sweet friends, art, beauty, music, love, drag, the truth, and the click-clack of the keyboard under my fingers. Yes, holidays can be a whole lot of bullshit, but being grateful and making a note of it fills me with more delight than nibbling tiny corn at the Rainbow Room.

Many of us struggle with the idea that we’re adding to the noise when we share our thoughts and feelings about the state of the world. We often pull back because we feel there are more qualified people to say what we think needs to be said. And while there are people more qualified in some ways to do some of the things, we are the only ones who can say it exactly as we can say it. And that makes us super qualified to say a lot of the things.

And also, the people who don’t care about whether they’re qualified at all are sure out there spouting it out. Our considered, measured and passionate ideas are much needed by some. If nothing else than as a reminder that our atmosphere is not completely made up of the hot air of ignorant humans. 

You’ve heard it a million times by now, right? The way you say your truth is the exact way someone out there needs to hear it. (Marie Forleo just said it today on the current episode of MarieTV.)

I’ve got a major gripe with the old refrain: “It’s been done.” This is something said by humorless people who are afraid to create anything. Because beneath the stinging surface it sure does let one off the hook. If it’s all been done we can just roll around in the mud of our own despondency. Doesn’t that sound pleasant? When I get a butterfly in my stomach because someone says “it’s been done” I remind myself: hey, so many people have had eyes before me, but I’m sure glad I have eyes, too, regardless of how derivative that might seem. Boom. Done.

So we kind of have to employ our inner bitch to get through some of this. Yes, there is a lot of noise, yes a lot of things have been done, but I’m going to trust myself and my desire to create more than I’m going to listen to those disembodied voices (most in my own head, by the way) saying I’m unworthy, why bother, there’s already too much noise. 

Here I am in this point in time. Here you are in this point in time. Here we all are now. Oh, Michael Hutchence — popping into my head with the lyrics to INXS’ “Need You Tonight”: “All you got is this moment / Twenty-first century’s yesterday / You can care all you want / Everybody does, yeah, that's OK.”

While I’m not going to ask you to slide over here and give me a moment, and I’m not sure if your moves are “so raw,” but I do have to let you know, you’re one of my kind. And if there is something about you that makes me sweat it is that you are out there in the world doing it. Or in your cave doing it (that’s where I like to do it). Keep at it.

Recently I fell in love with Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile’s joint album, Lotta Sea Lice. The title alone should tell you they’re not taking themselves too seriously. They recorded the album in eight days spread over fifteen months while they had enough time to be in the same place at once (Kurt's from Philly, Courtney's from Melbourne and they both tour extensively). It is precisely that they gave themselves room to breathe on this album and did not force perfection before creating it that is what’s so great about it. It is a breath of fresh, sometimes-goofy air and tender, with an expected vein of blue mold running through side B: The goofiest song on the album is called “Blue Cheese,” which Kurt Vile wrote most of when he was a teenager.

“BLUE CHEESE!” an audience member yells when we’re watching Courtney and Kurt play at The Moore Theater in Seattle (with The Sea Lice, an all-star band including Sleater-Kinney and Wild Flag’s Janet Weiss on drums).

“Alright,” Kurt says. “Let’s get this over with.”

I so feel his pain. In the sense of, like, I made this thing, it’s only OK, but it’s out in the world now. But there is something so charming and free about the song, because it was perhaps flippantly written, that it allows all of us listening to let out a big sigh. Let our shoulders drop. Because for a few minutes we’re not scribbling out ways to be better or more worthy in our heads or erecting justifications for making any noise at all in the world. It is of value. The fact that we’re even considering whether what we have to say is of value at all, in my opinion, proves it is. Not that we have to prove it. But hey, welcome to my spiral of brain activity. I’m glad I’ve got one, whether or not it’s obsessing (which has, oh, my baby, been done and done and done and done and done).

