Lilacs and birthdays
I’ve been thinking a lot about spring, which is something that I tend to do every year when spring comes. In late winter I sometimes start to doubt that the leaves will return and the flowers will bloom –– and then suddenly they come. My body remembers again, and it feels like a promise being kept.
I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden recently. It’s something I do often, but there is a sense of urgency this time of year. There are peak bloom times and the landscape shifts so quickly it’s hard to time a visit right. Last year I missed the peonies and the cherry blossoms at their best. This year I caught them in their prime –– a little early for some –– and just in time for the lilacs in their full glory. It felt like a good omen for my year ahead. Whether or not it is, it’s something I will choose to believe; that I’m right on time.
My birthday is tomorrow. A dear friend says that 37 holds a magical weight to it. Birthdays are usually things that bring me joy and grounding. This year I feel a bit numb, and maybe it’s the same kind of doubt I have in late winter. Maybe it’s generic Lexapro. Or both. It’s hard to feel joy right now, but I know that it’s important because it is an essential part of being human. It’s okay to enjoy the lilacs and share cake with loved ones even as certain and uncertain terrors descend. I guess it’s okay to feel a bit numb to so much starting to happen and continuing to happen. I would be nervous if I wasn’t being affected.
Many people who I love dearly have to leave this untenable place. Many people I don’t know but who I imagine I would love dearly are facing horrors some of us have only read about –– in this country and because of this country. It’s hard not to feel fear, and it’s confusing to not know what to truly be afraid of. I am frightened for what is happening and what could happen, and I am even more afraid of who is going to stand idly by as it does. There will soon be no room to not take a clear stance, and I am already feeling the dissonance of what it will mean to see typically well-meaning people capitulate for the sake of their own comfort. I suppose these are things to think about before your birthday. I am your normal, average birthday having person with normal birthday thoughts.
I am having a hard time continuing as is with my email job. Everyone I talk to seems to feel the same way. There is so much urgency elsewhere and none of this seems to matter except in very distant theoretical and academic word salads. The justifications from the well-meaning people who throw themselves into work aren’t holding up for me much these days. I don’t see the kind of care that I think will get us through this from those with social capital and industry power. The rich artists are already planning their price exclusionary Pines trips. The ladder climbers have already been sabotaging those trying to hold institutions accountable. The residency applications are still $40.
Maybe this is what lilacs feel like before they bloom. And then wow. There are lilacs. And everyone loves them and they smell great and some 36.9 year old faggot is crying into them. Good crying. Subtle and reverent. Human. Crying that reminds the body and the air that holds it that in spite of it all that beauty is enough to stir dormancy. Maybe that’s showbiz, baby. Maybe 37 will see me be less of a hater, or maybe I will lean into it and own it. An ethical hater. A critical goblin with a sensitive heart.
I am grateful. The flowers do wake something up in me. The lemon trees in the mediterranean and distant relatives who don’t share my blood calling me cousin. People coming together to sit with me outside and share stories and cake. Friendship that transcends borders. Thoughtful messages and people who seek the good in others. Neighbors running into each other in bars in different neighborhoods, hugging because why not? Possibilities. A future for queer people everywhere, for the working class, for the sick. Joy because it is what being human demands and not something that must be earned. There is good. There is good. There is good. I swear it 37 times.
Happy birthday me. I love you. I love you too.
If you’d like to celebrate consider donating to one of these places:
_Help support Mahmoud and his family in Gaza here
_Support Visual AIDS through federal funding cuts and all kinds of national fuckery here
_Just send me money directly and I’ll get something cool here