on Generational Trauma/on Hope/on Praxis/the Cycle of the Seasons/the Work

the eighth day

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comic drawing of a fox, eyes closed, while wind blows leaves past, with the text 'it fucken wimdy'

MERCURY IS IN GATORADE AGAIN

TOPICAL: this is part of The Cycle of the Seasons series

I started up my Welsh lessons again on Duolingo! I’m going back through the early lessons because they updated the course and there are words and tenses I wasn’t familiar with yet, so instead of googling the answers, I want to know what they’re talking about (literally). I can absolutely say that dwi ddim yn hoffi pys, because the only peas I’ve ever actually liked were right out of the garden and my taste-memory wants nothing to do with ‘peas’ from the grocery store. Maybe if I grew my own? Anyway.

As I was looking for something on Facebook (ew), I stopped by my sister’s profile, like I do every few months. There were some photos of a Christmas gift exchange, and I don’t think I have ever seen a more awkward and sad looking gift exchange. Where is the dark-outside-light-inside feeling? Where is the mood lighting? Why are you all on chairs when you could be on the floor? Why do you look so sad?? SHOW ME ON THE TREE WHERE CHRISTMAS HURT YOU. (My oldest nephew did not look sad in the slightest, I think he’s impervious)

Since I track the weather and lunar cycles, eclipses, retrogrades, Sabbats, and cross-quarter days, of course I knew that Mercury stationed direct retrograde (very funny, Mercury) in Capricorn today. Do I know what that means? Not really. I’ve read some commentary by astrologers whose opinions I generally trust, and the only thing I know for sure is that each one is different because a) they are in different signs each time [what even is a Capricorn? I’M NOT SURE], and b) we are different each time and so is the world. All I really know is that Mercury is in Gatorade again and we have to slow down, shut our mouths, and think before we speak or act or decide.

I opened all the packages that were stashed in the mudroom today and we ran them through a decontamination cycle and then I brought the things that are gifts (I got to do the buying of the House gifts to everyone this year) for 12th Night up to my room so that I can put them in bags stuffed with tissue.

… oh, did I not tell you about our decontamination procedures? Most of us are immune-compromised and even if we weren’t, we really fucking do not want COVID or anything else getting in the house. Anything coming into the house from outside goes through a decontamination cycle. Items are handled with gloves or bare hands that can be sanitized afterward. If your clothes touch the thing you’re unboxing, put it in the decon laundry hamper that lives in the mudroom. (prepare yourself ahead of time or you might end up very cold if you have to take off your shirt and pants, trust me on this one) Near the beginning of the pandemic, we bought medical-grade UV lights and have them set up in our mudroom — it’s kind of an airlock room between an outside door and an inside door — for radiating the heck out of stuff. This UV light is too dangerous for contact with people, and a few of us have at one point opened the door and discovered too late that one of the lights hadn’t turned off properly, immediately left the room with our eyes shut, asked for an antihistamine and allergy eye drops, and kept our eyes shut for at least fifteen minutes. We’ve got light-blocking curtains on the windows and UV-blocking plastic lining the inside and outside of the glass on the door. We have a process for letting everyone know the downstairs is closed for decon, and we even decon food that we order out.

ANYWAY, the gifts are now upstairs. I still haven’t read my book, but I did get to give our toddler a back rub and I had a delicious meatball sub for dinner and I have doughnuts left and I am having a cold Guinness and my current favorite playlist is bouncing around the inside of my skull (earbuds are so nice sometimes). So really, things are pretty damn good here.

May you find as much intense enjoyment as a toddler pausing for maximum backrub feelings.

— Nix

P.S. Would you believe me if I told you that our decon procedure was part of what led to a breakup I had early in the pandemic? Apparently you can take something so personally that it ruins a brand-new relationship. I mean, it happens, I guess. I’m kind of on hiatus right now.

P.P.S. Which reminds me, the person who broke up with me is a Capricorn. I don’t know if that has anything to do with anything.

Our days traditionally begin at sunset. The darkness is all around us but we are safe here together inside these walls that we have fortified with love and with sacrifice.

featured image is a comic that appears to have originated here on Tumblr in 2021

on Hope/on Praxis/the Cycle of the Seasons/the Work

the seventh day

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a basket of cinnamon sugar doughnuts on a wooden table

insert joke about resting

TOPICAL: this is part of The Cycle of the Seasons series

Tell me you’re exvangelical without telling me you’re exvangelical: you’ve successfully forgotten how to Christmas, but unfortunately, jokes referencing a translation of the book of Genesis come to mind FAR too quickly. I think I ruined the joke.

