of few times I have been through Tyler, TX and what I heard of it, I'd never quite expected to see this type of art there.
although I imagine it is intended somehow as a response to the former activities of the former train/cotton deport to which these are adjacent.
click for larger. worth it.
Some short time ago, Derrick Chauvin was found guilty on 3 counts for the murder of George Floyd.
Though noone has, I know that there is someone somewhere in the world who would ask if this makes me happy.
I am not George Floyd's family.
I am not one of his friends that was left behind by his death.
I didn't know him personally.
This verdict does not change the factuality of his death.
I cannot take joy in the circumstance of death.
I am not in the place to be able to take joy in conviction of the enactor of George Floyd's death - that is for those felt the shock of his loss, who feel the pain of his absence, those to whom he belonged and belongs.
I...
I will be glad for something that will take decades to see...actual change in this society from one based in actual human dignity rather than human material value.
I am...glad...
..that the people of Minneapolis and Houston and (wherever) were not given reason to protest their pain tonight.
I am sitting here thinking about how often I ask people "did you like" rather than "what did you think" or "how was it".
Those are all different things,
broadly or subtlely..
or admittance notwithstanding.
If I am a person that asks one instead of the other,
when did I become that person,
or am I what I would have been regardless?
Was I always this way, asking that question?
(just now, when typing that last sentence, I typed "also" instead of always, and left it that way and didn't realize what I'd done until I looked back up at it. More, more mistakes like that, that I don't realize seem to happen.)
i feel like I should type leave more here. but nothing quite feels right.
(write)
(pun)
<flop>
random: do dogs really understand each other more than they do humans, or the humans with which they've been raised, or who/whatever they have socialized to? Is there such a thing as "dog language", or is dog communication simply determined by the individual animal?
insert shrug.
I just walked through the family room and the episode of The Love Boat featuring the Pointer Sisters was playing.
I think I'm going to find a way to watch the whole thing, then come back here and have a thought on it.
Right now, there's something in my head about how something used to look so different compared to the moving pictures that came 40 years before it looks so different 40 years after it.
The Pointer Sisters, if you aren't aware, are/were/futuretense awesome.
or
A Psalm for the Mis-led.
Love is not responsibility. Love is love. Take responsibility for your actions. Take responsibility for the care of you children. Love them because they need it to grow. So do you.
Deceit does not cultivate love. Any lie sown, even for the sake of a loved one, must be undone. Otherwise it will become a cancer. Lying for a loved one is not loving them. It is creating a false pretense. It will come to bear. All lies do. Lie hinders growth of the individual and of the relationship. The foundation of such is worse than weak...it is false. A weak foundation can be made strong. A false foundation cannot be made into anything - there is nothing there to build on, to make strong.
Don't hide your weakness from your children. Weakness is not a sin. They need to see you persevere so they know how.
Be honest about your shortcomings. Be self-forgiving. Be long-suffering of other's shortcomings. Be encouraging of their self-forgiveness. This is how to teach forgiveness to them. This is how to teach love. This is how to love.
Love must accompany chastisement. There is no "I love you, but..". There can be "I love you and". Teach your children responsibility for their actions. Do no take out your embarrassment on them. They are not a failure. You are not a failure. You will make mistakes. They will make mistakes. A mistake is a tool for learning.
No healing is possible without the desire to heal.
Do not run from pain. Do not run from discomfort. If you are unwilling to feel pain, you cannot feel love. One must be receptive....be willing to accept feeling, whatever it is.
If you cannot feel pain, you cannot feel love....you cannot feel.
Emotion is the realm of the spirit. The "spirit" is the emotional self. Spirituality is dealing with the emotional self. Religion is a set of rules, ideas, philosophy. We all have emotion, we do not all share religion. Tend to the care of your spirit. Be attentive to the spirit of those you love. Be open to ways of tending to the care of all of your spirits.
Document your pain; let it pass. Remember what caused you pain as a child. There will come a time when you need it to relate to new children. This way you can heal generationally.
Document you joy; let it pass. Remember what brought you joy as a child....give it to children. They need it to grow.
Allow your children to stumble. Allow them to see you stumble. Help them when they stumble, so they see that it is possible to get back up. Once they see they can get back up, let them. Stay close in case they need a reminder. Use them as a reminder that you can get back up. This way we can heal generationally.
Lead by example, not by expectations - lead TO and example, if you cannot BE an example. Let your children see your willingness to learn from someone else. This is not weakness. Humility is not weakness. What is it to say, "that child is not what I raised them to be", if you were not what you raised them to be, or you did not give them such an example? Give them the best you can. They will be what they will be.
