Be the groundhog
Check in on your 'strong' friends and a few helpful resources.
Between me and the studio is two feet of snow.
One of the first winters here, at the peak of COVID, there was a blizzard so bad it cut all the electricity to the house — and all the heat with it. A drift of snow ran halfway up the door to my kitchen. I gathered Cricket and myself under several blankets, bundled in two sweaters and an extra pair of wool socks. I did not know my neighbors well then. I watched the snow fall in fat clumps, feeling like someone unplugged the world. It was a long night.
It’s been a minute. And before you point out ‘Weren’t they supposed to be on sabbatical?’ I got you. Taking a brief pause from my ongoing pause. I will accept the assembly line required for my other jobs, but I feel protective that this space not be about keeping up a “content calendar.” I’ve suspended paid subscriptions through February, but in light of these last heavy couple of weeks, now does not feel like the time to go completely quiet between us.
I woke at 3am Sunday, parched and feeling like a blown circuit. Storm coming. Don’t let the anecdote above fool you; ordinarily, I love a blizzard. Due for a stretch of travel coming up, something approaching intuition pinged. I’m not terribly superstitious, but around one slate of dates I felt a big stop sign. Not now, it said. Shore up resources. Batten down the hatches. Tend to what is in your backyard. A clear and present no.
After a few injuries last year, I’ve come to view my body as a radio station I’m not tuning into enough. I have long felt like a brain floating through life, scuffing the earth occasionally with my feet. So easy it can be for me to get in my own head and intellectualize its goings-on; in movement I am confronted by the distance between my mental and physical selves. They might as well be situated at two poles. Separate solar systems. I hope one day they will live on the same continent.
Visualization helps. The pelvis as a bowl. The vertebrae like a stack of checkers. I do not have joints but hinges. Everything is held up by a string. In class, I am told to flex my foot and I flex my toe like I’m about to take off in a pirouette. No, not like that. The teacher adjusts again. I feel a muscle coil around my heel, another in the arch of my foot. I think of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill trying to wiggle her big toe in the back of the Pussy Wagon. When I struggle to isolate the muscle I need to, I use an intake of breath to focus. It feels like a periscope, zooming in. A thin cord extends up my calf past the hollow of the knee, and it burns. That’s more like it. A hamstring, so called because a butcher could use the strong tendons to hang a slaughtered pig — also to render it useless. Cut it and make the animal lame. My tendon is piano wire, lengthening out, wrapping around the trunk of an oak.
It makes sense movement works for me in class. It’s almost too obvious; a musician’s way to go about it. Ask us to prep for taxes or remember to pay the water bill on time and we flake out. But give us quarters with a master and an excuse to isolate in concentration for an hour or two — no problemo. I could never get into running, but turns out I love lifting weights. I am the most “in my body” when I sing, but I’m learning one can be intimate with the mechanics of breath control and still clueless about all the other parts that support it. Like my own two feet. Man, your feet are so important. Floss your teeth and invest in good supportive shoes!
Not to come on here to pronounce I’ve become a gym rat, but reframing strength training like running scales or practice is a game changer. I’m less concerned about getting ripped than I am about understanding why I always roll my right ankle and not my left. How can I become more resilient? Why do my knees crunch as I salt the front stoop ever since I hit 38? The body not as a problem, but as its own messenger. This all probably sounds very boring. I have friends who run marathons, for chrissakes.
In some types of therapy, you’re asked to picture where your anxiety shows up. Close your eyes and sense it. In these instances, I feel like a frog pickled in formaldehyde or a crying infant. I know I’m feeling something somewhere, but I can’t locate it or define the source. Is it a full-on meltdown or is it that my socks are bunching at my ankles so I can’t concentrate on anything else? Even the simplest instructions can feel like being handed an IKEA assembly manual.
To get in a better habit around this, I think of the game Operation. As I poke around with my tin tweezers, trying to see where my stress lives, I hit the buzzer again and again and the red clown nose lights up. Was that shame in my spleen? The stomach? The trapezius, so tense you’d need a crowbar to put my scapula at ease. God knows what that’s about. Discomfort, pleasure — it didn’t matter. Everything felt indistinct. My body a floating island, with two factory settings: bad, and not worse.
When I step back from social media, the disruptions to the inner radio lessen. The songwriting channels get clearer, too. It’s easier, absent the noise of the entire internet funneled into my cornea, to clock what the fuck is going on — even if there are fewer funny shitposting memes and low-touch updates from friends to cheer me. I went to a birthday party last week and, for the first time in months, had no idea what my pals had been up to. It was nice to get the download in person.
But feeling “clear” doesn’t always equate to feeling “better.” Sometimes it means having the space to feel more, with less to blunt the edges. The first couple weeks after I remove the apps from my phone always bring a rush of FOMO. How will we stay in contact? What am I missing? This subsides. I remember the people in my life are just as there as they ever were. Maybe more so. We talk on the phone. We grab coffee or Korean hotpot. I cannot stress enough how much hotpot can do to bring a whole wretched week back from the brink.
Outside of exercise and soup, being in person is where it’s at for me. How about you? I notice how it feels to be in class again with other people instead of alone, watching it on demand. Moving in sync (or, you know, groaning on the off-beats together). I get nervous talking to new people, but even I feel something in my cold-hearted crust shatter while sharing space. Note, too, where the money changes hands. It hits different, paying a teacher directly instead of it going to another app. Buying the album instead of streaming it (I know, I know, but it’s still the best alternative to Spotify/streamers.) Going to the local hardware store for a lightbulb instead of ordering one from Amazon. I’m by no means perfect in this department, but I’m trying.