A moment of respite from our brain machinations during the wildly goofy "Blue Cheese" makes the song something pretty special, however much Kurt, the creator of it, feels otherwise. You know -- it's a metaphor for what we're talking about here. (Audience breathes sigh of relief thanks to the quirky singularity of a song while artist berates self for said song being an imperfect creation.)

Also, how much do I love this line (from their song “Continental Breakfast”): “I walk like a bruised ego along shorefront property un-owned to me / But I'm feelin' inferior on the interior don't ya see.”

I think that ties it up pretty nicely. See, they are literally talking about feeling small. I feel like that’s always a good place to start. If you’re afraid of making noise, write about that to start. I promise you this gal right here (and so many artists we love) will be able to relate big time.

Here's the official video for one of the singles off Lotta Sea Lice. And, like Courtney, I do cherish our intercontinental friendships and would love to talk it over continental breakfast with you. "Somewhere on this sphere, around here."

(By the way: "Kurt and Courtney have partnered with Plus 1 so that $1 from every ticket goes to support the ACLU and their work defending and protecting our individual rights and liberties." Daw, I love these guys!)

My niece’s wedding hadn’t even started and I was tearing up. Because look at my sweet father’s back-of-the-head! So much vulnerability there. Yes, all the clichés are true about him getting older and having Alzheimer’s: he’s smaller, he seems older when I see him every few months, will what’s going on in that head remember me next time? He also kind of leans to the side these days and looks at his hands. He rarely initiates conversation, whereas he used to be the first one spouting about politics or whoever in our family was persona-non-grata at any given time.

He cried while he sang me “Happy Birthday” this year.

Luckily it was such a relief to move to a softer place with him that I let a lot of that old stuff go. Writing a book about a lot of it has probably been helpful, too. Writing heals, what up.

It was looking at the above photo that started the second wave of waterworks (the day of the shooting in Las Vegas). Earlier in the day I had read a post from The Nelson Treehouse Family (Treehouse Masters is one of my favorite shows ever) in which they wrote, “In times as dark as these, it can be difficult to keep hope alive. For this, we look to the trees as a reminder that resiliency and strength can be found if we continue to reach for the light.” Their tenderness helped me move into my tenderness.

I went to a beautiful Yoga Nidra workshop that night (dragged my feet, too, because I was, as my old roommate Shannon used to say, in my hidey-hole). But I showed up and the teacher, Caitlin Lanier, invited us to breathe, relax, settle our bodies into the earth, and go to a place that is pure consciousness. It felt so chill (except when my stomach gurgled and my sweet body threatened to fart, but luckily I grew up Catholic so my sphincter only allows farts out in public if I’ve just had a colonoscopy. Side note: I really appreciated when I had my colonoscopy last year that they had a white noise machine in the recovery room — I would have liked to have known this before when I was stressing that I’d be creating a whole bunch of brown noise in front of a ton of people in a gallery-quiet room). 

I got home from my Yoga Nidra class and while casually scrolling through Instagram saw someone had liked the photo I took of the back of my dad’s head. So I looked at it again, zoomed in to take in the gentle curve of his ear, and then cried again. 

The next morning before I woke up I had a nightmare that there was a shooting in the supermarket I was in. The supermarket was having a party and everyone had wine. I was hemming and hawing about whether to drink (as I often do, post-cancer, because the docs only want you to have three drinks a week) and my sister Karen was like, “Just get yourself a bottle of wine.” I went looking but they had only recently restocked the rosé and it was room temperature. So I found this other “reserve” section, that some markets have. A guy I knew from high school was in there. He is developmentally disabled and I instantly hoped I had never been an asshole to him back then. In my dream he was struggling with his jacket, so I went to help him. He did not want my help. It must have been because I was an asshole, I thought. Even in my dreams I can’t leave myself alone. 

