Music Review: Hudsun

I cannot be satisfied writing this review; Hudsun's music reminds me of a music I heard in a commercial for Younger, and I have not been able to identify the right commercial, song, or artist. It feels like that would be very pertinent, and help give an idea of this music.

I can only try and describe.

It may be a newer style, where there is a lot of synthesizer and electronics, but it is not techno. Instead there is a harsher, more industrial sound. 

In this case, that is well-matched with the videos, created by playing around on the computer, but still not delivering emotionally. I wanted to love the cats in "Medicine", but they don't mean anything.

I do like his most recent release, "Passenger", more than the other songs. Perhaps there is a development in process toward greater depth. Sam Hudson, the person behind the band, seems fairly young, so there should be time for maturation.

In his own words, he says his music is like "being hit in the face with a stale box of cereal". 

I don't think it's that stale, but I also don't think it's that impactful. 

Ideally, it would just need to matter more.

https://www.hudsun.co.uk/ 

https://music.apple.com/us/artist/hudsun/1482854140

https://www.facebook.com/HUDSUN 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt_m0y2G2dDKCIV4DqBQHsA 

https://www.instagram.com/hudsunofficial/

https://twitter.com/hudsunmusic

Jeopardy! Guest Hosts

I wanted to take a moment to write about this anyway, but it is even better because I discovered this delightful interview with LeVar Burton on Esquire:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a37103004/levar-burton-jeopardy-host-interview-2021/

I acknowledge that I don't have the connection with Burton that people who watched Reading Rainbow have, but I like him. I love how he loves Jeopardy! and is so thoughtful about it. I could be fine with him hosting. 

Since I last wrote about this, the other person who I thought did really well was Robin Roberts. I want to give her her due.

About that last time I wrote...

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/04/about-jeopardy.html 

One thing I focused on was not wanting people to focus too much on who would be the new host. I believed that they were taking their time, and there was not going to be a new host until Alex's final season was completed.

Therefore, the real reason I am writing is that we seem to be there. I haven't been tracking it exactly, and some of the classic repeats may have thrown the schedule off a bit. 

Still, here we are, almost in August, which I seem to remember as the break between seasons, when they would re-air all the tournaments. It feels like it is almost time. If Burton's last week as a guest host is the official passing of the torch to him being the new host, well, that is still going to be emotional, but it will work.

The thing that I really wanted to say, though, is how touching they have made this time period.

Friends of the show and friends of Alex have come, and they have chosen different charities. I haven't been keeping track of the totals, but it is a beautiful tribute to his memory.

It wasn't just that; Burton mentioned in his interview that Mike Richards told him part of having the guest hosts was to give the audience time to get used to Alex not being there. Yes, it worked as a candidate search, but it also served as a mourning period. Because of how they did it, that mourning also allowed for caring and joy. 

I appreciate that. 

I also trust them as we find out what happens next, waiting for the clue that will tell us, "Who is the next host of Jeopardy!?"

Rag bag

It is not a coincidence that the name-calling that stuck with me -- even from a television show -- was fat-shaming. That was how I defined myself. Whether I defined myself by my fat because I assumed everyone else did, or whether I assumed everyone else did because I did, I don't know; I just knew that I was fat.

To a large extent, the way that I survived that was distancing myself from my body. I tried to focus on my brain (plus strenuously concealing romantic feelings from other people). I thought I had done that pretty successfully, until I saw a Twitter thread two weeks ago:

https://twitter.com/Artists_Ali/status/1415403809938026504

I had forgotten about clothes shopping. 

The thread is about Lane Bryant taking away the cute clothes in the early 2000s, at a time when plus sizes were also disappearing from other stores, though not in mens' lines.

This meant that fat teen girls had to dress like a "wacky sitcom grandma" and spend hundreds of dollars to do it.

This is true, and yet that isn't even my time period or income level. I never shopped at Lane Bryant because I couldn't afford them, and that wasn't my time period. In the 70s, it was lots of hand-me-downs and Goodwill, plus K-Mart and occasionally Sears. No, I did not dress cute.

As a teenager in the 80s, there weren't really hand-me-downs anymore, so it was mainly K-Mart, but yes, they were often old lady clothes. I can look back and remember how frumpy some outfits were, but at the same time it didn't feel like it was bothering me much then. 

Then I read the thread, and it did bring back memories, mainly of shopping for formals or dressing up. It's not exactly that doing so made me suicidal, and yet I do strongly remember wishing I were dead, and how much better it must be to be dead than to have this pressure of needing to look nice when you are a poor, fat girl. Even for the events where I didn't have to bother with a date, there was still trying to look nice.

In retrospect, the persistence of my regret for letting my mother talk me out of the strapless green dress for prom makes more sense. I really think I could have looked good, when chances for that were so rare, and it was my money; why did I let her discourage me? (Thus ending up in a frilly pink taffeta monstrosity.)

Also, that time in 1993 when I found a (casual, but still) dress I liked at Target, and I bought it in all four colors... I was well aware of the rarity of finding something that worked for me.

Currently, my personal style is to try and avoid standing out as much as possible. I look to have my body as covered as possible, and loosely (though straps come out a lot in that case), and also knowing that some things make me look fatter than others (round necks, full sleeves and 1/4 sleeves both, shoulder seam farther in, short shirt hem), and I try to find them as cheaply as possible. Ethical consumption is generally not even a remote possibility. 

Actually, the current wardrobe does have some hand-me-downs, because one friend's other fat friend died. Still, it's otherwise mainly online ordering, and I don't wish I were dead (at least not because of that), though I also never feel cute.

I am mostly accepting of that, but what the Twitter thread reminded me of was that there were times when I tried.

In junior high once I took an art class, and we talked about complementary and supplementary colors. I tried pairing up different things in my closet, though the only result I really remember was purple pants with a yellow sweater vest. 

In high school I tried some thing inspired by photos of musicians, though they always had cooler starting materials. I do remember pairing suspenders with a news cap, and one time I had these pink pants with an open button down shirt over a T-shirt, and a fedora (lots of hats in the 80s). 

Well, that day I had forgotten it was St. Patrick's Day, so the first thing that happened when I walked into school was my math teacher pinched me. That was discouraging. Other times, well, I don't remember actual teasing, but people looked at me more. Even if they were approving looks, it felt too out there and wrong.

(Plus, I had thought that snap up shirt was cool, and that was the one Steve ripped open.)

All of which is to say that eventually the safest goal seemed to be invisibility. If actual camouflage really did camouflage you in a non-jungle environment, I suppose I would be wearing that. Instead, it was just gradually moving away from patterns and details and accessories (I tried a metal belt once; it interacted with my digital watch to set off the alarm in the library) and trying not to be noticed.

