seasons aren't cruel (it's my birthday month!)
a note: i sent this out a while ago but my friend (thank you, evel!) pointed out all my links were broken. they should work this time around. thank you for your patience.
the majority of the following trigger warnings are in the first paragraph and i have blockquoted so you know when to scroll past
trigger warning for mention (but not depiction of): sexual abuse, rape, genocide, racism, homophobia, transphobia, murder, violence
trigger warning for mention (but not depiction of): sexual abuse, rape, genocide, racism, homophobia, transphobia, murder, violence
its 10 45am and the six day "truce" between Israel and Hamas ended more than three hours ago and when I had gone to bed around 4am, Israel had already murdered thirty civilians and injured dozens more). the military and government forces in sudan are using sexual and gender based violence in this war, and (especially non-Arab) mothers and daughters have been raped and gang raped in front of each other (help here)) \(a note, I haven't read the linked article yet, the video was already...a lot). it's winter and children of congo are in makeshift tents against freezing winds). thats what ive learned of in the past four hours and i haven't started my regular updates yet. and these are just of the countries i have a small understanding of right now.
the season isn't cruel. people are. winter has been my favorite season (i'm a winter baby) since i was a child. it was the one time i could almost guarantee quiet while i was outside because everyone said it was too cold to be doing anything anyways. when the pandemic started (it hasn't ended), winter felt marginally safer because people would stay home--"it's too cold to come out right now but we can zoom or text or call"--and it's the closest i've felt to the fleeting solidarity (i mistakenly took as lasting) amongst disabled people (me) and yet-to-be disabled people (anyone, at any time. this is not a threat. this is a truth.) when the pandemic began.
winter is my favorite because my birthday is during winter and it is one guaranteed day where people (theoretically) cannot be mean to me. when i was younger, i laid back in a mound of snow on top of a hill in front of the houses. the sun was there, but not warming in a way i could feel, but i knew it was warming because i didn't turn into an ice block. i laid on my back and the sound of snow smushed my body in a way that made my thoughts slow down. i knew i could hear someone approaching me, even if i couldn't see them, the snow would tell me. and that made me feel safe enough to just lay there. to be present. which was (and has been) a....need for improvement. that's what my birthday felt like it could be, a day where no one could sneak up on me and hurt me without me knowing. it's the closest feeling to peace i've ever known.
alicesparklykat) said winter is about return. about coming home. they talk about the indigenous peoples' right to return (Palestine, Hawai'i, so many others). since i am still learning, i will direct to their newsletter instead here.)
"This is not about perfection, but practice."
~Mia Mingus, Still Choosing. to Leap: Building Alternatives)
for me, returning used to be inextricably linked, but then learned to hold hands with, and finally just walks beside (hands sometimes brushing) shame. after high school i tried to go to school at least ten times before it stuck within these past two years, and it only stayed that way because my job--my health insurance so of course, by extension (necessity?)--my health. seasons aren't cruel. people are. when people rejoice over the shorter days, the warmer nights, i know to keep quiet. my body has endured things we both don't want to remember in the springtime, in the sweating suffocate of summer. this past year, summer was hard. i learned the company i worked for supported child sexual abusers and i just....Stopped.
i was already trying to juggle six classes in the spring that spilled into summer classes and work and a black management program because it occurred to me that my job could fire me at any time and i'd have nothing to show for it if i didn't make it out without this degree and i knew i said too much at the invisible disabilities panel (i'd already said too much about autism and take your sick days and juneteenth discussions should not be led by white women and the black people still being murdered by police...) but when else would i get a room full of people with this much privilege and access to resources that others need? when would i ever get another chance to talk like this and have at least one person listen?
it's safe to say i stopped trying to be alive a long time ago. old and new dangerous coping mechanisms got me from one meeting to the next, got me from the knowledge that i had a title ix pending (but gave up as soon as they said court) while i typed essays for class. my family didn't see me because i just slept. even the joy i found in my new class was hard to hold on to. each week i wanted to quit (even though i loved what i was learning--what was the use? love wouldn't buy me inhalers), but thank God each week my mentor never let me.
i didn't know if i wanted to be alive or if i knew i couldn't meet the parameters to continue trying to be, and that line started to blur until all i could see was hopeless. they fired me in the summer (after i left a side job due to racism). the one thing everyone knows about me (employers included, because i don't understand (yet) not telling the truth) is i have a deep anxiety around health insurance. when covid started and we learned that it causes people to have trouble breathing, my asthmatic ass went into (and still go into) anxiety spirals. i already can't breathe, i can't make this worse. they fired me two days before the end of the month, and even after my doctor blessedly called the pharmacy immediately to get me refills that would last until my next job or until i got unemployment (which i, foolishly, assumed would be soon), it didn't matter because it was too soon and my insurance would run out by the time i needed it.
seasons aren't cruel. people are.