Do not have children you are not willing to let go. The greatness of the sacrifice in having a child is not the time and effort and material...it is in knowing they will one day go away. You are growing, shaping, nurturing this entity for the sake of it going away. The child is like a work of art, it contains so much of you, your sweat, your blood. Yet, for it to be what it is intended to be, you have to set it out for the world and let it be whatever it is going to be.
Forgive those who have hurt you. Forgive them so that you can love. Forgive them so that you can truly learn from your experiences...understand why they hurt you, that they hurt you....to keep you from passing on that hurt.
Feel you heartbeat. Feel your ribcage expand. Allow you torso to move as much as it needs to. Your diapragm has a job, do not put yourself in its way. Allow your body to lengthen to make space for your breath. Allow the tension in your hands to melt into the air.
Allow the tension in you neck to melt into the air.
Allow the tension in your stomach to melt into the air.
Allow the tension in your legs to melt into the air.
Allow the tension in your mind to melt into the air.
The heart is the muscle with the most to do. Be gentle.
The heart bears the burden of your pain. Be gentle.
Love is a decision. Be brave.
Amen.
and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyze every possible obstacle and begin nothing.
Great things are achieved by great embracing dangers.
hey, look. THE EXPANSE season 5 ep 2 (by way of Xerxes?) just laid out the kind of military philosophy that someone who gets all of their information from social media might take out of context and use for a useful approach to intercontinental engagement strategy.
In roughly the past month,
two members of my family have passed away.
One, after a years-long chronic health problems.
The other more recent (so far as I am aware)
One I was prepared for, the other not as much.
These were not Covid-19 deaths.
(Oh, I haven't told you about getting to experience to the modern American sociopolitical unrest and worldwide health crisis in the same year?)
That said...
I am tired of it. I am tired from it. I was tempted to say embarrassed but that's not it.
I have felt a tinge of cowardice that I did not...could not...was not in the position to take the.. a leadership role..in going to these funerals and being in the vicinity physically for bereaved family members....
And this is not to make some declaration about how one should feel.
This is not to say that I don't think the decision to remain in place is correct.
This is just to say how it felt...express the emotion.
To say that I am tired. To say how disappointed I am...that lives were not able to be celebrated the way they should be.
that's all. i think.
I am glad my uncle is no more pain. I feel like my aunt should have made it to 90+.
i don't know.
I really wish I had something concise, coherent and poetic to say about it. I don't.
Last night I tried to finish watching a film that I started but stopped several times out of either flagging momentary interest or lack of regard for the attempt (one actor portraying multiple identical siblings).
I tried again last night (this morning) and got as far as a child twin being traumatically injured.
(broken finger tip hanging by soft tissue)
at that point I elected to stop watching.
(and even coming up with a description just now churned some physiological response)
Later I tried to watch again and, when a butcher knife came out because all of the siblings had to remain identical, I gave up for good...and had the strongest physical reaction of the evening - butterflyquesiness.
Interesting that the worst came from an idea, not the actual gore.
then. today.
I went outside. Walker to the end of the driveway, I noticed something in the street. That something ended up being a cat killed by a vehicle.
I thought of calling Animal Control or the city to come dispose of the remains, but I decided to take it upon myself. My mother had left and I wanted it to be gone before she noticed.
So, I dug a hole, put on a disposable glove, removed the cat. It had happened very recently. There appeared to be no signs of other animals scavenging. It must have happened during the day because no other vehicle appeared to strike it.
And while I felt something, it didn't really compare to what I felt watching the movie. I felt bad for the cat (this is the second time I have buried a young, black feline near our house). I felt revolted at the movie.
I don't know if I could have picked it up if I had seen it happen...
as stated elsewhere, something has changed. I never used to have such strong reactions...or maybe I just spent too much time avoiding disturbing things...but gore in films definitely never affected my this much before.
maybe it's my biological clock.
(shrug)
man-with-child-that-does-not-look-like-me wearing a mask
and clothes that would seem to indicate his rurality
(even among this general rurality)
notice the presence of the child, then note that man seems to be gently* urging child's carefulness and noting it's dueness to seeing my motorcycle
man's....audacity?....lack of hesitance to have boy come walk over to the bike....even encouraging leading it
(or maybe he just wanted to look to)
me asking if child wants to sit/if it is ok for him to sit on
guiding child around to "correct" side
(non-hot-exhaust side)
man's again gentle urging for him to heed instruction, take help up
child's heeding my instruction/joy at starting motor/drawn-in-lipped-O-face at revving
me sensing time to go/seeing man's gentle nudge to get off
man's instruction to say "thank you
man's introduction of sexualization/genderization
"you'll be able to get lots of twinkies with one of those"
my understanding on second take and hesitant agreement
(well, they have been known to attract people...although the people most attracted by it seem to be, in order: boychildren, dogs, children, menfolk)
child saying as they walk away, "I made a new friend today"
the slight halt, softly disingenuous-seeming affirmative response of man to that.
not wanting to make a point out of the experience in this "climate of division".
thinking about how, recently, I notice how much I have shifted from that child who could befriend anyone.
how many of childhood friends could not/would not be now.
so, you know,
don't wait.