I found a bottle of satisfactorily chilled white wine and started toward the register as I caught in my peripheral vision two guys with guns. Oh shit. As fast as I could I climbed down the two carpeted stairs in front of me and tried to squeeze under a display shelf as the sound of a machine gun bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-banged so close to me. I knew they were too close for me to get away. But at that moment I also remembered I was dreaming and rolled my eyes back in my head to wake up (that is my patented wake-up technique — feel free to use it).

All of this is connected through vulnerability. I could tie this all up and say hey, we’ll still be vulnerable because there is strength in that. This guy who feel so powerless (assuming I know anything about perpetrators) and shoots out two windows in his fancy-ass hotel room and then kills lots of people is the coward. Obviously. Someone wrote about how this is clearly white privilege. I think it does illustrate an extreme example of the anger and fear a person who has normally been “in power” feels when his seat of said power is being threatened. We’ll know more in the coming days and months. Even if we don’t want to. There is no sense-making in the senseless. 

Speaking of — I also woke up thinking about how people say “everything happens for a reason” and how irritating that is when you’re witnessing a massacre, or hurricanes destroying entire islands, or Tom Petty’s daughter raging back at Rolling Stone for reporting her father dead before he was. Reason? What’s the reason? There is a reason WHY these things happened, like this guy is horrible and mad and our gun laws suck, we’ve been destroying the environment and climate change seems to be responsible for super storms, bad reporting. But the idea that everything that happens is being held up by magical birds like Snow White’s bathrobe is just another way not to feel the depth of what’s happening. Sure, we can make meaning later, and find the picture that the broken pieces make, but I don’t believe that all the pieces were placed here by God into a box emblazoned with a Thomas Kincaid painting we get to see if we just look hard enough and place everything together as its been intended by God’s golden jigsaw. 

People get sick. Massacres happen. Our gun laws suck. We’re destroying the planet. Our president doesn’t care about anything but money. Major religions have been letting us down for centuries and the minor ones are often cults. 

When my therapist’s husband died she said someone told her, “Well, it’s for the best. He’s in a better place.” He had been killed in a car accident. They had two young sons. “For the best”? Are you fucking kidding me? So, you can believe things are “for the best” and “everything happens for a reason,” but please try to do better when you comfort your people going through said things. Listen. 

“We’re here to learn” isn’t something I’d say to someone who’s just lost her husband either. But at least thinking that way speaks of a bit more agency and suggests we have to do something. Sing for our enlightenment supper. Of course then when you pick through those feelings your fingers start pulling up on chunks of emotional cement (in my opinion). Because it all starts to feel really hopeless. 

“More guns!” “All lives matter!” “People just need to treat each other better. ALL people.” “Fuck the planet.” “Get over it.” And how about if we didn’t hold our heart like a fist? 

We can look to Australia for how after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre the government restricted the availability of guns and then the number of gun-related homicides and suicides dropped by 59-65%. So…we can look to that. But it doesn’t feel like anything is going to happen. 

So, like, in Las Vegas, where were the good guys with the guns that gun enthusiasts say will protect schools and the like? If good guys with guns prevent bad guys with guns from shooting everyone, where were they? 

As Caleb Keeter from the Josh Abbott Band (who were playing at the Route 91 Harvest festival that day) says, “I’ve been a proponent of the 2nd Amendment my entire life. Until the events of last night. I cannot express how wrong I was. We actually have members of our crew with CHL licenses, and legal firearms on the bus. They were useless.”

One country musician changing his mind on gun control per 58 people dying is not a sustainable ratio. It’s a start. Maybe he will touch more people and they will wake up to the idea that the last thing we want is a machine gun to kill deer, etc. Clear shots = better meat. So, why does the average (or deranged) citizen need access to these weapons of war?

I mean, I don’t have access to nuclear weapons and I’d be in big trouble if I did. The average citizen isn’t supposed to make bombs. Why? Bombs do less damage than an automatic weapon! Oh, right. Money. Smith & Wesson. The NRA. Bombs don’t make anybody any money. 