Except when there was something dressy where baggy knits wouldn't work, and then wanting to die.

Garbage Barge

That sense of responsibility I referenced yesterday may be overinflated in general, but there is definitely a strong environmental component. It hits in other ways. I also really hate waste.

Now, I do not doubt that a part of that is also the poverty; the need to conserve resources feels different when things are scarce. The unemployment, care giving, and pandemic have me in a total scarcity mindset now, and it has been that way for a while. That is one complicating factor out of more than one.

It is also complicated by the specific dynamics of my household. My sisters are wonderful, caring, environmentally conscious people, but they are also squeamish and weird about a lot of things where they cannot be budged.

That plays out in multiple ways. For example, they are big moisturizers, so they go through lotion quickly. Once the pump starts getting air in it, they are done with that container, but there may still be about a third of the bottle left. I put another cap (previously from an Aquafina bottle; more recently from an ACT bottle, standard sizing has its up side) on the lotion container, turn it upside down, and keep it in my room so I can get all the dregs out.

They do not have patience for small soap bars. They will open up a new one, while I am trying to compress slivers together and make it work, even as it gets slimy and keeps sliding out of my hands.

They don't eat leftovers, so that's on me, even if I don't like the thing that much. (I have learned that I can get them to eat bread heals if the heal part is facing the inside of a grilled cheese sandwich.)

I believe it was when I was reading Marie Kondo's The Life Changing Manga of Tidying Up that I noticed -- perhaps it was the emphasis on sparking joy -- but I started feeling like I was making myself a second-class citizen by always choosing the slimy and leftover and unappealing for ethical reasons.

Carol Burnett had a sketch show in 1990, Carol & Company, that I enjoyed. One sketch focused on different couples in a restaurant. 

The younger couple were two people who had met and had instant chemistry, and were now trying to get to know each other. They discovered they had a friend in common. He started reminiscing about that girl's fat friend, wondering whatever happened to her.

"She slimmed down and became a lovely person who goes by Marjorie."

Before that reveal, he repeated what he had used to call her. I think was "Large Marge the great big barge." I don't think he actually said "garbage", but that was how it entered into my head: garbage barge.

It had been many years since I had seen that sketch, but I got to the point where every time I stepped into the shower and saw the slivers of soap "Garbage Barge" flashed through my head.

I don't want to be wasteful, but in that time period my goal to be kind to the earth was working in opposition to being kind to myself.

I'm not saying it has to be that way, but it was a complication. At its core was not my thrift, but my inability to value myself.

It's about two years later, and that's still a struggle. Then again, so is the scarcity.

Garden stress

Wednesday I wrote about the emphasis on personal responsibility being destructive when collective efforts -- often focused on governments and corporations -- are necessary.

Understanding that does not mean that I don't take my personal responsibility seriously. In fact, the extent to which I worry about it may be pathological.

That may be more clear from tomorrow's post, but for today I want to focus on one specific problem:

I feel like an utter failure and bad person every time our yard guy comes.

Lawns are bad, and I know they are bad. They are bad for water use and fossil fuel use, but they are also bad for local wildlife. That doesn't mean just adorable (or less adorable) mammals; it also means birds, insects, and arachnids. 

I am soft-hearted, so that does bother me. I also find nature beautiful so I care about that balance. 

Beyond that, we need pollinators. Even animals that don't transport pollen may be an important part of food webs that include pollinators.

We need the creatures that help move matter into soil. The most organic nutritious diet in the world is less effective when grown in nutrient-poor soil.

I know all that, and I have seen it. Back when it was still grass in the front, even just getting longer I would start seeing different species in the yard. We had never had a Wilson's warbler before, and there it was, perching on a stalk of grass.

It is still grass in the backyard, but I did get rid of it in the front. Volunteer clover took over better than I could have hoped.

Except there are still strong ideas about an appropriate way for a yard to look. We have had people come and mow without asking. (We're just really lucky there is not an HOA.)

Now we pay someone to come every two weeks, so that's when I have those feelings of being bad and a failure, especially when they do the front.

I know, I need to put something else there, to fill up the space. I am getting closer to knowing what to do, but there are obstacles in the way.

Obviously the biggest is money, but an unfortunate runner-up is a sad lack of energy. 

Well, the weather didn't help. The clover was delightfully springy underfoot, but the heat dome was pretty hard on it.

The hard part is how far we have strayed as a culture from even thinking about nature. 

For example, we had three butterfly bushes. The grew way too well, not being native to the area and so not balancing here, but in a thriving kind of way.

They did in fact attract butterflies, which seems like a good thing. 

They did not provide a place for the laying of butterfly eggs, and food for when the caterpillars hatch. Supporting life needs to allow for multiple aspects of life. Feeding adults is only a small part of it.

Most of my plans for this year have fallen through, though I may still do something destined for failure, just to feel like I tried. 

There is one thing that was recently encouraging. 

I have felt this fear of getting a wrong start, that then everything will go wrong. I recently read The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka. When he decided to immediately switch to natural methods, he killed an entire orchard. He later was able to get to thriving fields and orchards, but there is something to be said for gradual adaptations. 

Fukuoka simultaneously shows me that recovery from disaster is possible, and that it's okay to start small.

So if this fall I put down some cardboard and mulch in the NorthWest and SouthEast corners of the front yard, then get two native plants in the ground to act as anchors (probably one ocean spray and one mock orange, but it's also dependent on what I can find), then that will still be a start.

I believe the clover will come back to fill in.

And then, if the back yard is more complicated because of needing to allow space for the dog and it being larger, well, right now any success will be meaningful.

Music Review: Magic Toy Missing

Magic Toy Missing is a duo based in Zurich, Switzerland that classifies itself as somewhere between indie pop and rock.

(I assume the band name was inspired by the Meat Puppets song, but I have not seen it definitively declared, and I wouldn't guess it based on sound. It just seems like too big of a coincidence to be otherwise.)

They remind me a great deal of a band I reviewed last year, Sound of Su. Unfortunately, they are not familiar enough to give anyone else a good idea. It might be more helpful to say to imagine a quieter, gentler Cranberries.

There is a quietness and unease present in the music. Lyrics are delivered softly, except for a rap solo that surprises on "Goodbye To All Of You".

There is a tensely insistent rhythm on "Got Away".

Their self-titled album was released close in time to when I reviewed Sound of Su. I don't know if that influenced the follow, but there does not seem to have been a lot of activity on any of the accounts for some time. 

Well, it's not like life went as planned for most of us last year.

