'tell about it.'

radical love letter #66

Note: I’m sending this, which I drafted yesterday, from the airport, and only just saw the Roe news. I wrote some thoughts on it after the leak, which is basically that abuse of power comes as no surprise, and that our only way through anything is to stop relying on the state and start relying on (and getting better at taking care of) each other. I have links in that newsletter to abortion-relevant content, but adding this Kelly Hayes interview on preparing for a post-Roe world. 

Dear ones, 

I have been quiet again, despite my best intentions. The problem is that I am a person who writes about life who, at the moment, has a less coherent narrative of my life. I value and respect privacy, but as a writer I’ve always leaned towards sharing. This is perhaps unsurprising for a Livejournaler/blogger-turned-autotheorist/memoirist. Ten or so years ago I had a successful vegan food blog where I shared recipes, radical food politics, and also daily life musings. My readers knew me as someone with a partner; I presented a stable home life, a happy normal kind of life. When I left that relationship, I went silent on the blog. I couldn’t write about my life because my life was a lot of pain and transition and confusion. Today, reader, I find myself in a similar spot. These newsletters aren’t strictly personal, but they are almost always infused by it. (I am always ringing the bell of the personal being political.) 

As most of you know, I am again recently out of a long-term relationship from an eight-year love I still miss everyday, and whom I’ve been heavily grieving since October. What I’ve been much less open about is that simultaneous to this very real pain and loss, I also started seeing someone else. I began this newsletter as L’s partner, and now I am not, and sometimes I don’t know how to write to you as a (even just somewhat) “public figure” who has gone through changes. These formats don’t take well to changes. 

I’m opening up about this now because the pressure to accommodate an “audience” who thinks of me in one way has become a self-imposed tool of silence. It has been so hard to write. To say “I am completely and utterly heartbroken, and also there is new love in my life.” Or, even separate from that disclosure, to explain why I spent most of June in Catalunya (it is where this person lives). The juxtaposition of these feelings has meant things have been very messy and painful and confusing, but also there have been moments of joy (mercifully, and after months of nearly none), and even more than that, there have been many moments of insight.

Writers don’t like to hold onto insight; we’re like tea kettles, I think, screaming, lest the lines we are constantly constructing in our heads evaporate. (Not because we think these lines are genius or necessary, but because we are creatures who live by the Mary Oliver advice to “tell about it.”)

So anyway, this is the situation. I am coming to you in a moment of transition and confusion and my life isn’t tidy right now. I still want to write though. I still want to say “this thing in Catalunya made me think of this other thing,” and not feel like I’m disappointing people for not having an easier existence to digest. That’s fair, right? 

I actually, for-real-this-time plan to get back to weekly emails. I have some in the queue (insights from my weeks in Europe), and am excited for more to come. Today, though, I offer you this bit of transparency and also little lists (below). Thank you again and again for sticking with me through these past months of upheaval and inconsistency. I’m grateful for all of you who are still here. <3

love & solidarity,

raechel 

News & Updates   

For Belt Magazine,  I interviewed Z. Zane McNeill, the editor of the new collection Y’all Means All: The Emerging Voices Queering Appalachia. And for local readers: come to the Books To Prisoners fundraiser at No Class on June 26, 5-9pm! 

Reading 

A really interesting article about the racist and anti-communist roots of early sex education and how debates around sex ed have shifted into a platform for the strategic assault on transgender people. Relatedly, analysis of “groomer” rhetoric from Melissa Gira Grant. This n+1 piece tells multiple tangles of a story regarding a compelling psychoanalytic theory of ‘parasitic whiteness,’ the alt-right response to it, and the real-life impact on the old doctor who bore their brunt. On a lighter note, I stumbled into this delightful 2015 Vanity Fair piece reflecting on the fashion in Clueless. And this beautiful essay on “How to Leave a Life” from Dani Janae. 

Watching 

Nothing new! I ended up giving up on The Staircase after the first episode set in prison (it was not great), so I’m looking for a new series to get stoked about. What exciting things have you been streaming? (For real, I’m down for recs.) 

Listening 

I’ve been on a Bonnie Raitt kick again. Her debut album from the 70s is so fucking solid. I love her 80s and 90s stuff too, but the bluesy americana of her cover of “Angel from Montgomery”?! Absolute perfection. Also I Wikipedia’d her politics, as I’m wont to do before raving about an artist, and she is very socialist-y. (Also a former Beat and African Studies major.) 

Joy & Attention. 

Language acquisition through immersion. Digging my acrylic-tipped fingers in the soil to plant little squash sprouts. The street cats of Catalunya. Two weeks off from all my jobs, holy shit I haven’t had this big a break from work-work in so long! Train rides through the countryside of the Spanish state. Anarchist history. Cliffs at the end of the world. Mountain goats (the real kind and the band, always). All-day hikes. Solstice intentions. Wild turtles. Friendship (so absurdly grateful for the friends who have been compassionate to my ups and downs since the breakup). Cafe con leche (civada/oat). Queer kinship, specifically meeting up with other radical queers from the states who are also in Europe and discussing the differences and similarities in our scenes/communities.  The ocean. The sea. Salt in my hair, and even the sting in my eyes. Love.

(What is bringing you joy lately? To what are you paying attention?)