Entries from 2020

I try to say things, usually, to the widest audience I can - to the largest set of people who may be able to hear something from it all.

This one needs to be a little more focused.

This is for my trans sisters.

As often happens when I sit down to write, I am not entirely certain what it is I need to say here tonight.

This isn't to say I'm not sure what to talk about - I simply haven't transferred the imagery in my mind and heart into words yet. It's part of the way thinking works for me. All I know for sure, right now, is there is a lot to be said.

My heart is both tired and very alive. There is much work to be done, in this world, but I feel that we have a chance to get that work done. The election in the United States this past week was draining and - in many ways - a deeply unsettling experience. To know that so many still see the world in certain ways, that so many are still profoundly mired in damaging ideas and attitudes, that divisiveness remains such an effective weapon of oppression even just within this country is difficult to watch.

In a sense, though, it is a source of a kind of dark hope, for me.

I've been around descriptions of cardiac failure for a long time; I have family members and have had a few friends in various medical and emergency-response careers, so hearing about heart attacks was not unusual for certain segments of my life.

What really made the concept real to me, though, was a book about chaos theory that described "fibrillation" in terms of a mathematical situation. The electrical signals of nerves and neurons that typically regulate proper muscle contractions - a heartbeat - become uncoordinated, uncooperative, and can even lead to permanent failure.

I think a lot.

I wonder if my recent blossoming fascination with human connection is really truly the deep, significant, profound glimpse of the true path out of the less-lovely aspects of the human "condition." I wonder if maybe it's just me projecting my fundamental angst and pain, or if all these people I talk to about the horror of loneliness are really, truly leaving our conversations with more hope and interest in nurturing the connections of their own.

Today marks four hundred sixty-three days since I wrote this - which became the first entry on this site.

The past few months have been laced with an odd mixture of monotonous stress and unexpected, bewildering calm. Sitting around alone, effectively quarantined, for weeks upon weeks was not a choice I would have made for myself - and yet, as odd as it may sound, I'm glad to be doing it. In a way, I'm at peace with continuing to do this for as long as I need to. It's not a resigned, powerless sense of "guess I have no choice" - I've actually become interested in making the best of it, for as long as I can.

Which is not to say it's been fun, or easy, or even consistently enjoyable.

I sat down earlier this evening to think a little bit.

I do a lot of reflecting these days - a habit I started (due to a combination of necessity and lack of meaningful alternatives) early in 2019 - but this session was different.

I have been introspective for most of my life, but mostly in bursts or short stints, until 2019. I've written before about what that year entailed for me and what came from it. Until today, though, I've looked at my own story as a sort of thread of continuity - a consistent but sometimes distant or distorted voice of experience across three decades of life.

I'm not going to link the news. If you aren't already seeing it, I want it to be your choice how much to engage with it.

But regardless of your views on what is going on right now - especially in the U.S. - and regardless of your choices in how you react and respond, I think there are some things I want everyone to hear.

What we do, in the next days, weeks, and years, will define the course of history. And that means what every single one of us does, or does not do.

There are, periodically, moments in my life where I feel an uncontainable surplus of words - a sort of incessant need to say things. It's taken a lot of life experience (and more than a few "well now I feel silly" moments) to realize that this is generally a sign that I need to write.

Most of the things I feel I have to say are smallish in magnitude: a quick journal entry, a blog post, maybe a several-hour conversation with a dear friend. Lately, though, the journal entries, the conversations, all the quiet contemplation... it just seems to suggest that there is even more I need to say than usual.

This will be the first attempt of mine at starting to distill a larger cloud of ideas that has been forming for many, many years. Most of these ideas are not my own, and very few are new. The thing about ideas - especially in large groups - is that with enough sheer quantity of stuff to think about, it can often be the case that previously-undetected patterns become startlingly clear.

I turned 34 years old yesterday.

As may be obvious from the contents of this site, introspection (often leading to the public transcription of those thoughts) is a deep part of who I am and how I live. A birthday - especially the first birthday I have ever actually voluntarily observed (let alone celebrated) - is a fantastic occasion for introspection.

On many levels, I am ridiculously fortunate. I have friends, an astoundingly and unexpectedly supportive family, an amazing career, and considerable financial security to go along with a heaping pile of assorted privilege.

In the waning hours of this birthday, though, something finally broke free - a sort of lingering half-realization that has tried to breach the surface many times before, but only now has actually become something that I cannot avoid any longer.

It's currently just after noon on a Saturday, but I have barely left the house in any meaningful sense in over two weeks. My area is currently facing severe restrictions on movement and daily life due to the global pandemic situation, and I've been fortunate enough to have a head-start on the physical isolation aspects because my employer was proactive and cautious even ahead of the (admirably responsive) local government.

I also have experience with life in less-than-convenient circumstances. Going weeks between opportunities to obtain groceries or supplies is not unfamiliar to me. It's been many years since I needed to draw on these skills, but after a little bit of dusting-off, they're still sharp and effective.

So I have avoided the panic buying sprees, the crowds, the unrest. It's brutally hard, as an extrovert, to not be able to see people right now, but video chats and phone calls help immensely.

I recognize both the financial and life-history privileges that make it possible for me to sit here, in the midst of an urban area being essentially locked down, and feel optimistic. I also recognize that optimism is inaccessible for most people right now. Hell, treading water feels out of reach for many.

So here's what I want to do: I want you to see what I see.

A number of years ago, in the midst of a particularly difficult psychotherapy session, my doctor said something to me that caught me completely off guard - and has stuck with me ever since.

I had just finished recounting something - maybe a story, an anecdote, or a description of a reaction I'd had to something that had occurred recently. I don't remember what led up to the moment.

All I remember is her tilting her head to the side, clearly working to maintain the requisite balance of professionalism and human empathy that is so crucial to doing well in the field of caring for people. I'd been in therapy and mental health circles long enough at that point to know something momentous was coming - and, thankfully, I had a strong enough relationship with this particular doctor to know it wasn't going to be one of the all-too-common "well, time to find a new shrink!" experiences I'd had in the past.

Something I've come to treasure at the end of a day is the opportunity to just sit and reflect - sometimes on the day itself, but often about much more as well... the past, the future, all the things in the present that seem to deserve a little extra attention and appreciation before I tuck all my thoughts in for the night and fall asleep.

There is a powerful magic in the still moments of a late evening, when things are slowed down and restful. It is an ancient and often tragically elusive truth that when your consciousness approaches stillness, it is easier to be aware of more of reality - a sort of grander incarnation of the temporal principles of relativity in physics. The less you move your mind, the more your mind can apprehend.