Music is available on Spotify and Bandcamp.

https://www.magictoymissing.com/ 

https://www.facebook.com/ToyMissing

https://magictoymissing.bandcamp.com/releases

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN0UzS0mf1HjztoAz3JoIdQ

https://twitter.com/ToyMissing

Rules of threes: Bands

Sometimes I think about Tony Banks and Andy Summers.

I would think about them, but have to look up their names. I mostly remember their names now. Kind of.

For anyone who is not sure, Andy Summers is the guitar player in The Police, and Tony Banks is the keyboard player in Genesis. To be fair, Summers plays some keyboards and Banks plays some guitar, and both do backing vocals.

You can probably picture them in your minds. They have participated in many concerts and music videos and recordings, and both have had pretty nice side careers where they do interesting things as respected musicians.

However, they are still less known than Mike Rutherford and Stewart Copeland, and way less known than Phil Collins and Sting.

I have no reason to believe that this is a problem for either of them, but sometimes I would think about what it was like being, "Oh, and that other guy."

Maybe they could form their own band, I would think, but then it would seem like that band should be a trio, with an additional other guy.

I would just get stumped on who that other "other guy" should be.

Thinking about it more lately, I came up with a few ideas.

Initially I had thought maybe Alex Lifeson, from Rush, and less known than Neil Peart and Geddy Lee. In his case, Lifeson was the only original member as they became famous, though to some extent early lineup changes are too common to worry about.

Yes, I thought, it should be Lifeson. Glad to have that straightened out.

Then, that very same night, Maria played a Depeche Mode song.

Crap! Obviously it should be that guy who is not Dave Gahan or Martin Gore (nor Vince Clarke who left the band early on, but is still more famous due to Erasure and Yaz).

There were arguments that could go both ways. For my MTV generation, Depeche Mode music feels more contemporary with Genesis and The Police than Rush. We did see some Rush videos, but they felt older, and they never played early Genesis which was fine.

It did occur to me that Lifeson would be closer in age to Banks and Summers than Andy Fletcher, but I was surprised to find out that Lifeson was younger than either of them. Lifeson was born in 1953, Banks in 1950, and Summers in 1942. Fletch was born in 1961; I'm not sure how I feel about any of that. 

(Banks was named "Prog God" at the 2015 Progressive Music Awards, so that might indicate he would lean more toward Lifeson.)

Perhaps the more pressing question is whether it is better to have two guitarists or two keyboardists; isn't there a trio with a lesser known bass player?

Still, I was pretty much settled on Fletch, but I turned on the television and "Release Me" by Wilson Phillips was playing. Of course! The one who wasn't Chynna or Carnie!

Wendy Wilson was born in 1969. She seems to only do vocals, and perhaps only in three-part harmony, which may not be the strongest qualification. However, when they spoof your band on Saturday Night Live, and your band mates are played by the youngest woman in the cast and Chris Farley in a red wig, but you are an extra, you know something about being one of the other ones!

But I was probably sticking with Fletch.

For some reason, I kept thinking of Johnny Marr. 

That made no sense at all; there were four Smiths. Then I remembered Electronic, and of course there was someone in New Order besides Bernard Summer and Peter Hook. 

It turns out that Stephen Morris (born in 1957) did it better than anyone. 

As a multi-instrumentalist, he would be a wonderful choice, and perhaps the most age and era-appropriate. However, when they wanted some additional keyboards for New Order, they brought in Gillian Gilbert. 

He dated her. He married her. He formed a band called The Other Two with her. 

He was way ahead of me on the concept. Kudos to you Stephen Morris. Bravo.

This post is dedicated to José Carreras -- the Third Tenor -- born in 1946.

Vaguely related post:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/12/math-rocks.html

Shame and personal responsibility

I just finished re-reading You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame, Resilience, and the Black Experience.

This is an anthology curated by Tarana Burke and Brené Brown. I found it moving, but then I was not sure that I had absorbed what I needed to. I went through again, breaking down the twenty essays and journaling about them.

Previously I had not really liked Brown, whom I know to be very popular among friends. I didn't relate to her experiences, though I found her analyses good. (I was drawn to the book because of Burke.)

That made it interesting so see how many of the contributors consider her to be a friend, but also interesting to learn that in her research she has been criticized for oversampling Black and Latinx populations. She was surprised to hear back from Black readers that they had to work to see themselves in her books, but her stories do come from a very privileged position.

That is from the introduction, shared as a conversation with Burke explaining the genesis of the product and the need it fills. Then it goes into the essays of the different contributors, some of whom I was familiar with, and some not.

It resonated more for me, and yet many of the problems presented are specifically rooted in racism. That may be why I did not absorb it enough the first time. I care about this, but I do not suffer from it.

I think where it started hitting more the second time around was noting the effects of poverty and the stigma on fat; those are familiar. Being white (and perhaps college-educated, though many of the contributors also have degrees, often advanced) has shielded me from some things, but there are other areas where I am vulnerable, and I have felt shame.

I needed to go back for more than one thing. (One of those was a referral to Audre Lorde's A Burst of Light.) The quote that I needed most may have been from Yolo Akili Robinson in "Unlearning Shame and Remembering Love".

He writes, “Systems of white supremacy teach us shame because they have no guilt.”

Something I think of a lot is a focus on personal responsibility. I take it very seriously. I know the planet is warming, and that water and soil is not being treated well, so I recycle and conserve energy and try to reduce my footprint.

How many millions of people doing it would it take to make up for corporate polluters?

It's not that I shouldn't be responsible for my use, but that individual responsibility cannot be enough. 

Apparently Jeff Bezos thanked his employees for his space flight. 

I think it's great that Wally Funk got to finally go into space, but was the flight itself that much of an accomplishment? If so, would it justify the employees abused and the businesses destroyed by Amazon? Even more, given the vast wealth Bezos has, couldn't a great deal still be accomplished with reasonable working conditions?

These things may not seem directly related to white supremacy, but they all fold into dominator culture, with greed and racism feeding off of each other in a cycle.

I have noted before how greed kills guilt; I can see where racism does too, and really any other reason for deciding someone is less. Others are clearly lazy, or incompetent, or in some way inferior where their suffering is justified, but mine would not be; I am not like that.

That's not how it works, and nothing good can come of it.

I saw a comment on individual choice for masking and social distancing, that people need to choose to protect themselves. Well, if the mask were as good at keeping disease out as it is in keeping it in, that might be a reasonable statement.

As it is, globally over 4 million dead, over 600,000 in the United States. Mitch McConnell and Fox News may be starting to feel guilty (or vulnerable to lawsuit) based on recent statements, but there are many who have contributed, and are still going strong. No guilt.