I have become disappointed, dismayed, depressed, d-etc. at all the things I had determined to do this summer/year that I intended to do that the COVID incursion has incurzzzed upon...
Even to the point of coming up with new! things that I hadn't thought of to intend to do this year that I feel like I can't do because (#stayhomeyafeckers!!).
Which to somebodysomewhere is going to start looking like a familiar successful excuse acquisition.
ain't I just useless?
so, you know,
don't wait.
Though I remember why I didn't - the feeling of inability, indecision and wariness from grad school,
but I do wish that I had spent the 00's acquiring certificates..or merely educational experience.
That I has allowed myself to by a novice at things and just learn about them.
Rather than feel like I had a degree and had to "do something with it".
Always be a student....no matter how many pieces of paper you have.
And do not force the necessity of acquiring pieces of paper upon yourself.
Learn a little bit. Learn over a long period of time. Learn as much is pleasing.
Learn to learn it's ok to come back to a thing you FINALLY learned the point of that someone was trying to teach you that time in that class in that place....
OTHERNEWS:
if you have no sickle cells genes, you won't get sickle cell.
if you have two sickle cell genes, you will get sickle cell.
if you have one of each, you will have a natural resistance to malaria, because malaria don't like sickle cells.
(courtesy: HUMAN NATURE)
(sigh)
I feel bad,
that, as a person who regularly states the importance of facts and being an informed participant,
that I am utterly unable to watch the presidential debate.
wait - did I not tell you that, because Barack Obama gave up on the push for the culture shift in political discourse away from the assignment of the tribal labels of "Conservative" and "Liberal" (at that point, still secondary to "Rep" and "Dem") assigned by Newt, Rush and the Pennsylvania Avenue NeoCon Krew and, years later, the least qualified least fit human being in...perhaps, all political history was elected (by the electoral college, despite a clear popular vote defeat) as president?
oh. well. I'm sorry. Yeah... And he didn't even hide that he is a ridiculous sycophant. He didn't try to make himself better to make an actual attempt to do a job that he obviously didn't want (or expect to have to) do.
so. like I was saying -
I feel like I SHOULD watch the debate in order to be able to talk constructively about it.
which seems like a concept rife with - irony is simply not a big enough word...
I tried. I did. I will try to read a transcript instead.
I guess I will read up on the other items on the ballot now.
"Ma'am, can I go to the library? I promise I'll go straight there and study...I just can't take any more of THIS."
so, I am fragile, right?
Snowflakey?
(......)
I'm still a dope fiend."
ev ree bah dees awl weiz chrai eeng tu sel mee sohm theeng
it hurts.
it literally HURTS.
right here inside this body.
in the place where the breath comes down that moves the blood.
IT LITERALLY PHYSICALLY HURTS
to have someone tell you that they can "talk to anybody"
and pose as though they are listening to you
and act as though they want to know what you have to say....
and with the very same breathe
tell you that "nobody can change their mind"....
and tell you that they don't judge
and then set about delineating the sins of the world -
and halt themselves long enough to tell you that
they "don't know what you do or think" -
then immediately return to telling you what they know you do
and how you think.....
and you keep letting it happen.
(breath)
(breath)
(lump)
(throat)
(grit)
(hurts).
IT HURTS
I am become increasingly anxious of living in a house with old folke and interacting daily with a possibly-Covid-positive world.
Also, people in their 20s are assholes, particularly when not from the country, and I feel increasingly unable to deal.
Also also, why do ..... people hold their mobile devices slanted when video chatting, or whichever.
ugh.
sigh.
I miss art museums.
Children of the Sea is a lovely 2 hour salve for those aching to see light and color and shape.
I am having very strong reactions to smells. I assume it's got something to do with this enflamed/sensitive sinus that I assume has got to do with allergies since it has passed two different COVID tests at two different offices.
Oh?
Did I not tell you that the world finally got hit with that viral pandemic that made it across the wholeglobe in less than a year?
And that people sort of did lose their sh*t?
And that some people still think it's fake?
And that people (u.s.of.americans) took a whole summer and an entire percentage of the population dying or sickening to wear a damn mask (which many still don't or don't take seriously)?
(sigh)
sorry. put it on the list of things I need to catch you up on.
we should have lunch sometime!!
what? no. not in person!
oh, wait...yeah. It'll make sen... I mean -
...I'll explain it later.
