palms toward the sky.

radical love letters #68

Dear ones,

On Friday I arrive home to an overcast sky. I had been out of town for work, and after three uncomfortably sunny hours in the car, I was relieved for what looked like impending rain. I was also feeling pretty down; some tough job-related things, coupled with ongoing tough heart-related things, on top of, you know, the general state of things. I was just blue. “I don’t want to yearn for blue things, and God forbid for any ‘blueness.’  Above all, I want to stop missing you.” (I am re-reading Bluets).

Anyway, I decided to walk to a little lake tucked behind a thick of trees and wild weeds, about twenty minutes from my apartment. It’s my go-to walking spot: the water soothes me; the way the plants are arranged create a sort of bubble from the neighborhood streets. Behind the trees, it’s always a mix of quiet and boisterous, but the ruckus is always from the bird calls, the chipmunk play, the rustling leaves in the wind. It’s a magical dwelling, and it’s been a real refuge in a hard year. There are a couple of fallen trees that make for welcoming benches, and I’ve sat before in winter coats, then spring dresses, then summer skirts, to cry and cry. 

In the winter, the tears were always relationship grief. In the spring, still grief, but also the dead geese. In the spring, every time I walked by this lake I would spot multiple gigantic geese corpses. Adult geese are intimidatingly large creatures, but there was something about their enormity in death that knocked the wind out of me. And I would spot one after another after another, on this relatively small and desolate path by this hidden lake nestled behind thick trees and wild weeds. I sobbed and sobbed for these dead geese and when I got home I googled, “dead geese + shaker heights” (where the lake is located). Sure enough, this part of Ohio was hit with intense bird flu. “Do geese feel scared during bird flu?” I googled next, tears streaming down my face. I felt sick thinking about the geese not knowing what was happening, unsure if their geese family would draw nearer to them or, as a survival instinct, stay away. The only thing that came up was a list of symptoms and if humans can catch bird flu. Every walk in the woods this spring, I passed geese corpses and every walk in the woods this spring I whispered prayers with my head bowed and my palms toward the sky. 

It is summer now. On this particular overcast evening, after pausing my podcast the way I always do once I get to the water, I noticed that every spot where I had previously seen a geese corpse was suddenly exploding with green. Fecund, fertile green. I felt a thick build in the low of my throat, but it stayed tampered. A heron on the water, statue-like, appeared behind a break in the leaves. The sky opened and the rain fell. Drenched now, I watched the bird remain still, and I was still too. 

After some unknown amount of minutes in what felt like a portal, I made my way back up the hill to get back home. I pressed play on the podcast again and tucked my phone beneath my shirt to protect it from the now ferocious downpour. In my earbuds adrienne maree brown was gushing about that video of Pharrell discovering Maggie Rogers. I remembered seeing it in Minneapolis, probably a decade ago. I found a little awning to stand under because I decided I really really needed to re-watch this video. I pressed play and watched a very young at-the-time-unknown musician watch a very famous popstar listen to what would go on to be a Grammy winning song. She is sheepish but also confident, watching his face react in a way that is at first hard to decipher but becomes quickly undeniably impressed. She swallows a big grin when she realizes this. Soon he can’t hide anything; he’s blown away. “No notes,” he says. She’s stunned. She smiles. I bawl. I am so happy for Maggie Rogers in this moment. I am still blue, I am still sad for the geese, I am still in awe of the heron, but also I am crying with joy for this random celebrity, crying for anyone ever who has been affirmed that their art has touched someone. The video was just the release valve, though; really I am crying for all of it.

When I first sat down to write this, I thought, “Leave out the Maggie Rogers part. Watching a YouTube video on your phone is not nearly as romantic as watching a heron on the water.” So I wrote a version of this that ended on the heron. But then I heard Marie Howe read this poem, which I share about halfway through the start: 

“...This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.

And I’d say, What?

And he’d say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.

And I’d say, What?

And he’d say, This, sort of looking around.” 

‘This’ is the heron and it is the Youtube video of Maggie Rogers and Pharrell and it is your cheese sandwich and it is both the human moment with a stranger on the train as well as the awful screech of the wheels on the track. It is both the soundtrack of the rain by the lake, and the soundtrack of the podcast on the sidewalk. It is the pain and the joy and the boring. It is the gutting blue, and it is the fecund fertile green.

It is this. And this, and this, and this.

I love you.

love & solidarity,

raechel

Reading

Kimberly Bain on Black grief and room to breathe. Niko Stratis’s beautiful meander through Waxahatchee’s St. Cloud. An in-depth look at how expensive it is to get healthcare in prison. This wonderful interview with Richie Reseda on patriarchy, the prison system, and breaking trauma cycles. & my current bedtime book is Dwelling: A Spiritual History of the Living World. 

Watching 

The Bear! Hot people, good acting, fast script. Chicaaaago. “Yes, chef.” (Are you sold?) 

Listening 

Chance the Rapper is a go-to summer soundtrack, and I’m really enjoying one of his more recent singles, “Highs & Lows.” Also obsessssed with Valerie June covering Frank Ocean and Mazzy Star! Also also, thanks to L for recommending this band Fresh - “Revenge” in particular is a jam.

Joy & Attention

Criminalized class co-care & solidarity. Family dinners. Anarchist bonfires. Lake Erie at sunset. The heron. The growing green. Overdue phonecalls with dear friends. Empathy. Interesting conversations with smart comrades. Baking a strawberry rhubarb crumble. Red lipstain. Get-togethers with childhood friends & reminiscing & meeting their tiny little babies & also the restaurant patio speakers seemed to have a soundtrack just for us, just for our nostalgia (Eve 6, Blue-album-Weezer, Harvey Danger, Dookie-era Green Day! <3). Psychoanalysis, or at least discussions about psychoanalytic theories. Yarrow. Iced americanos. Bail funds. Local farm lettuce. Kitten cuddles. Lighting bugs & their ephemeral emergence in the quiet of a dark Ohio night. (This, and this, and this.)