what depression feels like

You know when you're at the dentist and they need an x-ray of your teeth and they put that really heavy vest on you?  It feels like one of those is on all over your body and especially on your brain.  Everything is so boring and horrible that you just want to cry all the time.  (And you do.)  The best thing is sleep and the second best thing is re-watching The West Wing on Netflix.

nothing from me today

I've got a few things going on in this moment that I'm genuinely, tentatively excited about (and holy hell does it feel good to be excited about something, anything), and I'm too excited to write about them.  Also, I'm not in the habit of considering blog post topics as I go about my day like I used to be.

So this instead:

a litany for survival :: audre lorde 

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children's mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours: 

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother's milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive. 

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid 

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive

And for good measure, this.  (Because holy hurt-my-stomach beautiful):

when you have forgotten Sunday: the love storyGwendolyn Brooks 

-- And when you have forgotten the bright bedclothes on a Wednesday and a Saturday,
And most especially when you have forgotten Sunday --
When you have forgotten Sunday halves in bed,
Or me sitting on the front-room radiator in the limping afternoon
Looking off down the long-street
To nowhere,
Hugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation
And nothing-I-have-to-do and I'm-happy-why?
And if-Monday-never-had-to-come --
When you have forgotten that, I say,
And how you swore, if somebody beeped the bell,
And how my heart played hopscotch if the telephone rang;
And how we finally went in to Sunday dinner,
That is to say, went across the front room floor to the ink-spotted table in the southwest corner
To Sunday dinner, which was always chicken and noodles
Or chicken and rice
And salad and rye bread and tea
And chocolate chip cookies --
I say, when you have forgotten that,
When you have forgotten my little presentiment
That the war would be over before they got to you;
And how we finally undressed and whipped out the light and flowed into bed,
And lay loose-limbed for a moment in the week-end
Bright bedclothes,
Then gently folded into each other --
When you have, I say, forgotten all that,
Then you may tell,
Then I may believe
You have forgotten me well.

a glimmer

Rather than write today, what I really want to do is get started on the project I’ve got to complete this afternoon.  But because my whole person is so deeply driven by guilt and obligation (Thanks, Catholic school!), I’m gonna hammer something out here because I promised (promised who?) I'd post every morning.

I’m working on a fifteen-week curriculum for a GED prep class at a prison.  This class is so cool.  It was founded and is run by incarcerated men who, knowing that many men have jobs during the day and so cannot attend the daytime GED program in the Education Building, petitioned the warden to let them create a night class.  I think they’re inspiring; they’re honestly the primary reason I’m (I guess) committed to staying in the Bay Area instead of packing up and moving home.

We’re meeting this afternoon (the inside leadership of the program and a few of the outside volunteers) to discuss this coming semester.  We’re moving toward a model where the inside leaders do the vast majority of the teaching and the outside volunteers support them.  I can get real excited about the idea of an emerging parallel program: GED prep/teacher-training.  And then beyond that, this badass, dynamic, humane learning community that becomes not just a model for other prison education programs but for learning and teaching communities, full stop.  I believe that these guys could help folks really meaningfully think and work against the larger carceral state.  For real. 

Okay, seriously seriously, I need to get shit ready for this meeting.

so glad my niece is bossy

Bossy women are my favorite.  They make me feel like shit's handled, and not to worry.

Nola made me this diagram for the scarf she told me to "start knitting right away."

I just wish she had written "motherfucker" at the end of the directions since that would better convey the tone of her body language as I watched her draw this.

"send nana the yarn when done, motherfucker."

She gave my mom a diagram of a hat, and she's making damn sure we don't inadvertently use two different reds.

so many pillows in this place

Here's what my morning routine looks like.  (Four for four, y'all!)

Okay, this is one place in the Bay Area that I don't hate.