Fall Back

Something I've been saying and asking a lot lately is, "I didn't see this for my life." Or, "Did you imagine this for your life?" I think it came from B on the phone, being like, "I don't know how I got to this point. Well, I know how I got to it but sometimes it seems a little funny. Like if a person gets abused at a prison, why should I be the person to get a phone call? What?"

This weekend was great. I drove a twelve person van through a snowstorm to Harrisburg for the PA Conference Against Torture, and spent all the time around that planning and executing a brunch for 20 people. It was an effort in endurance. I got a lot of love and support the whole way. That old thing about feeling cared for because we exist and we are together.

I'm having a really nice time. I'm having a great time even. I just didn't see this for my life.

One thing I was thinking about after driving the van, and pulling a marathon day, and making jokes about Trucksville, was the things that I can do. Sometimes I can't get everything done. Sometimes I can't do anything. Sometimes I can't respond to a pen pal for weeks, or make a single phone call, even though I think about it every day. Sometimes I think about the skills I have and the skills I don't have and wonder about the things I can do and if I need to be knowing something I don't know.

One thing I CAN do is be on time. One thing I CAN do is show up. I can always show up. I can always show up, and I can always drive the bus.

Tools for Brains and Hearts

I've got a new tool for keeping sanity during obsessive times. When I am obsessing over something or someone, usually a person or crush, I find myself having endless conversations with them in my head. It's really draining and troublesome because it takes me out of my body, and is opposite to my valuing mutuality as a process and conclusion. It makes me feel like I'm doing this one sided thing, like I know things, like I am figuring things out without the other person. No thanks. My new tool for when this is happening is saying outloud to stop the internal rummaging, "I'm not having this dialogue." Sometimes I say, "I'm not having this dialogue right now." It's really on point. It interrupts the silent flow of thoughts with a verbal thing I can hear and get, and also draws attention to the fact that I do not want to be having a "dialogue" by myself. It's good.

My best tool for aligning brains and hearts lately (probably up there in the top ten) is: "that's happening." I have been saying this more, and more and people have been recognizing and responding. The basic gist is to verbalize things that are happening in my brain, to bring out and acknowledge what I'm feeling, share it, and move on. It frees up room for being present without taking over, because its just a shoutout, not a topic of conversation. Hooray for tools. Hooray for this. Hooray for you and me.

When Things Return

Today I went to work and found a sweatshirt I had categorized as "lost for good" hanging on a hook in the coat room. I have been to the coat room two times a week, every week, for the past long time. I went into Fall thinking I had a shortage of hooded sweatshirts, that my two favorite patched-up-grays were gone, and I hated it. I hate losing things because I try not to have anything I don't love. Also I feel disoriented when I lose things because I don't understand where they could have gotten to.

I think the sweatshirt was there all along. Tom said maybe it was one of those things where when you need it most, you find it or can see it. I wanted to pretend that someone had taken it home and used it and then returned it, but I don't know who has the slyness to do something like that here.

While I was working, something else returned to me. There's a children's book that caught my eye, called Unite or Die. It's about the thirteen colonies coming together to bring about the American Revolutionary War. "Unite or Die", "Unite or Die", why did that sound familiar? Oh yes, I remember.

I went to hear Angela Davis speak in New York this summer, in a room of 2,000 prison abolitionists. There were two other speakers, including Vijay Prashad, talking about why we need change now. Prashad's work focuses on the effects of a global economy on people around the world. I am currently reading his book The Darker Nations: a People's History of the Third World. It's really hard to parse out. It's really dense and hard to hold. But the easiest thing to grab on to, that Prashad emphasized again and again during his 15 minutes was, "We need to love one another or die." We need to love one another or die. It's that simple. I'm glad I came back to that.