Saturday, my sister texted me that DHS officers has shot another person in Minneapolis. I later learned his name was Alex Pretti. I was writing at the time, and for once hadn’t left my phone behind in the house. The video popped up and went on autoplay. I texted my sister not to watch it, but it was too late. I cried for a long time after that.
Listen. I know you come here for flowers and songs, but I cannot offer that to you tonight. Here instead is what sprung to mind then. I thought of Renée Nicole Good’s face. I thought of others who lost their lives in ICE custody, whose names did not make the headline news in the same way: Ismael Ayala Uribe, Parady La, Santos Reyes-Banegas, Oscar Duarte Rascon, Silverio Villegas González, Keith Porter Jr. There are more I am forgetting. We didn’t get here overnight. I thought further back to George Floyd, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Laquan McDonald, Freddie Gray. People who should still be here now.
Images haunt me, too. Franceola Armstrong, Keith Porter Jr.’s mother, doing the impossible task of memorializing her son during an LA Council Meeting. Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos’s stunned face, trembling in his cobalt hat as an ICE agent leads him into detention. Renée Good’s wife, collapsed in a driveway, wailing as she held on to their dog. Alex Pretti helping two vets through recovery at the VA ICU, the same guy who carried his elderly dog, Joule, down the stairs so she wouldn’t strain her joints. People trying to be good neighbors or rushing to get their kids to school on time. But this isn’t about “bad things” happening to “good people.” Regardless of someone’s character or immigration status, everyone has a right to live. In this country, everyone, including legal residents and undocumented individuals, is entitled to key protections under the 1st, 4th, or 5th amendments. But setting aside the legal implications, what else is there to say about the spectacle of barging into homes in the middle of the night and zip-tying children but that it’s fucked up and cruel?
What I know is that being idle sucks. Being out in the world, shouldering this with others in my community, is keeping me sane. Or sane-ish.
Alex Pretti’s last words spoken were, “Are you ok?”
I think the only way to see the other side of this is by sticking together. I’ve had the privilege to spend some time in the Twin Cities over the years, and I’m not surprised to see how people have rallied together there. It gives me more than hope. It gives me momentum. And I am feeling it here, in my very small town, when we organize. We may not have the show of numbers of a Chicago or Minneapolis/St. Paul — but we are no less appalled by these goon squads.
Community changes everything. It gives you a sense of pride, for one. How different this storm was, for example. One neighbor with a generator invited us over if the heat went out. Another texted, “you doing ok over there, kiddo?” (I hope none of us are ever too old to be called ‘kiddo.’) When I woke, he had shoveled the walkway and plowed the drive. We traded goofy videos of dogs and kids making tracks in the snow. We have candles and food and flashlights, all the necessities — but few things can top having people you can count on. But community doesn’t happen overnight. It takes an effort.
If nothing else, text your most stoic friend, Are you alright? Ask your neighbors and coworkers how they are doing. If you don’t know your neighbors yet, now’s a good time to introduce yourself.
Lastly, if you’ve been watching the administration’s slide-tackle towards fascism since last January, wondering what to do about it, it’s time to get involved. Many have already done the hard work of grassroots organizing, and I bet there are some where you live. Seek them out. Plug in. Volunteer. This afternoon, the senate failed to advance the DHS funding bill that would give them even more resources. If the thought of that makes your stomach lurch, give them a call. Email them. These actions may feel futile and small in the moment, but they aren’t. There are companies feeling the pressure, too. After sitting silent nearly all month, some business have seen an 80% drop in sales. 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies like Target, Best Buy and UnitedHealth signed a letter to the state chamber of commerce urging de-escalation.
So on that note, if you’re interested, there is a National Shutdown tomorrow, Friday Jan 30. Even if money’s too tight to take off work, could you commit to not shopping? Every gesture counts. More resources I found useful are linked below.
And don’t forget to take in the good things, too. I made Moko Hirayama’s chocochunk cookies and a big pot of soup. There are mustard greens at the farm right now. Delicious in a soup like this. I continue to move my stubborn ham hocks and write. Oz made snow angels that looked like tiny bobsled tracks. Other small stuff cheering us up:
Greg Bovino losing his job.
As mentioned, Holly Hill Farm is a nonprofit that manages to stay open year round. A winter’s miracle to get radishes and greens grown around here right now.
I’m sick of shoveling, but the snow is undeniably beautiful.
Oz arranges her bones in a neat row on the sofa, inspecting each one. It’s very anal retentive but cute.
Llew has found a new shoebox to nap in, and we all pretend we haven’t noticed. Like the bones, it’s very cute.
I just finished The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. I dunno, but reading sci-fi about AI, sentient octopi, and what will come of humankind is working for my current headspace. Kinda like how Pluribus feels like a haunting comfort watch.
I’m living for stories about how small businesses in Minneapolis are coming together from friends there. One that stood out in particular is Smitten Kitten, a queer-owned adult store opening its doors to distribute mutual aid, while passing out dildos to ICE agents. That’s good trouble, right there.
Samin Nosrat’s recipes are all great, but in particular love this preserved lemon paste that I want to add to everything. Is it a recipe or a way of life? Salad dressings, marinades, a swoosh of yogurt with roasted sweet potatoes on top. When I am stressed I go hard on the condiments.
Take good care of yourselves.
Until next time,
CD
Helpful steps to take and resources
Check out the Immigrant Defense Project, a great resource for getting familiar with your rights.
Learn from Jelani Cobb and Stacey Abrams about the history of white supremacy that got us here.
Call and Email your reps (I like 5Calls and resist.bot which will send your emails loaded up with spelling errors for you, free of charge).
For those in Massachusetts, LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts has a hotline to report ICE sightings. You can also volunteer.
Register to Vote. November is not as far away as we might think.
Big long list of great resources to pull from (ways to donate people to help pay rent, lists of places to donate, and much more.)
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