Hot compost
When I signed the twelve month lease on this flat, there was a peculiar vibe - that I was stepping into a concentrated period of uncertainty. Because I’ve never before committed to living alone and it’s been a long time since I made a decision that carries a whole earthly revolution. But I did it and then festooned the walls and bookcases with myself: thoughts manifest, histories displayed.
In the midst of this reckoning, having the necessary solitude to unearth seeds and amplify quiet voices meant I stopped being able to ignore or distract myself from the fact that my job brings me the opposite of joy. In a week, I’ll start a leave of absence – a sabbatical, if you will, of indeterminate length – to step into an unknown that I hope has greater opportunity for satisfaction.
My brain is splattered on these many walls that contain me and if that sounds violent, it’s apt – there is something being blown to hell. I’m not sure how this secret is being kept the world over so diligently, but living alone is one of life’s greatest gifts. The version of me that was afraid to do it, that’s what’s writhing on the floor, a bloodied mess. I wonder if this feeling is some of what Scranton was trying to convey in Learning to Die in the Anthropocene. We must let go of the old ways of thinking.
My thinking has been heartily refreshed recently by the frankly sensational Donna J. Haraway. After emphatically circling a footnote in Latour’s Facing Gaia, I read her Cyborg Manifesto last summer. This week, to celebrate finishing #1000wordsofsummer with a word count of 16500+ I gave my brain the treat of cracking into Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. It. Is. Such. Fun. Haraway’s motive for writing this book is to make the case against apathy and disengagement, to paint a fecund picture of the ways that we can be present in the turmoil of the world right now, to reconfigure the way we live and be of the world, as opposed to in it.
In just over a week, I’ll commence a walk along the length of the Pennine Way. It’s a ~250 mile walk from the Scottish Borders into the delightful Peak District, taking in the Cheviots and the squat hills, the Pennines, that make up the spine of England. I’ll be walking for about three weeks, the only thing containing me during that time will be the limits of my legs, and a flimsy covering for the nights. I will, truly, be of the world.
I listened to Haraway interviewed on a podcast and she memorably encouraged us to ‘make kin, not babies’. The world is over populated, and that’s an increasing trend. In making kin – strong, interdependent bonds – with people outside our blood relation pool, we may start to imagine and enact a different kind of world. Kin, Haraway claims, could be the biggest challenge to the individualism that fuels capitalism. It’s a challenger I welcome.
I think of the kin I’ve been making, by chance, without design. I notice that, even when it feels like I’m contained by my four walls, ceiling and floor, so much is with me in that space, enters that space – heart-stopping letters that help me see the world a little differently, long distance phone calls that add distinct aural hues to my palate, seductively simple images of the way the light dances over yonder. The kin I’ve made helps me write both more seriously and with a greater sense of exploration and fun. They help me plan a big backpacking trip (major props Yenny, Queen of the Wild). And, when Ben came to my Dad’s surprise retirement celebration, my Nan treat him like her oldest friend. My kin really is family.
The world Haraway paints is messy and involves us walking toward the trouble, not away from it. She describes an interdependent, inter-species world as hot compost – emphasising the roots of com-post: after co-mingling. We know that collectively we’re putting undue pressure on the earth, pushing at the thresholds for stability and long-term survival and yet we’re told – and many of us act like – our individual actions make a difference. What if the greatest individual act we can take is coming together? This ‘becoming-with’ is core to Haraway’s philosophy and Katherine Hayhoe, climate action advocate and brain behind Global Weirding, says the single greatest thing we can do, as an individual, in the race to save the planet, is talk about it. Find conversation partners and really listen to one another. Bond.
So, what do you think? Shall we make kin and get mucky? My newest conversation partners will be the flora and fauna of hills and dales.
See you next time from the mud
xx