The Gym No. 23: Benedictions
Last week’s riffs and mantras, still good
As I often do in my current answering-to-no-one writing mode, I wrote most of something but didn’t complete the final sprint to finalize and send it at the moment that seemed right. And then stuff happened and I may have missed the moment.
Sometimes this happens because, since I can do whatever I want, it should be exactly what I want, right? (Ha.) And at the last minute, like when I’ve researched and written an expansive Marking essay and had the notification postcards printed, I realize it’s not quite what I wanted to do, and so I spend literally additional years sitting on it.
Other times it happens because of technical difficulties, like when I’m trying to figure out how to embed a video in a letter because it’s like the 21st century and I’m pretty sure we should be able to do that? And when little things like photo captions and image captions aren’t matching (patterns, people!).
And also it happens because my little wishes and thoughts feel so small and dustlike in the scheme of things, and my position in it all so trivial, that I take another minute/hour/day/week/year to analyze whether this letter is worth the carbon footprint of sending it and the stress of another item in everyone’s inbox to mass-delete.
I’m not going to stop caring about those things, and I realize that the agency to not publish, to abstain, is part of what I am going for. But I may try a little harder to finish what I start in a timely manner, if only because I do know that neither you or I need anything overwrought.
I think these thoughts I started last week, on MLK Day, are still good. Mostly. Just cut any mold off the edges.
May we have the courage to hold the truths of humanity to be self-evident.
May we hold these truths above the useless and tiresome arguments which undermine the bedrock of a just society, these same truths.
May we have the clarity to discern that which is designed to distract and deflect from that which is designed to harm. (May we understand that it is all by design.) May the distraction-detection beat become a standard area of coverage for our news media.
I would create new beats. The language beat.
—M. Gessen, interview with ProPublica's Eric Umansky, 2016
May we instead preserve our premium energy for the complex and advanced practices of taking up space, of ceding space, of listening, of aplomb, of breath, of documentation, of vision.
May we decenter and recenter ourselves fluidly, in right relationship, without awkwardness or struggle.
May we read books and poetry. May we consider who knows a thing or two and seek out their well-wrought writings. May we understand that thought is not merely position.
May we understand and care for our traumas that arise from meanness, disrespect, chaos, and fear.
May we remember that we are on a planet, illuminated and warmed by a single star that pulls us to her.
Alexa Capareda on a planet.
May we know that every light casts new shadows.
May we embody our power in earnest fluidity among all our situations and relationships.
May we find ways to survive that do not conflict too much with our knowing of these truths.
May we find community in our knowing and listening.
May we realize what we long for.
✨