Here is another line from Yolo Akili Robinson:

“Rejecting shame for Black lives means rejecting individual responsibility for structural failures.”

We may not all be included in that statement, but when there is a structural failure -- and there are many -- we need to be able to recognize it. 

It is not rejecting personal responsibility to know when it is not enough.

Me and Layla F. Saad's Me and White Supremacy

I have already written about this book on the Sunday blog:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2021/05/fighting-white-supremacy-cleansing.html

That post had its own context, though, and I did not write everything.

One thing I did admit is that I had a bad attitude about the book right from the beginning.

Although I was pleased that it was not written by a white person -- as their books often tend to be the most popular among other white people -- Saad is not from the United States. The US has its own specific problems with racism (though we have done a great deal of successful exporting), and it may be more valuable to hear from people who have dealt specifically with that. 

Right now, the book I would recommend most strongly is Austin Channing Brown's I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made For Whiteness. It is excellent, and touching, but even so I found it from an article where I was once again irritated by Robin DiAngelo, so there's that.

(Yes, I know I'm white.)

(Also, racism is a big enough deal that reading more than one book is advisable; just let some of your author choices be people who actually have to deal with it.)

There were things that made Saad's book a good fit for the book group. It is divided into individual assignments that build on each other, with discussion questions and a section in the book on how to go over the material in a group. 

In addition, I really like the subtitle: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

Especially with that last part -- about becoming a good ancestor -- I like that eye to the future. 

Still, I was frequently irritated with the book when it was going over material that I was too familiar with. Yes. I know that. I don't do that anymore. I have not done that for seven or eight years! 

Then I would worry that I was fooling myself, or trusting too much in my own growth. That didn't make me less irritated.

What brought me around to the book was hearing the thoughts of the other group members, people who had not specialized in African-American history for their undergrad, and continued reading lots of history since then, with it growing into a conscious effort to listen to marginalized voices for several years. 

(This sounds like bragging; a "but" is coming.)

As other white people -- mainly with the same religious background, but also people willing to join a book group that was focused on countering racism -- spoke, I got to hear thoughts and opinions that sometimes appalled me, but then, I also got to hear their growth. They absolutely did grow by working through this book.

That is worth a lot.

Here's the "but": if I were Black, I would never have been able to have been surprised or shocked or caught off guard by the things admitted by nice white people. 

That is part of my white privilege. I can do things to try and pay attention, and I should. I believe that is important. 

But it doesn't get thrust in my face.

One thing I had to question for myself was how much of that was merely white privilege, or whether a lot of it was exacerbated by how isolated I have become during this care giving followed by pandemic, burned out phase of my life.

That school board election comes up again, in that as I tried reaching out to other nice white people I know (all from church), well, I was ignored more than getting outright disagreement, but the conversations that did happen were really disappointing. 

Which I guess means that as I get out there more, especially in the cause of anti-racism, I will get more frequent reminders of how selfish, small-minded, vapid, condescending, and ignorant people can be. 

And yet, there's still not really the microaggressions or the outright hostility. Maybe I am not trying hard enough, but also, that is white privilege. 

If that allows me to absorb some of the brunt of it, I should do that.

Examining inner bias

Some of you know that I teach a Sunday school class with one of my sisters.

I don't even remember what we were talking about when it happened, but it came out that one of our students thought we were a couple.

My first thought was that we would not be the teachers if that were the case. We might have people be nice to us at church, but they would never let us teach impressionable 15 year olds.

I did say something like that. It wasn't as detailed, but in retrospect I felt bad. If he believes that such a thing is possible, I don't want to damage that attitude and innocence. 

That wasn't really the problem anyway.

My sister got really defensive. It bothered her, and she felt compelled to affirm her heterosexuality.

There is still a stigma on being a lesbian.

Yes, there definitely is at church. Our church doctrine could be better, but it is actually more progressive than many of the members' tightly-held beliefs. 

Beyond that, in a church that emphasizes family so much, there is some stigma on old singles. That may be one reason that it seems more logical that two middle-aged women with the same last name living together are a couple than unmarried siblings (of which there are actually three). What's wrong with them?

We generally assume that people assume upon looking at us that we are not attractive enough (mainly because we are fat) to get married. 

However, in our patriarchal society -- even outside of church or any kind of religiosity -- that is reinforced. There is pressure on everyone to be attractive, but there is more on women, and you don't have to look very hard to find "jokes" about unattractive women being lesbians because they can't get a man.

There is a lot that you can unpack there. Whether it is that not wanting men is the whole point of being a lesbian, or that you can find attractive lesbians, not forgetting that attraction is not always a cut-and-dried process, plus unrealistic expectations about body size and the impact of environment and economics... there is just a lot.

But what it comes down to is that there was an alarm that went off in my sister's mind that someone thinking she was a lesbian was calling her ugly and gross.

It's not fair. She herself understands why it is not fair, and a lot of the factors that go into that quick response, but it is still there.

Things intersect. There has been a point where people were becoming better about accepting gay men, but still had something against lesbians. That included gay men. 

We are in a largely white environment, but race would have an impact too.

Think of it this way: would the first step for my sister be to forget that the stigma exists, or to get over worrying about her physical appearance? Which would be easier? Which would be more beneficial to her? Which would be more beneficial to society?

Which would not result in that naive and optimistic 15 year old feeling bad?

I can't promise you any answers. I feel good that I was not offended; that seems like a good place to be. I suspect some of that is knowing more lesbians now and seeing them as individuals and caring about them. 

I hesitate to give that all of the credit, because there is this little concern in my head that it sounds too much like I have gone on a lesbian safari, familiarizing myself with their exotic ways. Plus, I know that interracial dating doesn't cure racism, and family members finding a provisional acceptance doesn't solve homophobia... it's just not that easy.

Some of my knowing things that don't work has come from the reading and studying. Understanding more about how patriarchy is structured and plays out probably does help too, though I also doubt the intellectual is enough. Some people will understand something just enough to exploit it.

Some of it is also probably having become more self-assured, and more whole. That might mean that not only am I less likely to take something as an insult when not intended, that even an intentional one might not wound me as much. I am pretty sure I am not all the way there yet -- watch me crumple under the right circumstances -- but I think I have gotten better.

So there's a lot of work to be done, on multiple levels.

It does seem worth taking a moment to recommend Suzanne Pharr's Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism I found it very insightful, including it merely focusing on women and looking at race. 

Even when focusing on one marginalization, it is easy to forget other intersections. So racism becomes worrying about Black men, and homophobia for gay white men, and sexism for white women.

