I’ve added audio today for those of you that want to kick back & listen. Enjoy!
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Hi friend,
I’m going through a period of reevaluation right now. Well, “going through a period” sounds nice & tidy, doesn’t it, like I have some agency in the matter.
It feels like ever since lockdown, ever since the government’s escalating misinformation regarding COVID, the Black Lives Matter protests, the unfathomable live-streamed genocide of Palestinians, the unrelenting dehumanization this presidency rejoices in (& the list goes on, the onslaught coming from every direction, etc. etc.) that many of us have been looking at the world around us with shock, helplessness, & desperation.
This human being says it well. “What if none of us should be constantly emotionally regulated and prioritizing our peace while all of this happens around us? What if that’s not wellness?”
Whether on long walks through my neighborhood, or while pouring blueberries into my blender, a question keeps finding me: How am I supposed to make sense of all this? This is our one planet. This is, so far as I know, my one life. How am I supposed to make sense of all this? I’ve asked this question my whole life & I’ve found some guidance in Buddhism, in art-making, in love. The survival tactics & paradigms that helped me in past crises are available to me now & I use them. & yet, & yet. Something unanswerable looms. Something unanswerable lives inside me. Does it live inside you?
In a recent interview shortly before legend poet Nikki Giovanni died, an interviewer at least 4 generations younger than her laments that “…love is just so hard to find…it’s hard to find in the [family] household…it was hard to find when my body started changing & it didn’t look like Beyonce or whoever…it became hard to be like this is the person that I love [referring to herself]…so I’ll direct it back as a question, where do you find love?”
& when I tell you Nikki Giovanni can hardly wait before interrupting her to say, “You don’t find it, you give it. It isn’t lost. You give it!” The elder cuts through the fog with a blade. In her usual Nikki Giovanni way, she looks almost affronted, her words rearing steel-bright, she spares no moment to correct the record & still the young woman’s spinning wheel of a mind whose center spoke is what the self deserves.
“You don’t find it. You give it.”
Every day, as How am I supposed to make sense of all this? kicks up dust inside me, I can’t stop hearing Giovanni. But it’s not just the words she says, powerful & wise as they are. It’s her presence cutting through, generously, boldly, without a thought of people-pleasing. It’s what I’ve always loved about her. Assertive, decisive, visionary Giovanni will forever be a fount of realness. Out of her big love springs big no-nonsense-energy.
So today I ask Giovanni How am I supposed to make sense of all this? And when I listen I hear her answer, or at the very least, I imagine it: Make sense with your hands, not your mind. Fix a plate. Feed someone. Write a poem. When you don’t expect everything, you can nourish the moment. You can make everything from it.
Spell to protect the light in you
Hello / I am casting a spell /
it’s a little like tossing leaves
onto a mirror / scatter scatter scatter /
as the rain falls in pine needles /
pling pling pling / this
strange gesture is / small / earnest
like a leaf / like rain itself / & hope
-fully worthy / who was it that told me
any effort to love is love itself / maybe
it was me / that’s why I’m here
on earth / with you today / the window fan
spitting rain at my bare feet / i won’t be
tricked that there is only / one / knowable sun
above us / even though that’s what my eyes say
because meanwhile / inside me birds / birds
fill even the most distant hills / they lift
& keep lifting / the light inside me is why
Prompts to protect the light in you
Write for 4 minutes without judgement or pause: What feels most alive in my life right now? What feels most true?
Find a mirror. Reflect something unexpected. Take a picture.
Tanaïs says, “Anger is an underrated path to intimacy.” What are other underrated paths to intimacy? Bowling? Elevators? Grocery store cashier conversations?
What is your favorite photograph of yourself? Why? Write for 4 minutes about the person in that photograph. What do you see there? What are some truths about them? What do they emanate? Provoke in you?
What is a secret you have that is tired of being a secret? How might you free it, just a little bit, today?
Who were you at 10 years old? What did you love to do, to eat, to talk about? Who did you trust? What were you curious about? What deep thoughts did you entertain? For 4 minutes, write out a dialogue between your current self & that 10 year old. What do they want to ask you? What do you want to ask them? How would you like to offer them protection moving forward? How can they offer you protection?
When you momentarily drop all of your goals & ambitions, who do you find there? If you take a big breath & relax the grip around your shame, what does that feel like? When you close your eyes, what is the texture of the presence you sense?
Who were you seconds before you were given a name?
Songs to protect the light in you
Friends to protect the light in you
Ways to protect the light in others
Continue to donate to Ahmed, Remah, & Maryam. This past week Ahmed’s father suddenly needed emergency heart surgery. Your contributions helped. Our friend Isabel says, “Without your continued solidarity and support this would not have been possible and the outcome would have been devastating.” Thank you!
Consider donating to Asiyah Women’s Shelter or, if you’re based in New York, consider volunteering.
My friend Fatimah Asghar’s “Queer - POC - Muslim” film Anatomy of a Fuckboy is still taking donations!
Join our July In Surreal Life session alongside 49 other writers, makers, feelers & dreamers! There’s only a week & change left to apply & it’s filling up, so snag your spot! ✍🏿 ⚡ ✍🏻 ⚡ ✍🏽 This community holds each other like no other. It’s a space to expand, to shed, to risk, & to just bask in joy. Alongside juicy prompts, a dynamic global community of writers, & a ridiculous lineup of visiting artists, it’s a giving space, in the spirit of Nikki Giovanni.
So, friend. Here’s to the light inside you & the protection it deserves. When I am bereft, when I lose my language & my way, I often hold onto one word: mystery. The mystery keeps mysterying. No matter what. The birds lift off, guided by an internal knowing. The map inside us keeps unfolding. When a bird lifts off a branch, the sky is not just above it but below, beside, & inside it. Life is porous, fluid, awesome, awful, all. As Szymborska says in her poem Sky, “My identifying features / are rapture and despair.”
With maple syrup,
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