coming to you live from nyc…i have spent several days with my family, which is always a blessing, though never easy. it takes work to love people and be loved, staying present to people as they are, and not tucking parts of yourself away to stay loved by them.
my nephew could already get a nobel peace prize for the way he has impacted our family dynamic. what is important has shifted (again), and our desire to see him feels like more of a universal truth than any of our differences. i want to run away with him to a land where our only decision is what game to play, and what to learn. i regularly remember all the dreams i had of him before he came, and i wish i could videotape every moment with him and loop it constantly; i want my memory back for this person.
in other news, i had a good long talk with my sister and brother-in-law the other night, and as we drifted around content including irish history, carl sagan, organizing and life, i said “we can reconcile ourselves to a whole new truth if we have enough curiosity…we once thought the earth was flat.” we all thought it was a noteworthy thing to say, made possible by the collective brilliance of the conversation.
in local detroit news, i’ve been really thinking about colonization lately, and how we could begin a new practice. what would it mean to not be colonized, and to not be colonizing? what would it mean to look at detroit and see everything that is growing and building there – not see empty space to be bought, sold, stolen and traded. where i now live, i am humbled by how useless my privilege is in the long run. i was mostly taught to talk and think [and i vacillate between being skilled and clumsy in those regards], but not how to do – how to grow, build, survive. i am finally learning some things that only time and need can teach you. and in the coming battle against the mayor’s plan to colonize segments of detroit for financial gain, which will destroy longstanding communities, the most valuable quality any organizer will have is actually their time spent living in detroit – because what is happening now has happened before. so many times.
the past few days have been balmy-to-hot on the east coast, and i stripped down and pretended i lived in different places, with different, lighter burdens. i am so aware now of time spent not working. it is joyous and necessary to any life balance. warm weather increases my capacity to not work…this tease of summer has uplifted my spirit, and i may just make it to real summer without pause.
** unexpected political commentary**
the healthcare reform bill just passed. its late at night, but it’s a major moment for obama and his supporters. i, personally, am not in a phase where i can be very excited about uber-compromised reforms. trying to watch the process, track the votes and the silly small-minded petty bullshit behavior literally disgusts me – our transformative politic is supposed to include a body of folks who will make 200 amendments on a bill and still not a one of them vote for it? where are the representatives of poor people in their districts? that said, i really like that pre-existing conditions and lifetime limitation restrictions are gone. that will have real life impacts on myself and people i love. its mundane and ugly, but “this is what change looks like…” obama came out to tell us the bedtime story, and for tonight, i will let that rock me to sleep.