And yet we are so terrified of legalizing marijuana! If we care so much about money (that “if” is used really loosely) we should be head over heels for legalizing marijuana. This country could make so much money! But of course guns keep us scared, whereas marijuana might make you a little paranoid (and usually of cops or the government). If we’re scared, we’re pacified. Not to start sounding like a conspiracy theorist, but if the the theory fits…

Look, I’m just wildly speculating now. This whole thing started out about vulnerability. About my father’s head. I wrote all this and then I started listening to the Wu Tang Clan (because I originally named this post “Protect Ya Neck.”). I tried to figure out how I could weave in Wu Tang with all this and it just started making me think about the prison industrial complex and legal slavery. And that I can’t make sense of it all. So I’ll ask some questions instead.

We need intersectional feminism, but how? We need to let go of our white privilege, but how? We need to improve our gun laws, but how? We need to treat the environment better, but how? We need cops to stop killing black people for no reason, but how? We need to have a safe place to be vulnerable, but how? We need to totally reset our whole prison situation, but how? 

I guess since I can’t figure it out right now I’m not supposed to. Again — trying to make sense of the senseless. I’ll gather my people to my bosom. I’ll protect the necks and heads of those I love as much as I can as well as my own. I’ll protect the heads and necks of my fellow people as much as I can — those I don’t know yet. I’ll boom out my feelings when I can. I’ll put my nose to my inner wrist and feel its softness and smell the oil-blend I rolled on earlier my sister sent me. I’ll remember I exist.

When I get super anxious sometimes it’s best to get super micro and/or super macro in my perspective. The other day I got really big picture on my shit and just remembered the simple fact that we exist. Here, now (oh shit now I have Jesus Jones in my head). But yes. We exist. I exist. I exist. That is the reality. And that even though we can be major piece of shit dingleberry assholes who kill and destroy and lie and fuck up (I’m not making a great case for our existence) we DO EXIST. It is the thrust of the life-force that is strong. David Sedaris wrote a piece about trying to drown a mouse and how hard it was because the body’s will is to survive. It’s the mind that makes us want to die. But the body’s reality is existence. Of course until it dies, yeah, yeah, I could go down an entire other anxiety hole there. BUT my point is — we WILL gasp for air if its taken away. We exist. Somehow this is comforting to me during hard times. 

I like to think of myself out in the cosmos, amongst the stars, existing. Maybe because out in the stars that’s all there is. We haven’t fucked it up yet. We’ll figure out how, eventually, I’m sure. But a lot of us will really care about not fucking it up, too. That’s something, right? For now, however, I’ll exist here on earth and when I can, naively hope for the best. At least I’m not always preparing for the worst (like I used to), for my own sanity, even if it could be my own privilege that allows me some respite. But that is what I want for all of us. The privilege of life — which some people don’t understand doesn’t seem like privilege because we simply exist. But to people whose lives are threatened on the regular (and come from generations whose lives have been threatened on the regular) just living a simple, safe life seems like a right they’ve never been afforded. 

I just had a thought — if your friend was hurting really bad about something — say their child was just killed, you wouldn’t be like, “ALL people whose children were recently killed are sad.” If your sister broke her leg you wouldn’t be like, “Oh, but I have a hangnail, and that hurts, too.” Or maybe you would. If you were an asshole. So — how about don’t be an asshole. Look in the face (or the back of the head) of your fellow humans and try to hear their experience. I know it’s hard and I know it hurts, which is why it’s way easier to say all things happen for a reason, all lives matter, etc. Why do we buy this when it’s said by Spiderman’s Uncle Ben (or John Cumming or the 1793 French National Convention), but not in our real lives: “With great power comes great responsibility”? Let’s just try to be a little more responsible. I’m trying and failing a lot of the time. But sometimes in the moment deciding not to hold our hearts like fists is the best we can do — and maybe that’s good enough because it allows us to really see each other.