I'm not sure that I can describe it, and not at all sure that it's the right phrase to say what I'm feeling. There has been so much damage done under the current administration, and, I've been stopped here, trying to think of how to say this, what to say. The situation for prisoners, alone, from interrogation methods in violation of the Geneva Convention (and retroactively justified by law) to the hiring of companies like Lockheed to fly prisoners to other countries to be tortured to the endemic racism of who gets arrested and put away, and on and on, the change of leadership in Congress is, I hope, a step towards stopping the acute crisis of the war in Iraq and the official/unofficial position that our country is justified in aggression in order to maintain global dominance in service of the interests of very few -- something needed to change, so maybe it's a start -- but I find it so hard to see real openings, or a clear direction, and don't feel like celebrating.
And, you know, I did, I got on my bike at 7 am on Tuesday and rode over there to vote and felt urgent about doing that. And, then, holding the sort of very bodily, intimate tensions of being fat in this unbalanced, affluent country that is my home and where I -- what? -- have learned and met and known so much of what and who I love -- and, in the context of this day, this post, continuing to believe (and to question) that that matters, that the book of poetry I have to read matters, and the writing I have to do, and what Stacy and Val and I might say to each other. There's something about balance for me here, and about respecting the work of people who are stepping up in all sorts of ways, including, for me, through the traditional political process, and for explorations, like yours, of alternatives there, and for that kind of work that starts somewhere like the human immediacy of what it means for people to be shunned (incompletely, and not without power or recourse) based on something as arbitrary as bodily size and shape, for remembering and truly believing that art matters and acting as if it does, as if it's a force in the world, and one that I can shape and serve. That's my best answer for this moment about cognitive dissonance, becca
no subject
And, you know, I did, I got on my bike at 7 am on Tuesday and rode over there to vote and felt urgent about doing that. And, then, holding the sort of very bodily, intimate tensions of being fat in this unbalanced, affluent country that is my home and where I -- what? -- have learned and met and known so much of what and who I love -- and, in the context of this day, this post, continuing to believe (and to question) that that matters, that the book of poetry I have to read matters, and the writing I have to do, and what Stacy and Val and I might say to each other. There's something about balance for me here, and about respecting the work of people who are stepping up in all sorts of ways, including, for me, through the traditional political process, and for explorations, like yours, of alternatives there, and for that kind of work that starts somewhere like the human immediacy of what it means for people to be shunned (incompletely, and not without power or recourse) based on something as arbitrary as bodily size and shape, for remembering and truly believing that art matters and acting as if it does, as if it's a force in the world, and one that I can shape and serve. That's my best answer for this moment about cognitive dissonance, becca