To you / I am not speaking anymore.

Dire Wolf

Lucie Brock-Broido

Sorrows, like a gathering of dire wolves, come in packs. To you,
I am not speaking anymore. Whom

Shall I address?

Now that you have gotten these things off
Your barrel chest, it is time for you to merge into the sobbing

Rain, like a one-room scene in Appalachia, smeared
By fog. I adored you as much as an aluminum

Bucket of storm after
A great unlovely silvered thirst. How

Nice for me. In the Pleistocene, the wild wolves roamed
In scattered sorrows over

Everywhere, prodigious in appetite, howling
At the hollow of

Everything empty like a throat coated
With the fabric of a bolt

Of red. There

Are things which can dismantle entirely
A spirit, such as the pathetic maledictive fear

Of loss. Of loss:
You get to speak of it, once

You are its intimate, and not before; it would be

"Appropriation." But in the great white rendezvous, where

I was brooding Just a while, you get to speak of dire love.

here. 

the mysteries

"Turn soft and lovely any time you have a chance."

Jenny Holzer, Survival 1983-1985

One of the things I ask myself often is why it is so hard for us to treat each other well. Do you think it's the basic selfishness of the human species? It might be a survival instinct, really - maybe we are all driven by the feeling that we have to care for our own bruised bodies above all else. People say this is subsumed by parenthood, but I'm not sure parenthood isn't just another way in which we create a personal hierarchy of people who matter and people who don't. That's not really what I mean, of course - I'm only really talking about moments. We have in our power the chance to act out of compassion and empathy in every moment. We very rarely choose to exercise that.

I've done terrible things, too.

Almost three years ago now a thing happened to me that made me brittle and cold and angry in a way I'd never been before. It wasn't even that horrible - or it was horrible in its commonness, I guess - but it changed me, and not for the better. It left me with a lot of questions. One of which was whether I could continue to believe in my previously-held understanding that the world was split into good people and bad people. I felt that if you surrounded yourself with good people, you'd be fairly safe, as things go. What I started to learn, am still learning, continue to grapple with, was that, in actual fact, there are just people: people who sometimes do good things and sometimes bad things.

So everyone around me took on an animal-like unpredictability. Everyone, I realized, had within them the capacity for real cruelty, or a little voice saying, Go. Saying, It doesn't matter. Saying, Why bother. I have one, too. I tried to shut up these voices with a lot of insulation. I layered heavy things on top of the soft parts. I've written about this before, but the last few years have been a sort of reverse cocooning, with the lovely and open and hopeful parts of me at the center, and the cynicism and skepticism forming a crystalline case.

I'm not unaware of this, clearly. Or of its tedium, its unoriginality. And its ease. It is so much easier to be hard. Don't you think? I have been considering a change.

And then.

A couple of days ago I received a small package at my office. I opened it to find the most beautiful earrings inside. Earrings that I stared at in confusion before realizing that of course I recognized them - I had blogged about them in October, with the most facetious words about how they might magically appear in my life.

There was no card. I contacted the store; they said the gifter requested to remain anonymous. I emailed my parents, who were the only people I could think of who would do such a thing, but they had no idea what I was talking about. My coworkers and I did a Nancy Drew dance around them, and nothing. I gave up, and put them on, and smiled. They are incredible.

Whoever you are: you did a kind and generous thing. You made me so happy. You reminded me that I used to be a soft and lovely person, capable of warmth. You reminded me how wonderful it feels to love, and to be loved, even in these small ways, kindnesses that can be palmed and held in one hand. If you ever want to reveal yourself, I would be honoured to say all of this to your beautiful face. But in the meantime: thank you.

I am so thankful that you exist.

i hope you find a love / your own designs of love

I believe, I believe that I know you
But we've been a long time,
And now I got to show you, that I - 
Well, I never did believe in time
You know, changin' anybody's mind

Thanks Molly. Thanks Stevie. 

meet fred

I think he's just on the right side of morose. 

haters gonna hate

fragments

My family cannot help comparing South Africa to other places, to the familiar - "These hills look like Ireland, don't they?" "This could almost be Newfoundland!" The damp green, the gentle slope. Why? To own it? I feel compelled to imprint something recognizable onto this landscape. We try to drain the exotic out of it. It makes it easier to look at.

***

All the safari guides with their wide stances, with their moustaches. There's monochrome to all of it. Khakis. They hold their hands behind their backs in locked grips, two fists. Everyone is so solid. Someone once told me, or I read it, or something, about all the women who come to Africa and fall in love with their guides. I can see how this could happen. You bypass or hop-skip that initial period of getting to know a person before trusting them. You have to jump in. They have the big gun. They know the rules. It's an enforced intimacy that is somehow redolent of survival, of getting-by.

***

Animals, in order of awe-factor: #1 Elephants. There is no comparison. #2 Giraffes. The same. We come closer to the prehistoric. Let's put rhinos up there too. There is no reason an animal should look like this. They didn't get the memo. Evolution skipped a beat. Everyone wants to see the lions, but they are really just big, sleepy house cats.

***

There's an emotional there-ness to Africa that I find exhausting. I think about the people I love who love this place. They are not people who live at the surface of things. I could see how these countries, this hard work, could give them a place to put their emotions, when they are not so comfortable carrying them. It eggs them on. I do better where I am the most dramatic thing on the landscape, where I have more room to enact my own daily hysteria. Maybe I am too selfish. The emotional there-ness of a place. Is that a thing?

