Moon Memo: Ursulas all the way down
Ursulas all the way down
Good morning from Mission Control. I'm work from home today, so I'm thinking about things. Got up at 6 today and got a bunch of work done, so I can loaf around and be quiet the rest of today. Burping up brisket, which was delicious, but not necessarily where you want to start your day.
Long work week. 12 hour day yesterday. So today I'm going to be a lot lazy. Do some laundry. Write in my notebook. Read A/S/L by Jeanne Thornton (which I will write about once I've finished. It's a beautiful book, but damn...). Do a little bit of paperwork. Try my damnedest to be quiet.
Discordian Murmurs
But of course I'm haunted right now. Haunted by the murmur of a hundred girls and others on the internet. The discordian murmur of revealing too much of myself to the world again. The dopamine hit of constant online with strangers and friends.
Discord, by definition, from Webster's Unabridged 1913: 1.
Want of concord or agreement; absence of unity or harmony in sentiment or action; variance leading to contention and strife; disagreement; – applied to persons or to things, and to thoughts, feelings, or purposes.
I am full of discordant thoughts right now.
I am so hungry for connection, for praise, for someone to see me and know me, that I let myself fall into the same traps I did with Facebook, with any social media. I change myself to be available online. I feel anxious about presenting my best self. And I worry that I am just doing the same patterns again.
I want to be loved. And that seems to be my fatal flaw. It's like heroin: the drug takes you at a certain point.
But damn do I want these girls to notice me. To like me. To love me.
Franklin and LeGuin
Morning over coffee reading brings Ursula Franklin back to me. Quaker, Pacifist, Thinker about technology, little old lady at a potluck a million years ago, visiting from Canada. A fantastic writer.
And her name, of course, brings forward Saint Ursula K LeGuin: local, anarchist, writer, old lady who wrote in a room with me once, who was really nice to my friend Vivika when she was her house cleaner, who lives rent free in my heart.
Let's find a few notes in the Zettlekasten from the two Ursulas, shall we?
"Silence is a space for something to happen." -Ursula Franklin
"Its technology is how a society copes with physical reality: how people get and keep and cook food, how they clothe themselves, what their power sources are (animal? human? water? wind? electricity? other?) what they build with and what they build, their medicine -- and so on and on. Perhaps very ethereal people aren't interested in these mundane, bodily matters, but I'm fascinated by them, and I think most of my readers are too. Technology is the active human interface with the material world." -Ursula K. LeGuin
"The assault of noise and unsolicited messages on people's souls seems to me to create an environment of violence quite akin to how aggression and war hurt innocent bystanders, those poor non-combatants caught in fights not of their own making." -Ursula Franklin
"How you play is what you win." Another way to put it might be the line attributed to Gandhi: "be the change you want to see in the world", right? Well, there's a corollary or restatement of that which is perhaps even more important: "don't be the change you don't want to see". -Ursula Le Guin
These responses strengthened one of my images of a peaceful world: a society that might work somewhat like a pot-luck supper, where everyone contributes and everyone receives, and where a diversity of offerings is essential. (Just imagine a pot-luck to which everyone brought potato salad!). In such a world there would be no one who could not contribute their work and care -- and no one who could not count on receiving nourish- ment and fellowship. I hold this vision with increased confidence. Ursula Franklin
The potluck metaphor means a lot to me, as we head into trans picnic season. Settle down with people, bring some food, doesn't have to be much, there's enough for everyone, be there together, be kind. Every trans person is welcome. Anyway, early morning thinking with the Ursulas. I'm shocked I don't know at least one trans Ursula. Get on that, girls.
Home Visit
On the way home from Salem, not desiring to be surrounded by traffic, I deviated to the rural highways. And without even really meaning to I ended up in Newberg.
I lived there from 1997 to 2016. 19 years of my life. At the time, half my life. College then marriage. A collection of boy filled houses, gross and unclean. Then the collection of apartments with the ex spouse, and then the little house that was kind of ours, as much as any house is when the bank is the real owner.
Small memories: coming out to a counselor, having her cry about my abuse, sending me to Jesus camp. Protesting the invasion of Iraq, and almost being hit by a car with an angry man in it. The John Birch Society's yearly float in the old fashion festival parade, without the ability to have a pride float. Thanksgiving dinners. Sunday dinners. The Library. The coffee shop. Never being out of the closet, to myself, to anyone really.
I sent a performative picture of me flipping off George Fox University. But that's not how I really felt. I just felt sad. All that wasted time.
How much time have I wasted since then? Am I happier now? Am I more myself? I think so.
Anyway, good riddance.
Goodbye
I hope you have a good day, friends. Stay cool. Wear sunscreen.