That is not enough.

This blogging week is going to be about that looking inside and rooting out.

Music Review: Timothy Buss

Timothy Buss is a composer and mentor for other musicians. 

While his web site focuses more on offered services, you can also listen to the music there, and purchase for download.

Listening to Solar Neighborhood first, the word that immediately came to mind was "cosmic", completely appropriate for material based on the sun and planets.

It is not an automatic either. Listening to the other collection, From Out of Nowhere, Buss's music is that same blend of progressive and ambient, but there is not that feel of being out in space. 

That is also completely separate from watching the available videos, where images reinforce the themes. It is interesting to think about what -- in the absence of words -- makes certain sounds evoke certain ideas.

With a total of ten tracks, it is worth some exploration.

All relevant links are listed below.

Cosmic.

https://www.timothybussmusic.com

https://www.facebook.com/timothybussmusic 

https://www.youtube.com/user/TimothyBussMusic 

https://twitter.com/timothybuss

 

Content moving forward: Music, movies, and books

Tomorrow I will post my fourth music review since getting restarted. It will be the first one pulling from musicians who have followed me on Twitter.

Previously I had worried a lot about calling them "band" reviews because sometimes they were single artists or something other than a band. I am now just calling them "music" reviews, though I believe I will still specify "album" or "concert" review as applicable.

I do not feel prepared to take on interviews again yet, but I have started contacting the band about a week before the review. I let them know what I am doing, and ask if they have anything specific they want noted. I am trying to go through one round of listening first so I know if I am going to hate them. That doesn't happen often, but it can make things awkward.

Possibly the other area for change is that I am still using my ancient AOL address for the contacting, which may make it hard to take me seriously, I know. However, I don't want to have anything but job hunting things coming into my Protonmail. Maybe once I am safely employed...

Daily songs right now are coming from my Black Music Month viewing and watching. Right now they are songs that Nile Rodgers worked on (performing or producing), but I will also get in some ragtime and songs from people featured in The Defiant Ones. Then it will be focusing on reviewed artists, both new and recent, but on specific themes in October, November, and December.

(Note: It has already been the song of the day, but "Hourglass" by Mary J. Blige, which played over the end credits of Mary J. Blige's My Life, is amazingly beautiful. If you haven't listened yet, do so!)

I cannot emphasize enough how much the review retrospectives helped me get back into reviewing.

Once I finished them, I started charting out books from my various reading "months". This is the precursor to building some recommended book shelves. I am almost done with that (the collection; not the selection), but it has led to a new project.

I feel that I need to add my reviews for each of the films that I watched for the director spotlights, and probably at least some of the films beyond that. It's really the same thing as creating a playlist after a retrospective: there was "something" here; did I absorb it enough?

I will definitely add reviews on https://www.imdb.com/, because that is the site I look at. I am open to suggestions on other sites.

Entering the early months was not difficult. In 2010 I read four books for Black History month and read three books and watched a video for Native American Heritage month. Things didn't really start getting out of hand until 2018. That includes watching 60 pieces of media (several were feature films; but not all) for one "month" that took about two years and will now require posting reviews for each, possibly on multiple sites.

Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that as intended reading and viewing got longer and more complex, it could never be reviewed in a single post.

I am still in catch up mode, where I have overly long lists to try and be where I want to be, but I think going forward, there are just going to be posts on groupings of books as I have thoughts on them.  

That may change again. Once I get "through" (should such a thing be possible), maybe I will go back to four books and a movie during the requisite months. That can not possibly be before 2023.

Also, I am really close to writing about some personal stuff again. I think.

Dee Barnes and Dr. Dre

I watched The Defiant Ones because a friend recommended it, and I really liked it. 

I did feel some hesitation to start it, because I worried that it would gloss over Dr. Dre's assault of Dee Barnes. It sounded like Straight Outta Compton did.

There was no glossing. In the second episode the documentary talked to Dr. Dre about, they talked to Dee Barnes about it, and they showed footage of the Pump It Up episode that directly led to it. 

It was still incredibly unsatisfying.

There are a few reasons for that. For me, one is that Dr. Dre's acceptance of responsibility is still pretty sexist. It seems that a great deal of his shame is because he, a man, put hands on a woman, which he calls stupid. There might be deeper issues that he could examine. 

Certainly there is some residual frustration because it doesn't matter that he says it was wrong, it still happened. He can't erase it and make it go away. That appears to haunt him.

I don't know if for him that is solely a matter of personal embarrassment, but it is also an inescapable fact that it destroyed her career, thus victimizing Barnes twice.

The low-level possible way forward could be Dr. Dre asking Barnes what he can do for her. I don't know if that has happened. There was a suit and a settlement, but regardless of the final amount, there was still the loss of career, and definite financial hardship for Barnes more recently. 

So, there might be something to talk about there, and restitution that allows the person who was harmed to specify the terms may be something that helps with a feeling of actually being able to put a situation in the past.

However, I think part of that feeling of emptiness is also that there were really so many people involved besides those two.

Dee Barnes was the target of Dr. Dre's rage, but she was not the source of it. She was a convenient target because of the Pump It Up episode, but that was two separate interviews that were edited together to stir things up. There were people other than Barnes making those decisions.

Editing aside, the material was unquestionably there. There was great animosity between Ice Cube and the remaining members of NWA. I had never heard of The DOC before the documentary, but I was mad at Ice Cube for the way he mocked his voice. So there is anger there that doesn't pertain to Dee Barnes nearly as much as it pertains to Ice Cube and Eazy-E and Jerry Heller. Other than Heller, I think all of them eventually made up, if not when Eazy-E was dying, then when they made the movie, but that did not undo all past damage. There is probably unrecognized damage.

Beyond that, there was the fact that a victim of an assault was shunned out of an industry in deference to the one who assaulted her, which isn't that uncommon, but it is still a problem. It is impossible to feel good about that.

In fact, there was a broader pattern of sexual harassment common in the industry. For that Barnes is probably the most prominent victim, but the total damage would be hard to calculate.

I don't have answers for that. The culture that is based on dominating and pushing everything that you have to take downhill is built on suffering, so it perpetuates it.

Religiously, I believe the reason that Christ can offer forgiveness is because he can also offer healing and resurrection, actually repairing the harms that were done. Then it can become sanctifying.

Without that level of power, I still believe in the importance of facilitating as much healing as we can.

This issue has not been resolved, but it doesn't have to be impossible.

Food for bodies and souls

In my review for Lady A, I mentioned interviews she did some "Food for the Souls" interviews for Black History month.

I listened to more than one, but there was a moment in the interview with Dexter Allen that got me thinking.

