Don’t Catch You Slipping Now
It’s quite a thing to be as scared for your city as I am right now. To know with actual certainty that federal forces are literally kidnapping people off the streets and pulling them into unmarked vans in broad daylight — on camera, even — and that there’s nothing I can do about it, in a practical sense. The feeling of powerlessness, of helplessness, is the point, of course; what’s happening is entirely about intimidation and fear and trying to push people’s spirits down even further to break them. It’s a show of force, and there’s never a reason for that beyond emotional abuse.
The whole thing feels almost cartoonishly dystopian, even as it’s just a small increase from where we’ve been living for weeks, now. The Black Lives Matter protests have been happening for, what, six or seven weeks by this point, and they’ve been peaceful each time until police have arrived and literally pushed for violence; there was a video from a protest just last week where a cop smacked a protester’s phone from their hand into a store window, with that smashed window then used to justify beating the protesters. It was, after all, “property damage,” and such things take priority over everything else, even if the damage was the result of police actions.
Also this week, there was the confirmation of something long rumored, as court documents revealed that undercover police really are seeding protests and trying to work as agitators, pushing others into acts that will then be used as “proof” that the protests are unjust, uncouth, unconstitutional in some way. That they’re reason enough for authorities to “fight back,” to fight, to become the thugs they declare the other side to be and beat down an argument that they can’t have, have no interest in having. The tactics of bullies in uniforms throughout history.
As reports of what’s happening in Portland started spreading across social media late last week, I saw so many people say things to the effect of, “This isn’t America.” It’s a lie that makes people feel comfortable, and I understand why, but the truth is, this is America. This is what it’s been like for some time. And it’s why it’s all the more important to stand up and do something about it, no matter how scary it feels.
July 20, 2020
July 17, 2020
It Was A Graveyard Smash
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted an image here that isn’t a graphic for the THR newsletter or part of the daily 2020 Visions series, but to be fair, it’s been a long time since I’ve made one. Technically, this was made for a newsletter graphic — you’ll see eventually— and I also used it as the basis of a daily image, but I liked it enough to share the original, too. Have some monsters.
This was speedily drawn on a Friday morning ahead of the newsletter it was going to be used in; I’d created a graphic for a story the evening before at the end of a long day of writing and editing and calls, and I was exhausted; it wasn’t a good graphic, and I woke up the next day determined to do something better. That was channeled into this sketch, which was then screwed with in fake Photoshop, and another (better) graphic was indeed created. Hours later, I screwed with it some more for a 2020 Visions image here. But it all started with this image.
July 16, 2020
But They Do
They fuck you up, your mum and dad, the poem goes. There are those for whom that feels immediately, distinctly true; for the rest of us, Larkin wrote the next line: “They may not mean to, but they do.” (For those who aren’t familiar with the poem, it’s called This Be The Verse, and you can read it here.)
I’ve been thinking about my upbringing lately, about my childhood and the things I learned then without realizing it. Consciously, I’ve always thought that I had a good, healthy childhood, a happy one that left me free from any immediate trauma or mental scarring. That’s likely true, but the older I get, the more I realize that it’s the not-so-immediate trauma and mental scarring that’s the problem; the stuff that got inside your head and shaped your view of the world and yourself without anyone — including you — even noticing.
Take, for example, my family’s general inability to openly express affection. I knew I was loved, it was never in doubt, but it was never really directly stated, and as a result, I had (and still have, to an extent) problems saying it clearly myself. I can’t remember for sure, but I think the first time I told my parents I loved them outside of being a little kid was when I was leaving to move to the US; I was in my mid-twenties. That feels too late, to me, now.
Or, for that matter, there’s the idea that you deal with any problem yourself, hiding it away as you solve it so that it’s not a burden. Objectively, I know that’s ridiculous and would argue against it for anyone else, but for me it feels, still, like the best option. Asking for help? Why, that might make others think less of me, and that would be a disaster…!
The irony being, of course, that both of these things cause trouble when they’re inside your head, insidiously pretending to be true, even as both whisper that believing them means you’re being less trouble, keeping your head down. I think of these now as lessons taught to me by my parents, unwittingly and unknowingly on all our parts, and am reminded of the next part of the Larkin poem: “They fill you with the faults they had/And add some extra, just for you.”
July 15, 2020
July 14, 2020
Good Morning Good Morning Good Morning Good
We’re at the point in the year where we can sleep with the windows open without fear of waking up the next morning feeling as if we’ve frozen solid; indeed, without warning, we ended up at the point where not having windows open makes the air feel thicker and, just maybe, it’s time to think about sleeping on top of the sheets, too. (It is the end of June, of course; okay, maybe there was some warning.)
The reason I mention this isn’t to update on how I’m sleeping or my temperature regulation activities; it’s because, as the weather improves and the windows open, I’m rediscovering the joys of listening to the morning anew.
I’ve previously written about how quiet the house is first thing in the morning, but the rest of the world doesn’t follow suit, wonderfully. There is bird song, as countless different birds chirp and warble to each other in high-pitched Morse Code that seems as pretty but unintelligible to me as it does incessant; lists to it, the invention of music feels inevitable — it wasn’t even as if humans had anything to invent, given how melodic, repetitive and rhythmic the birds have been singing all along. We just ripped them off and gave it a different name.
But it’s not just nature out there. There’s the sound of cars in the distance, that slowly increasing, then decreasing hum of the engines and the crunch of the road underneath the tires. I lie there, listening and unintentionally trying to work out where each car is, relative to me. That one’s on Belmont, but this new one has to be on Cesar Chavez…? and so on. I don’t really mean to do it, it doesn’t matter, but I can’t stop myself, nonetheless.
And then there are the occasional footsteps, even in these quarantine times — although, of course, the quarantine is losing its strength as time goes on. I listen to people walk past, jog past every now and then, hear snatches of music or conversation as they do. It’s a gentle reminder that this isn’t a bubble or a life raft, but that I’m part of something larger, a world out there, filled with life, ready for me to wake fully and join in.