I sang tonight. And danced. I watched the shadows play on the wall, animated by the street lights through the grates on the window; witnessed the beauty of my lines moving gracefully along the blank space.
As I write, I am drinking warm red wine and listening to the music that marks the chapters in my life. I can name my seasons in album titles and venues. I mark the time with her lips. His palms. Her breath. Her laugh. Your eyes.
I received messengers today in the form of old friends, actors, songs, and strangers with warm hands. I’ve entered many new battlefields this year. It’s forced me to revisit the old ones. The catharsis of self-confrontation can be a political act.
In all the mundane, we can forget the magic. We can forget to listen. We can dismiss that which is meant to guide us and lead us through the illusion that is now to the reality which is the world we are to create. I’m mired in the politics. They are personified in the young people who’ve become my life and they’ve never been so real to me as they are now. It’s never felt so urgent and so confusing …
I was looking for answers today. I found this:
“There are white women, hurt and angry, who believed that the 70s women’s movement meant sisterhood, and who feel betrayed by escalator women. By women who went back home to the patriarchy. But the women’s movement never left the father Dick’s side … There was no war. And there was no liberation. We got a share of genocide profits and we love it. We are Sisters of Patriarchy, and true supporters of national and class oppression, Patriarchy in its highest form is Euro-imperialism on a world scale. If we’re Dick’s sister and want what he has gotten, then in the end we support the system that he got it all from.”
–from Mary Barfoot The Coming of Black Genocide about the cooptation of the feminist movement.
And this, a performance that moved me to tears tonight (go see it if you’re in NYC!! Props to Julie Rosier for her choreography):
And this:
And red wine.
All of this together makes perfect sense to me tonight; leads me to believe that I just might be on the path to figuring some of it out.
In the midst of crisis, I am working on finding peace and grounding so that I can remain effective. People I know are dying or expressing the desire to die. Others are locked up: some behind bars, some in their own constructed prisons, some rendered paralyzed by their circumstance. It is our job to figure out how to move ourselves and each other through it so that we can continue to evolve ..
1 Comment
April 13, 2008 at 1:39 am
i am inspired by your willingness to be open about your journey, you search for what is true and good right now and in the future. continue on and i will try to keep up with you.