He mentioned his mother's smothered pork chops, and the way they filled you up.

It reminded me of something that the Gin Blossoms' Jesse Valenzuela had posted once, asking his mother about her putting potatoes in the burritos when he was growing up. She said it was to fill him and his brothers up.

Potatoes are good; they are very popular in breakfast burritos now. It's not like he was complaining about the burritos. 

Potatoes are also cheap.

It started me thinking about how there can be different perspective between the parents and the children, especially when they are poor.

Pork chops are meat -- though you can get good deals on them -- but Allen also mentioned the onions and gravy and biscuits that were a part of it, and then said "It sticks to you."

The other nice thing about that meal is that it can be made quickly, which I am sure doesn't hurt. 

I don't know how much stress it is for parents sometimes, just trying to keep their children full. I do believe it is a beautiful thing that so often those end up being favorite foods, and comfort foods. 

And then people criticize those foods -- which are often very starchy -- and discourage indulging, of course, but they also served a purpose. It is comforting that the only memory isn't struggle. Sometimes it is a memory of a belly that is warm and full, maybe for just pennies a serving.

I wondered if there might not be an opportunity for a album raising funds for hunger, with different musicians turning their food memories to song. It probably wouldn't work; people hate paying for music now, and what if they all turned into the same kind of country song?

But it's fun to think about.

And as grateful as I am that when we were filling up on cornmeal mush (which is basically polenta) or casseroles of rice or potatoes, or ramen (and not Top Ramen either; the cheaper packs), it is not fun to think about how some parents do have to worry, and that sometimes there isn't something rib-sticking available. 

About a year ago I had just finished up a fundraiser for the Oregon Food Bank. There are lots of food banks and pantries out there. If you have help to give, there is someone out there who needs it.

https://www.oregonfoodbank.org/

https://www.nokidhungry.org/

Wrapping up Black Music Month 2021

I feel really good about this month.

There was mission creep, but I liked the directions it went in. I learned a lot. I came away with some new music.

I am going to write a couple more posts based on it, but they are less about music and more about people.

It worked out well that it came along as I was finishing up the Review Retrospective. That was a good transition into doing reviews again, and my first new reviews tied in well.

Two of those retrospectives specifically pertained to Black music: Stevie Wonder in May and Black Women Rock! in March.

In both cases I felt like there was more to know. I had always known that I would need to get back to Stevie Wonder.

It has more recently become a solution of mine to create a playlist when there is something I want to capture. I introduce to you my Stevie Wonder playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3a30gRgQOxVFw1U1NDeX0s?si=72e22679adde46ac 

I agonized over what to include, and I still have doubts that I have not missed really important tracks. However, I think there is a case to be made for just going back and re-listening to the entire Stevie Wonder discography every few years, and I can live with that. Having gone through and created the playlist, even those songs that I decided not to include are more fixed in my mind. That worry that I had heard good things and forgotten them is resolved.

(The concern that there is a more perfect arrangement that I have not figured out may be more of a thing I just need to live with.)

Obviously there was the intention to do a playlist for Black women too, but that has been more complicated.

Of all of the deep dives I have done -- into any musical topic -- that initial section inspired more individual reviews than anything else. Yes, I have bands that I intend to review from the emo and greatest guitar listening, but it doesn't compare. That initial list had 172 unique entries, including some team-ups, plus additional artists that I did not find until after but really like. There is just a lot there.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/07/musical-black-girls.html

I could make a playlist simply reflecting the songs in the order played; that would not be well curated. It would be ground that was already traveled but somewhat shallowly, so it would not solve anything.

Initially I had thought it was just a matter of groupings, like maybe the playlist would be for disco and rock and with a little bit of blues, but that I didn't need to do the girl groups and the gospel singers.

Even if that felt fair, just trying to decide who is who for that is a challenge. Like, if I decide that the Blues, Jazz, and Swing singers can go together, and that combining the Gospel and Classical works, there are still at least five distinct lists, and maybe I want a playlist that is all Blues. 

So right now there is not a playlist; there are merely notes for listening more, and getting to know enough that I feel comfortable with what I know.

That is how a lot of these things go for me.

Music Review: Ragged Blade Band

The Ragged Blade Band is a St. Louis-based specializing in old jazz, blues, and ragtime favorites. I became aware of them after attending a presentation on early African-American composers given by two of their members.

Although there are some newer compositions, it may be more interesting that songs that were written over a century ago (in some cases) are still compelling and fun. It's not surprising when you consider the power of music, and how relevant songs from past periods of your life remain, but it can also be easy to forget.

Listening then becomes a pleasant stroll down memory lane, though the memory is more collective than individual.

Although What Kind of Love -- with a title track that gets under my skin -- is available on Spotify, you can find much more music on the band's Soundcloud. There are links for it and some embedded music on the band's main page as well.

I especially enjoyed The Tennessee Sessions for their liveliness, but I think many people will enjoy the humor built into "At The Devil's Ball". Maybe it will be more for people with mothers-in-law.

The Ragged Blade Band will be playing at "Summer on the Square" in Kirksville, Missouri on July 30th, and at the Big River Steampunk Festival in Hannibal, Missouri over Labor Day weekend. 

Catch them if you can!

https://www.raggedblade.com 

https://www.facebook.com/theraggedbladeband 

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRaggedbladeband 

https://soundcloud.com/theraggedbladeband

https://www.instagram.com/raggedblade/ 

https://twitter.com/raggedbladeband

Black Music Month 2021: Looking back

I think the thing that really helped tie the disparate threads of my reading and listening and viewing together was the presentation on Early African-American Composers:

https://wccls.bibliocommons.com/events/60abd60c7b4a222500983acc

This was presented through the Aloha Community Library by Cherry & Jerry:

https://www.facebook.com/CherryAndJerryMusic 

https://www.reverbnation.com/cherryjerry 

Isaac Cherry and Jerry Rabushka are also members of The Ragged Blade Band, which will be reviewed tomorrow. 

Today will focus on their presentation, which charted a course from early minstrel shows through to ragtime to blues. There was an introduction to lesser known names like James Bland, Ernest Hogan, and Shelton Brooks, but they did not ignore more prominent names like Scott Joplin and W. C. Handy.

I appreciated that they did not shy away from the unsavory aspects of the minstrel shows. That should not be ignored, but the music should not be ignored either. As you hear the songs in their chronology, you can't help but hear the progression, and the influence of the previous music as new music develops.

They also made a point of how often the names that get remembered are not the earliest composers or players but the earliest transcribers; getting music jotted down allowed it to spread in a way that performing could not, at least back before recording and sharing audio became so easy.