This is the third or fourth day in a row that I have been trying to find time to read a specific book (Stardust by Neil Gaiman, a used copy I bought from the local library), and failing to find that time somewhere. I did finally do an extra load of dishes. I also did a load of laundry and played Stardew Valley some more, but my mind is so occupied with all the things to take care of right now that I keep forgetting what my plans are in the game and I end up wasting game time trying to remember what I was doing. It feels like what this year was like.

Oh, and I requested cinnamon sugar doughnuts in my grocery wants list — group shopping lists are one of the best community living tips I could give — and I ate two of them in quick succession even though it would have been nice to save five for later instead of four.

Some of us spent time last evening having a rueful laugh about people that we know who’ve honestly wanted to try communal living but ended up with problems that felt unsolvable. The thing about living in community is that you are going to get on each other’s nerves. There will always be something that happened that no one can recall happening, or an item is lost but turns out to have been put away in a place it doesn’t belong, or a person who doesn’t buy groceries has drunk all the milk. If you, as a group, don’t have a strong commitment to working out your problems willingly and without your ego taking center stage, it’s next to impossible to live in any kind of harmony as a group of people. Community living sounds beautiful until it’s hard, and then it falls apart so easily and with so many outward spirals of harm if there hasn’t been any foundational work done ahead of time.

Speaking of books I have been wanting to read and not getting to read yet, I have Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World, and there is a part of my brain’s CPU runtime that is completely occupied with being aware that I have not read this book yet, because it feels like a very important book and I want to have already had the privilege of reading it.

Anyway. I have been experiencing a lot of sensory overload this week, and looking for ways to comfort myself where I can. Hence, a lot of Stardew Valley, and also many bread products, and small naps. I took a short nap after dinner because I couldn’t seem to think — my brain might have been wrapped in fuzz — and I woke up feeling weirdly disoriented. I know it’s still today, but I feel like I don’t know where I am. Maybe I’m in a video game, wondering why I went to this area of the map. What was I going to do? Will I figure it out if I look in my inventory again? Oh hey, a doughnut!

The end.

May the things that comfort you be within reach.

— Nix

P.S. This was incredibly disjointed. Welcome to my mind, I suppose? Eek.

Our days traditionally begin at sunset. The darkness is all around us but we are safe here together inside these walls that we have fortified with love and with sacrifice.

featured image is a photo by Jovan Vasiljević on Unsplash

on Hope/on Praxis/the Cycle of the Seasons/the Work

the sixth day

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POV on a rollercoaster, blurred to indicate speed and motion

just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

TOPICAL: this is part of The Cycle of the Seasons series

In many ways, having arrived at the halfway point of twelve days feels kind of like the false security of having got to the top of a rollercoaster, combined with the sudden realization that what’s next is a very fast, unstoppable drop. It’s fun and it’s terrifying, which is ostensibly part of the thrill (I think, I cannot handle what my body does with the cortisol produced by roller coasters, so I haven’t been on one in decades).

Halfway through makes me very glad I’ve been in therapy throughout this year. If I don’t continue unpacking my messiah complex, it steers me into blind spots and I become overconfident.

Halfway through challenges my assumptions about how much I can do; and how much I can’t, and where is the wibbly bit between those two things.

Halfway through means WE’RE DOING IT but also OH MY GOD THERE’S MORE.

I am proud of all of us for how much work and heart and sweat and love we are putting into what we’re doing right now. We are trying hard and we are sending messages when we’re nearing our capacity to say ‘I think I need a break,’ while at the same time understanding that there might not be someone who can take some of our plateful of things for now.

I am once again reminded that our anxiety — which kicks up when things get hard — wants us to hide forever but also to say yes to everything. Because we could, right? We could do that. Pile another thing on. I got this. I’M SO GOOD AT MULTITASKING. I’M PLAYING FOUR-DIMENSIONAL CHESS.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

I have the privilege of being trusted by my little family of people. They know that I am going to do my best, and they know that I know that they are going to do their best. Sending up a flare to say ‘I’m stuck here, please help’ does not make you a shitty person. Asking for help is hard, and passing out from overdoing things is worse.

I am doing the math of harm every day, sometimes minute by minute, so that we can keep this ship on the water. If you prefer a driving metaphor: staying between the lines, shiny side up.

And I am learning as I go, because I have to, because I don’t know everything about myself yet, because I don’t know what wisdom I will need for next time, because to stop learning is to become a stone that never moves, never thinks, never experiences the kind of life that I want to experience.

I hope that your understanding of your own capacity is healing for you, even if it takes years to get there.

— Nix

P.S. There’s nothing at all wrong with being a stone, I like them very much, but I do not want to be a stone. Not this time around, anyway.

Our days traditionally begin at sunset. The darkness is all around us but we are safe here together inside these walls that we have fortified with love and with sacrifice.

featured image is a photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash