#4: I stopped sleeping on Tuesday
Plus many books and taking comfort in ecosystems
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Thinking
I have been thinking about what every woman has been thinking about this week.
I have nothing to say and can say nothing else. I have no interesting analyses, I won’t perform trauma and I don’t know how to write about the bone-deep fear, sadness and anger. And the weariness. The knowledge that we’ll do this all again in a few months’ time because nothing will change, because men will not take responsibility for male violence and the police are institutionally misogynistic. The knowledge that a few months’ time will be too long — to keep pace with the femicide rate, we would need to do this twice a week. The knowledge that we never do this for Black women, like Blessing Olusegun.
I didn’t sleep Tuesday through Saturday. Some news stories burrow deep into your nervous system. I’m certain that some of you will have had similarly visceral responses. For me, a chronically ill person, more than two days of not sleeping results in fatigue, which feels like jet lag x hangover x poisoning, not tiredness. This means brain fog, leaden limbs and annoying little infections that take advantage of a sudden drop in immune functioning. It is a state unconducive to deep thought.
So, I haven’t been doing any analysing or thinking. Certainly not about design or anything else I might usually write about. I have been reading and painting. I have been walking the coastal path, before I got too fatigued. On Tuesday, as I was doing so, a strong wind suddenly appeared, buffeting me, threatening to tip me into the dunes. I instinctively made myself solid, tensed my core muscles, bent my knees, dropping my centre of gravity. And then, a thought, out of nowhere: “I am an animal”. Yes. I am an animal. An animal who can make herself dense against the wind. An animal recognised by the crows nesting in the fir tree, who caw at me when I go out for a walk and when I return. I found this comforting, to momentarily feel my place in a planetary ecosystem that is bigger than the human societal messes we wade in.
I’m lucky I was taking holiday last week and had little more to do than read, paint and accept fatigue. I’m so sorry for everyone who had to say “yeah, I’m doing well, thanks” in meetings and push down their fear, sadness, anger and weariness. I hope this weekend brings you some care, comfort and restoration.
Reading + watching
Many books. Crippled, How to do Nothing, Shuggie Bain, Wintering, The Undying, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, What Can a Body Do?, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
A beautiful essay on science and prejudice by a Chinese particle physicist. “What do you think about when you look up into the night sky?… I think about my ancestors, I say. A particle physicist is a historian of the universe”.
My Parents Got Sick. It Changed How I Thought About My Marriage.
A very funny guide to becoming an intellectual in Silicon Valley. “… If we are to progress as a society, we must give the dreamers and sociopaths of Silicon Valley the space to put received wisdom to the test; we must encourage them to discover fresh pastures for human life, fresh possibilities for underwear”.
The totally rad, Obamas-produced, Crip Camp. A wonderful exploration of belonging, community and activism.
Eating
Seafood to bid farewell to Devon: Nigella’s crab mac n’ cheese (again), lobster fries from the shack on the beach. Spiced and roasted carrots, parsnips and leeks with confit garlic, cucumber and coconut yoghurt raita, and chopped walnuts. Parsnip mash with mushrooms, garlic and tarragon cooked in Oatly cream. Lamb and kale curry with parsnip, coriander and green chili fritters. On the journey back to London: hash brown, fried egg, bacon, mushrooms and brown sauce eaten out of a takeaway styrofoam box from the caff at Totnes station. Green smoothies. Two massive portions of a chard and mushroom lasagne that a thoughtful past-self had deposited in my freezer back in early December.
Enjoying
Many thanks to hunter harris’ Hung Up, which alerted me to these sustaining images.
I love the daffodils in a jar, and the observation that we're animals.
I haven't had any emotional space at all for activism. I care and can't think about it. I'm reminding myself that rest is radical in a capitalist society. I have to have faith that the fate of the world doesn't always rest on my shoulders, and there are others doing the work when I cannot participate.