it doesn't always feel like it, but it was a blessing to be fired. i had been fired because they learned i took the black management certification in my off time, because i wrote about black people being murdered by police, because i needed sick days after learning the company does work that supports the Catholic Church because i'm a survivor and you can't input information into a computer program knowing that it's going to help the people who hurt you, who hurt others. they fired me because i needed sick days after getting COVID (FROM INSIDE MY HOUSE I DON'T LEAVE MY HOUSE) and the weeks of recovery and i tried to come back too soon because i was scared of being fired for being sick. i was fired because i didn't understand any of the work because it takes longer than what is capitalistically reasonable to understand something i have no experience in and i don't understand corporate social and professional expectations.
it's a blessing they fired me because if it hadn't been this, it would've been for Free Palestine, for Free Sudan, for Free Congo, for Free Tigray, for Stop Cop City. it would've been for Haiti and Armenia and West Papua and the Rohingya people and Flint, Michigan STILL DOESN'T HAVE CLEAN WATER (and Mari Copeny has spent eight year HALF HER LIFE to do the work that our "government" is supposed to do) and for my people and for my people and for my people.
my people. my people send me memes and donations so i could and can go to classes and get certifications in areas i love and and send me links to job applications and listen to my barely contained screaming and dream with me and have zoom movie nights and offer to fight for me even in the smallest of things. my people call me in and demand my rest even when rest feels like betrayal. my people continue to help me even when i have nothing i can give them in return and then they don't ask for anything but my practice forever leave to return. my people go past work hours just to check on me. my people call for my medications and pick them up. my people make me laugh on days where i want nothing but the dark of the back of my eyes. my people "have you eaten? when was the last time you drank water? come talk to me for a moment instead of disappearing like you do.". my people give me space for my rants, for my love, for my special interests, for un-learning i'm unlovable. my people allow me to comfort them and learn and re-learn how to love them. my people are learning with me that our anger is right and we should not and cannot be diminished. my people, i could write about them for years (and i hope to) and that still would not be enough.
just as community saved me then and continues to save me, i know that community is the only way through anything, the only way to survive not the seasons (they suffer because of the cruelty too), but the people who continually murder and violence and traumatize us. i have ideas of home but not one i know to return to. i don't know where i'm from beyond my grandparents' sharecropping, beyond slavery. we must have existed before then but i can't imagine it. aside from that, i always believed i'd be kicked out for being queer, for being too sick, for a lot of things. no one in my immediate family has ever threatened me with this--they prove every day how false that belief is. and yet. the scarcity mindset of the disposable black body, the disposable queer, the disposable disabled is embedded so deep in me and it is taking so much digging, so much bloodbodymindwork to get it out. i cannot imagine how to navigate that return.
but i can still do work around it. i can learn more about what's happening around the world and get in where i fit in. it sounds silly, but i can buy a map. i can strengthen my spiritual practice because i love my people but they cannot be my altar. i can do the imagination work. i can do the creating work. i can do the small actions that are the only actions (change is made of them). i can stop sawing parts of myself off to fit into a system that is going to destroy me anyways (and then blame me for it). i can learn to use "we" and "us" more. if you're into celebrating birthdays, i ask that you help me celebrate this whole month (i'm a sagittarius, so). here are ways you can do that:
- Turn on your blue light filter) on your devices
- Download Signal) and get your people to use it
- WEAR YOUR) MASK and social) distance) and be Covid Cautious)
- Learn more about privacy tools and get your people to use them)
- [Watch documentaries about Congo as recommended by] (https://www.instagram.com/p/CzK4IBuPyBh/?img_index=1)">Earth Water Films
- Learn about the right to repair) and check out iFixIt), Fairphone), refurbished products and your local technical repair shops
- Check Eyes On Sudan) and take action steps there daily)
- Follow bsonblast) same name on all platforms
- Learn more about Tigray and amplify voices on the ground
- Continue efforts) for a permanent ceasefire) for Palestine
- Learn more about what's happening in Iran)
- Support Stop Cop City actions
- Don't call the cops,) get alternative community methods in place instead
- Check out Scalawag Magazine) \(especially 2023 Abolition Week: The Bars We Can't See, Black & Pink), and The Bail Project)
- Keep digital and physical archives! Back up regularly!
- Support archive.org
- Learn more about sustainable mutual aid)
- Donate as much as you're able I have suggestions here,) [here,(https://www.gofundme.com/f/37idsny4go) here, here,) and here
- Keep) Saying Their Names
- Join a collective, because we can't do this alone!
Though I'm still working through them, I suggest you read Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives)by Siddharth Kara, How to Go mad Without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity by La Marr Jurell Bruce (get them from your library!), and watch Woke Or Whateva's most recent podcast)
A note: If you're overwhelmed with where to start, this group has been very helpful for me
- goblin tools) and Comprehensive ADHD Brain Analog Tool) has been lowkey life-changing for me
check out You Feel Like Shit for when you feel like that
- support indie creators and remember to align your money with BDS Movement
i hope this season is kind to us. i hope you are surrounded by people that are in solidarity, in love, in compassion, in hope despite--with you. thank you for being here.