***

In the jeep I press my feet against the metal like I have brakes beneath me. He pulls us closer to the animals and I stop breathing. No one else is as concerned as I am. My dad tells me that they know what they're doing, can sense when the animals will charge, are incited. Fine. But I know what I'm doing, too - I know that everything is unpredictable. You can't ever predict what anything or anyone will do in any particular moment. This is a truth that no one likes to be reminded of. You can't ever trust anyone. You can't ever trust a 600 pound leopard.

out of africa

editor's note

Yesterday devolved into a pre-election anxiety shopping rally. Tried on the entirety of Zara, including the aforementioned dress, and many other things with leather and zippers that looked so banging on the hanger. As it turns out, one must have the body of the hanger to wear this shit.

Zara, we needs to talk about the boobs, and how I have them. You did not leave room. Perhaps you think they detach? Is that the purpose of your oversized clutches?

I vengeance-bought tights instead, and these little crushed velvet red shoes that I will refer to as oxblood-coloured, because oxblood is the colour of the season. Oxblood.

I also ate an entire box of off-brand Frosted Mini Wheats while muttering at polling data. And then at 2:00 a.m., with a bottle or three of wine, we took to the streets and exhaled. For the last couple of months I've been coming back to 2008, and to the memory of that night, when my ex said he was sort of tired, and would rather go to sleep than watch the election. I didn't argue, and I called him weeping when they announced the win, and he sort of murmured that it was good, and then went back to bed. The country was waking up, and he just wanted to sleep.

It is snowing outside, full fluffy flakes. The leak in my bedroom ceiling has finally slowed, leaving a wide brown maw behind. I've been watching the same video of Darren Criss for the past hour. Darren Criss is such a delightfully compact man. I keep thinking I'll cry, but I don't.

when we lead with hope

Four more years. twitter.com/BarackObama/st…

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 7, 2012

random act of bravery

I spent the days of the hurricane in my apartment with the windows open. I weathered this one alone. It was difficult, honestly. But it was also okay. And all of my friends extended invitations to curl up into their couches or air mattresses. And that is a gift.  And there wasn't much for me to weather, compared to what has been wrought on other neighbourhoods. I live in some sort of triangle of mercy, apparently, where the winds blow gently and the rain falls all in a line, with order, with reserve. Waking up to images of the devastation on Tuesday was heartbreaking. I have grown to love this city and how much it gives to those of us who live here, and I have been fortified by my facebook news feed, which was one long string of invitations, offers of hot water, of internet, of baked goods. We all baked. A lot. That's how we prepared. I had gathered my supplies on my kitchen table: plastic jugs of water, headlamp, matches, batteries, Jane Austen's Persuasion on DVD, and ingredients for various loaves. The next morning it looked sort of foolish and pitiful. When I read stories about babies being swept from their mother's arms and whole houses being uprooted to land somewhere new, it seems darkly absurd, the idea that two aaa batteries could be a safety net.  

On one of the last days of this summer, I walked through Breezy Point on the way to The Boat for Singing Together. Did I tell you about that? A young couple built a tent from canvas and toggles on a piece of driftwood they found, and they've anchored it just off the coast. They shuttle you out there on a little motor boat and you sit in a circle with a bunch of strangers, dangling your feet in the water, singing. Literally singing. Walking to the harbour through the streets of Breezy Point, we were all amazed that a community like that could exist so close to the city - kids playing in the streets, parents with lawn chairs chatting with neighbours. It was a slice of suburbia against the Manhattan backdrop. It was a home. The couple who run The Boat told us that the community had been incredibly supportive. The teenagers kicked up their little sloops and rode around the tent, listening to the music. The night before we were there, one of the kids swam underneath the tent and came up in the center, grabbing one woman's legs and scaring everyone out of their minds. But in a kind way. You know. Anyway. This is what I've been thinking about. Those kids. That community. 

The storm ground campaigning to a halt for a few days. One man mobilized the National Guard, consoled victims, put the full weight of his office and his country behind salvaging what was left behind. Another man bought cans of soup so he could take photos of himself receiving the soup from his aides. He tried to swallow his words about privatizing FEMA and his pitiful, ceaseless dismissal of climate change. Some people say this is no time for politics. There is no better time for politics. 

I can't vote in this country. As ever, the election approaches and I am left with this immense feeling of fury and ineptitude. I read all the articles, re-tweet the horrifying soundbites about rape and rising oceans and the 47%, the same 47% who are now struggling to rebuild their homes and eat and just BREATHE. There is one man who believes the state is not responsible for caring for its citizens. That there is a big white house waiting for him where he can sit and grow richer and not do a whole lot, because that's what government should do: abandon those who can't help themselves, when "helping themselves" means working, caring for your family, staying healthy, loving who you love. To be as blunt as I can be: I do not understand, not even remotely, the sheer cruelty and ignorance and idiocy of anyone who casts their vote for that man. Not ever. Not now. You have to be better than that. We have to be better than that. We have to offer hot water and warm clothes to those who don't have them. We have to bake them some bread. We have to believe in compassion. It's so goddamn easy to care only for yourself, and so goddamn worthless. 

To be clear: what I'm doing is not brave. Yesterday I walked down to Red Hook and spent a few hours at the distribution centre, moving rolls of toilet paper from one place to another place. And again, and again. It was easy and it was nothing. The people who are trying to put a life back together out of ocean-beaten wood? They are brave. But all together, all the small movements from people all over this city, no matter how small, are monumental. They were overwhelmed by volunteers in Red Hook, so much so that they stopped accepting them. I know that not all communities have seen this sort of mobilization, but it was heartening, for a moment, to see everyone in that big room, just picking up things and moving them somewhere else, how such a small act can mean so much. It was easy and it was nothing. You take a small piece of paper or stand in front of a computer. You believe in compassion. It is easy and it is undeniably brave. And all together, it can be monumental.