It's Been a While

since I could hold my head, er, blog up high

If you don’t get the Staind¹ reference, I can’t help you young ones. Weirdly whatever Staind was selling us in the early aughts kind of feels right for this gray, hellish, fascist landscape in which we currently find ourselves.

Everything is really hard. Everything has always been really hard, as long as I can remember. I don’t want to talk about that, but I don’t really know what else to talk about either. The truth is that I feel lost in the mayhem, or maybe I’ve felt a bit lost for a while and now the whir whir whir whir of the chaos and cruelty that that man, nay, that thug, nay, that fucking devil and his techno-fascist skinsuit-wearing-can’t-pass-for-human-so-they-bought-the-world-instead squad of overlords² have unleashed has me feeling wildly unmoored.

There is, with understandable reason, a lot of “what can one do?” flying about on the interwebs right now—both, I think, as it relates to fighting authoritarianism and also staying sane while doing so. Both are on my mind, but I feel I have a better grasp on the former than the latter. Leisure and joy come less naturally to me than fighting and fretting.

A dear human I adore who works at the bookshop³ is, like so many of the bright, talented young people with whom I’m lucky to be in community, trying on lots of hats to see what fits for her in this season of life. A few days ago, she asked me what my creative “thing” is and I hate to say it—I felt stumped (see above). My answer was, half jokingly (but actually entirely truthfully), that I’ve been really into staring into the void for long (LONG) periods of time. Also known as paralysis, disassociation, avoidance. And I don’t hate it. But it’s no way to live a life.

It’s actually kind of funny because I had this fancy, undated planner sitting around for something like four years that I was saving for the right time™️⁴ and figured, “Tr**p 2.0, seems like a great time to do this thing!” Flash forward to therapy days later where I was telling my therapist for something like the 50th time what a failure I am because I can’t maintain a routine, then her reminding me that I’m a rhythm, not a routine, person and encouraging me to throw the planner in the trash. You know what? I did throw that planner in the trash, and it felt good. As God as my witness, I’ll never try planners again.

What made me think of planners was that I think one of my “things,” or one of my could-be things, is writing. It’s incredibly therapeutic for me, but I’m typically only drawn to the page when I am very mad or filled-to-overflowing with grief. I think the best writers are routine people, not rhythm people.⁵ I also feel like when I write just to write, say about the mundanities of life, it’s just not very interesting or good. And we all know that everything has to be the best ever all the time! I NEED YOUR VALIDATION.

I also desire to give the reader something: solace, encouragement, a chuckle. It’s a little performative, you know? I can’t decide if that takes the fun out of it or not. A big question: do we need things that are just for ourselves? Or are all things better, more meaningful and real, if they are shared and enjoyed in community?

I messaged my pal Asha Marie about this: she’s another heart-on-the-sleeve Virgo dreamer fighter baby and I value her thoughts on all things deeply. She also always gasses me up which I need and appreciate. I told her I don’t think I have a “thing” and she gave me a gift:

It’s a little tiny bit sad, right? But that’s definitely what it looks like to be seen by somebody. I do think ^^^^’s my thing. I’m an ideas guy. I’m a builder. A troubleshooter. A creative problem solver. A dreamer. A carer. A shelter provider in the figurative sense. I’m not sure I like it, which is something I need to suss out. Because it is, at times, really burdensome. I think it necessarily requires a lot of time staring into the void and sorting things out. When I’m in the thick of it, though, and the connections are connecting and the ideas are playing out like little real world Lego sets and there’s momentum and community expands and power builds: people, what else is there?!

Sure, there’s cats and sun making snow sparkle and my friend JP’s smile. There’s texts from my husband and amazing books (like Martyr!), hugs from my BFF Lesley and hour-long chats with my BFF Shelby. There’s Torli Bush’s poems and my Morgantown friends who make the earth move for each other and this community. There’s my bookshop, that’s really something else altogether. They’re all pretty good, too. ❤️

Monkey Wrench Books (she’s a cutie and she hates Nazis)

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2. minions? Who owns who? I honestly can’t tell.

3. Oh yea, I own a bookshop now.

4. Hi, neurodivergent/Virgo/former gifted kid friends—xo

5. This is mostly vibes, but I feel like anytime I read about a writer, they’re talking about their dope ass routine and I’m like it could never be me, dog.