Just a week after the performance, I watched an Oregon Symphony Storytime on Harlem's Little Blackbird, about Florence Mills:

https://www.orsymphony.org/discover/watch-listen/symphony-storytime/

There are no vocal recordings of Mills, and there is some tragedy in that. It is still possible to play songs that she sang, because the music is written down. Her specific sound is lost, but other things remain.

When Cherry & Jerry played Joplin's "The Entertainer", the listeners were surprised at its length and variation. We are used to a shorter, simpler version, largely because of its use in The Sting, over 70 years after it was first written.

When I was taking piano lessons, that was the version that I knew, not only because it was more common, but because I was not a particularly advanced student. However, I suddenly remembered that I had heard the extended version, on a collection of very old silent films.

There is always more out there; that is my constant takeaway. The "more" can enrich everything else.

Getting the foundation for blues enriched reading about blues influencing rock, and how it related to disco and then disco laying the groundwork for hip hop. It all connects.

It was a delight then, when reviewing singer Lady A, to find "Walking the Dog" as a bonus track on Bluez in the Key of Me. "Walking the Dog", by Rufus Thomas, was one in a category of songs where they tell you how to do the dance, like "Ballin' the Jack". A week earlier, it would have been just another song, but Cherry & Jerry gave it a context.

Cherry & Jerry will be at "Just a Taste Webb City" in Webb City, Missouri on July 24th, and at the "Oddities and Curiosities Festival" in Chicago, Illinois on August 28th, but you may find other streaming sessions on their Facebook page.

You can also find videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzKu1k40lBv0jfsTLZPZZgw.

Black Music Month: One Night In Miami

I really enjoyed the movie. It was more realistic than I expected, even if it is largely re-imagined:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a35204714/one-night-in-miami-true-story/

I appreciated the way each actor embodied their historical figure, giving an idea of their frailties but also their strengths and their likability. Well, maybe the movie was overly kind to Jim Brown; they probably could have dropped some hints of things to come there. 

As it was, in the film he primarily acted as the voice of reason,  especially trying to get Malcolm to back off in his needling of Sam Cooke.

This needling may have been the most fictional part of the created conversations. It related to Cooke's music pursuing a white audience and being rather shallow. In the movie (so I assume the play as well), Cooke admits that he has thought about doing more meaningful songs and was working on one, and then he introduces "A Change is Gonna Come" shortly after. In fact, Cooke had already introduced the song a few weeks before that night. 

The sentiments of the conversation are believable enough: not just that someone whose focus was on Black separatism might disagree with going after white money, or that a dedicated and religious person might find pop love songs trivial, but also both Cooke's and Brown's rebuttals about economic independence and the power that brings.

I see all of their points, and problems with their points as well. 

For example, Black economic prosperity seems like a clear good, but remember, we just commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Back when I first heard of it, the reading material focused on "Black Wall Street", though I guess it was really about the destruction of Black Wall Street. Anyway, that prosperity made them a target, and that is the story behind other massacres and generally behind lynchings. The perpetrators don't say that's the reason, true, but it is clearly the reason nonetheless. 

Economic solutions are important, but they aren't enough.

Also -- just for the record -- I think "You Send Me" is absolutely beautiful and moving. I can't trivialize romantic love or the thrill of infatuation. I like consciousness and inspiration to stay in the fight, but that fight can wear you out. Sometimes you need laughs, and thrills, and low-stakes drama. Sometimes things need to get a little hot. The brilliance of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On does not mean there is no place for Let's Get It On, and there are moments when Let's Get It On is more to the point.

What I keep thinking of is, oddly enough, an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation: "First Contact".

The residents of the Malcorian planet are getting close to their own space age, causing the Enterprise to make contact with their government. When I forget which episode it is, I can find it because I remember that Bebe Neuwirth played the alien who really wanted a close encounter with Riker,

Yes, the Malcorians were very similar to Earthlings of our time, and that included a dangerous xenophobia. Chancellor Durkin decides to delay relations with the Federation, to delay working on warp drive technology, and to instead focus on arts and culture. The goal is to bring the planet's residents up to where they can be open to other lifeforms and a more complex universe than they have been able to envision.

That episode was from 1991, but thirty years later we are still there. How frustrating for those who have been working on it since 1964.

A touching thing from Mary J. Blige's My Life was how many girls saw themselves in her, and so felt like there were good possibilities for them too. Representation matters for seeing yourself, but it also matters for seeing others, and understanding the value and validity of those other selves that are not you. It matters for seeing the ways in which they are like you, and the ways in which they are different.

That as much as anything is why my seeking out history has had to evolve to include seeking out art too. It has changed me. Not enough, but there is no going back.

Black Music Month 2021: Opportunities

Having reviewed many musicians and been friends with some, I already knew something about how hard "making it" can be.

Examining all of these stories close together (and not long after Simon Tam's Slanted) gave me a better idea of the racism factor. 

That was not so much the treatment from individuals, either, though it related. It was more the factors that shaped the environment, and what could be expected for those lives.

It was about the economic opportunities available, not just for those individuals, but for their parents and grandparents. It was about the economic level they lived at in terms of nutrition and health care and what jobs were available. 

It was the violence.

These were some very diverse circumstances too. Nutbush, Tennessee in the '40s is going to be a lot different from Compton in the '70s or Yonkers in the '80s, but racism and economic inequality still often managed to create hardships that were often exacerbated by substances. It was hard on families and youth. It is easy to judge, and there are pundits and leaders who do, but rarely have they needed to deal with similar life circumstances.

No one set out to make Ike Turner a likable or sympathetic character, but the story of his father's death is told briefly in I, Tina and it is horrifying. It doesn't make his abusiveness right, but it seems more likely that he would be violent and angry than not. Then, being a musician during a time period when cocaine use was very normal... you can see how it happens and still hate it and hate the pain it caused.

Thinking about all of that, I then think about how much being able to be musically successful meant for people like Tina Turner, Nile Rogers, Dr. Dre,  and Mary J. Blige. This becomes a way not just to be able to support themselves, but also to support the people they live. Buying houses and cars for mothers is a big step on a lot of these journeys, as is that the fathers are so often already dead.

There is a limit to what it can fix. Money does not heal the trauma along the way, at least not on its own. Money can be a fabulous tool, but even knowing how to use it requires some understanding that a lot of people just don't have.

In addition, I think about how talent is not enough. There are fabulously talented people who never make the right connections. There are people who may have potential but don't get chances to develop it. They get left behind. 

Finally, I think about how wonderful it is to be able to do creative things, and express thoughts and feelings and make something new, which has value whether it is monetized or not. Again, sometimes people just don't know how to get there.

