The Last Song

From Jean Grae's internet bio:After working with groups including Ground Zero, she joined a hip hop music group called Natural Resource in the mid-1990s, along with rapper Ocean.

I want to say something about last night, but I don't know what it is. Something about dancing in public and something about the last song. And a little something about how that woman could sing, my god, could she sing.

We were at the Born in Flames Tour. I didn't notice, but we hadn't danced together in public in a long time. Jean Grae was bossing us into it. Calling us boring and everything. I know we really didn't need all that, but I don't blame her for trying to bring us all together. I'm not proud. It was nice to get lost in the music and feel less alone.

At certain moments, at specific resonances, I looked back to where the tall people were standing, to see if you were bopping along. My only sidetrack was thinking about college resources, the hot tub, and the grandeur of the student activity fee, and if I was being an okay stander. You could have been thinking unspeakable things. Unthinkable things that you didn't even consent to knowing. Flung onto you like a booger on a bad date. As if your limit hadn't already been reached. As if you had space to hold anything else. As if your brain could handle another layer.
And how the one person who can help you isn't going to help you. How the one person who can help you isn't going to help you.

Invincible gets on the mic. "This last song I want you to say it with me to the beat." And Jean Grae is asking us what the one thing is that keeps us going when we get to the very very bottom.

The people were so ready and knowing. Did you see how the people were so ready and knowing? B led off with love. Integrity, Trust, Consistency, and Peace were offered from the crowd. The people I thought. B and Buscrates did the two step onstage. There was a little girl who said, "my daddy" and a daddy who said "myself."

We all got into it. "Keep Going. Keep Going." And it felt like a party that came from us. From our participation. The last party I organized was a funeral, but I think I'm ready to give it another shot. Apparently, hard times require furious dancing.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

Today when I came home I was thinking about my Dad's discomfort with strangers and I thought, "These are not strangers. I trust these people with my life." I think the movie life follow up to that would be, "I'd take a bullet", or "I'd push her out of the way and get hit by the train." But my rationale that immediately followed in the next thought was, "If we were in a situation where one of us had to die, we would be able to reach a consensus about it."

Nico's, Big Hop, and Rue

This is where I sat when I wrote you a letter. The collage said, "Less Smoking, More Singing." It was a layover on purpose. It was a long gray day. I liked it.

I like being alone now, can hardly stand anyone else. Not because of who they are but because of me. I'm tired and I need help carrying the luggage.

I want to just be again. It's interesting how the handle slipped. Can't even untangle it yet....how there is no more handle for this or that or blah blah blah. I thought devastated was reserved for the nonbelievers. Not for me or this bathtub. Not for this glass of beer. I don't even drink beer! I don't even like french fries!

Potatoes make you stupid she said he said. Can't wait for tomorrow. Can't wait for the wonder to sneak back in. The pigeon eating the poptart. A word found again and again. I can't even make a list of wondermakers right now. Ummm, the run-ins? The strangers? The strangers being the bridge?

I need more than strangers. I need the history of the Pittsburgh Water Supply. The Birmingham City dwellers blew up their side of the bridge so the fire couldn't cross the river. I need to know how the fire was stopped and how the people saved themselves. About what happened where the fire was and how we can get back there.

It's going to be a lot slower this time. Painfully slow.

I hope you're still dancing because I'll be looking for you. Just as soon as I can, okay?

More Love Hours Script

In the chaos of the public service desk at the downtown library, he turned to me and said, "You and I are dinghies in a stormed tossed sea, surrounded by ships that are going down. I hate that kind of responsibility."

I got it, cause we were in it.
But then I realized...that's exactly the kind of responsibility I need.

I want to write from a root.
I want to know what is stable and go from there.
I want to find what is stable, or else I will invent it.

I tried that before. It only lasts so long.
Ideas eventually get stripped down and freed from their examples.
Sometimes I can meet them there, and let them go.
Sometimes I can't get rid of them no matter what I do.

You and I are dinghies in a storm tossed sea, surrounded by ships that are going down. I love that kind of responsibility.

Of course...everything that happened in my life, affects everything that's happening in my life, and your life too. Including this.

I remember the shift.
I remember realizing that I wasn't just living the history of time, but also the history of thought.
The history of energy.
The history of pain and release.

You and I were a ship on some kind of sparkling sea, surrounded by dinghies, glinting. You no longer accept that kind of responsibility.
But after you go, you are still here.
In my memory.
In my body.
In my songs.
In my stories.
Do you think abandoning us makes the world well?
Or are you just quietly trying to get out of bed in the morning?

I'm trying to get out of bed too.
Some people call it a miracle.
Let's meet them...

The sister: "I know you only moved in here to use this new sink faucet, and I'm okay with that."

The brother: "Oo wow oo wow oo wow oo wow. oo wow oo wow oo wow oo wow."

The mother: "I know you said this relationship was bad for me, but I think I had to figure it out for myself. I think it had to come from me. I guess I'm stronger than I thought."

The daughter: "I just wasn't expecting to need this kind of patience. Ten years. Sometimes that's the speed. Ten years."

The friend: "There's something wrong with my body, and I don't know what it is. I went to the doctors before, but they couldn't really get it. It happened to me last year, and I'm having similar symptoms. I lost a lot of weight, and felt tired all of the time."

The friend: "Oh. That's scary."

Are you trying to get out of bed in the morning? We could start from there every time.
Shit. Some of my friends will be in prison for the rest of their lives.
We can start from there every time.

But you showed up! I showed up!
I think we are being courageous.

I really like showing up.
I also really like driving the bus.
I like having that kind of control.

Unless it's a standard.
Then I realize that I still have a lot of growing to do.
Like I still need to learn how to tell stories with emotion.
And I still need to learn how to tell you that, "I was a bully once," without you thinking I am a bully. I trust we'll figure it out.

Because you and I are dinghies in a storm tossed sea and here we are.
And you always want to discuss serious things. And I do too.

And I think we are also the ships.
And I think we are also the sea.

And we love.
We can still love.

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.