So while I have additional affection for many musicians now, and have found their stories harrowing and inspiring, my overall impression is how there is the need for so much more. There need to be more resources for the entire hierarchy of needs for everyone.

Black Music Month 2021: Overview

Surprising no one, I have not quite finished my reading. I like the reason though. I got a late start on Nile Rogers' Le Freak because my sister was reading it. I like inspiring others to read things, and when people in my circle have read the same books so we can talk about them.

Also, overall we are pretty fond of Nile Rogers.

This is how things have been going...

I have finished reading The Beautiful Ones by Prince, with Dan Piepenbring, and I, Tina: My Life Story by Tina Turner and Kurt Loder. 

I still have about 70 pages left of Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco, and Destiny. I should be able to finish tonight, but things happen.

I have watched Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and One Night in Miami, as planned. 

I am going to have to hold off on The United States Versus Billie Holiday. There was a time when I remember watching free things on Hulu, but now it needs a subscription. Considering that I kept the Netflix subscription makes me reluctant to start any more trials, at least until I am gainfully employed again. 

(It remains a source of frustration that there is so much streaming content that stays locked into paid services, even years later when you might have expected them to move into a library collection or something.)

There were some surprises along the way, as is to be expected. I discovered a behind the scenes special for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Using some temporary Prime access for One Night in Miami also found Mary J. Blige's My Life, a special celebrating the 25th anniversary of the album.

A Facebook exchange about Patti Smith had a friend send me to The Defiant Ones (Peacock is included with our cable).

The Oregon Symphony has a Symphony Storytime series combining children's books with music, and one of their recent recordings was based on Harlem's Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills by Renée Watson and Christian Robinson. 

https://www.orsymphony.org/discover/watch-listen/symphony-storytime/

Finally, our local library did a Zoom presentation on the early African-American composers.

https://wccls.bibliocommons.com/events/60abd60c7b4a222500983acc

And that is one key and wonderful thing. Even though there are things that I may want and be unable to find, there is always so much available .

I am going to go finish that book, and then write some thoughts out over the coming week.

Music Review: Lady A

I did mention Lady A briefly in a blog post last summer, but that was not a review. 

I like that it is working out to be posted at the usual time of Portland's Waterfront Blues Fest. Maybe next year the festival can be back in full force, but whatever happens, we still have the Blues.

The Seattle-based singer and radio host has been performing for over 20 years, with five albums available.

The most recent, 2020's Live in New Orleans, gives a good feeling for what a show would be like: full of warmth and laughter.

The humor can be sly, as on "Future Ex-Husbun". The conflict between the desire for connection and independence can be full of angst, or you can be cheeky about it. 

There are more serious songs, but they tend to either be a wistful nostalgia, or an envisioning of a better future. Mostly it is fun, for everyone to join in.

Lady A's Youtube series, "Moments in Black History" may be the best example of her philosophy. In it, she talks with other musicians, sharing memories of their lives, including food and music. There is appreciation expressed, and donation links and reminders to contribute and pass on that appreciation.

"Bless and be a blessing."

Lady A will be celebrating her 63rd birthday on July 18th, but is not slowing down, releasing a CD next month and working on an album for this fall. She also has various performances scheduled, including opening up for Sir Mix-a-Lot at the Snohomish Block Music Festival on August 21st. 

There is a schedule on her page, showing various dates in Washington. That would normally include the Winthrop Rhythm & Blues Festival, which will be virtual this year. Details have not finished posting on their site, but there are links to watch previous virtual shows on Youtube, including a February performance by Lady A and The Baby Blues Funk Band:

http://winthropbluesfestival.com/virtual-shows/

The Blues endures, even through pandemics and bad presidencies. 

In fact, during those times we need them more than ever.

Links:

https://www.ladyababyblues.com/ 

https://www.facebook.com/LadyABluesDiva/ 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb19UqaBjWjvGpFs3JQ4cZg

https://www.instagram.com/LadyA_bluesdiva/ 

https://twitter.com/TheRealLadyA

Stronger with each tear

There is one more obstacle that I worry about for moving forward.

Surprisingly, it's not so much that some people don't want a better world and will be loudly wrong to prevent it. They are vocal, but they are also the minority; that is becoming clearer. We can work through that, but it is going to take patience and persistence and kindness.

I worry about having those resources available when so many of us are carrying around so much pain.

I wrote the numbers for the death toll yesterday. Those are big numbers, but they are nowhere near the full measure. That doesn't count people with long COVID symptoms. It doesn't count the individual left behind by those who died and their grief. It doesn't count the cumulative weight of all of the fear and pain and isolation that we have been carrying.

I have my own way of understanding this, and I don't have a solution for it.

I have pending grief overshadowing me. I often feel it coming in around the edges. I am not chasing it away, I swear, but also it is not breaking.

That kind of makes sense; there is more grief coming. My mother is alive and safe, but also I do not have a mother, offering maternal care, and there were all the things that hurt along the way. I have felt them, but I haven't really mourned them. There are things that have already been lost, but I can't seem to process those losses while the rest of the loss is pending.

There was a slew of articles maybe two months ago about how people were afraid to stop wearing the masks, even though it should be safe. The reasonable response to them was that hey, the pandemic was not over, and therefore there are many good reasons to continue wearing the mask.

There is emotional healing to be done. I know people who have become more tender-hearted and more aware of the larger issues, and that is great. I also know people who seem to be bordering on hysterics all the time, and there are people who have become much more hostile and resentful.

Personally, I find more difficulty focusing and more worry about being able to complete things. Also, I am positive I am more socially awkward now. I don't know how much of that is the care giving and how much of that is the pandemic, but I know I am not the only one who has lost something.

As true as it is that this is not over, and as hard as it can be to heal before you have established safety, I don't think it is too soon to start picturing healing, and thinking about how we want that to go.

I do not doubt that my posts this week have been messy and jumbled, but there was an order too. 

Monday was about getting out anger.

Tuesday was about looking at the situation, and staying committed to improving it.

Wednesday was kind of about that too, but it was also taking a broader look at what could be.

Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief by David Kessler was not the most helpful of the books I've read as I have tried to heal, but there is still a point to it. You may deal with denial, anger, bargaining, and grief on your way to acceptance, but there is also something better than acceptance, and that is finding meaning in it.

For all the people and the time that we have lost, can we build something better upon it?

These tears that I feel hanging over me are going to come, some day. I won't fight them.

I will try and keep learning and growing, so that when they come they will be a part of healing. 

There will be something beautiful about that, even though it hurts.

I wish you well.