Art therapy

A few days ago I posted about this bracelet idea from TikTok, which is a topic unto itself. 

As the discussion took shape -- along with other discussions -- the persistent theme was that people are feeling a lot of emotions and an urge to do something. That's all very reasonable, but the strong emotion and the sense of urgency is not necessarily great for planning. I had an idea and posted this:

This is what I think would be a great way to channel some of that anger and grief and fear: make some art with it this weekend. It can be poetry, song, drawing, photography -- there are so many ways to express yourself. You don't have to share, but if you want to please do.

I will too.

I drew this:

This is art therapy, not really art for art's sake and certainly not commercial. I mention that for two reasons:

1. It doesn't matter that I'm not very good at drawing.

2. It is reasonable to explain it rather than leaving the individual interpretation to the viewer.

My overwhelming feeling has been of fragmentation. There is that urge to do something to make things better, but do what and how and in what order? It's a lot of mental noise.

In case it is not clear, the more solid representation in the center is me with my head in my hands and on my knees. Then more abstract images coming out of me are me running, baking, talking on a cell phone, and prone (maybe due to despair, maybe for sleep).

If there are questions about the accuracy... I have reached out to people, though that was mainly through text. I do sleep on my face, though it is more of an issue lately that when trying to read I sometimes can't stay awake. I have not done any baking yet, but I am pretty sure I will. I haven't done a big baking since Sandy Hook, but I feel it coming on. 

I have not done any running, but it represents the urgency.

My brain is slowly falling back into a better order, though there are still a lot of unknowns. The clarity comes more from writing, but it doesn't mean that the drawing isn't valuable. Art can provide a better path for the things we haven't quite worked out intellectually. That is why it is good for emotions.

This may not be the end of it. I have had this idea for a poem in the back of my mind for a while, but I haven't actually tried writing it out; there is a certain snarkiness to the concept that I am not sure I could execute correctly. Still, if it keeps popping up, it may just be best to get it out.

The more important thing is that the art was just one step.

Emotions are real. They are often not good resting places, but they come up and that's not really something that you control, so feel them.

My recommending that people do some art was a way of validating those emotions, but then we move on.

One thing I had been wondering about before the election was whether I should be blogging more. This week, I will.

What do we do after we face the emotions?

Elections: Pride 2024

There has been a lot of memoir in this round of reading, mainly -- but not exclusively -- from transgender authors.

There are two incidents that are sticking with me. 

This departs from the order of writing I had planned on going in, and it probably puts me a week behind in my blogging. 

Some things should be different.

Obviously, both of these are from the 2016 election.

In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life by Amy Schneider

Schneider had recently relocated to Oakland, but found community there and attended a theater with a live feed on election night. Everyone was excited to see the announcement of our first woman president.

You know how that turned out.

Some people tried staying there, hoping, but she felt that she needed to leave. She stopped in a convenience store she frequently visited. The owners were immigrants and dark-skinned. They were talking, and something was  -- bothering is not exactly the right word, but something she couldn't understand. What she realized is that they weren't surprised. All of the white, lifelong citizens -- even though marginalized in some ways by their sexuality and identity -- had still been sheltered from knowing that so many people would really choose Trump.

The Risk it Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation by Raquel Willis

The intro to Willis' book is about her being invited to speak at the Women's March. 

Years ago I expressed concern about it and chose not to go, mostly due to it adhering so much to white feminism. 

Willis expressed some of the same concerns, but then they asked her to speak, and I was wondering if I misjudged them. Then, during her speech, she was cut off.

It happened just as she referred to the erasure of trans women of color, but that wasn't why. 

It wasn't exactly a coincidence. Apparently, it was a matter of someone being in a hurry to get the Indigo Girls on, and maybe just being too easy to not prioritize given a Black trans woman her time.

It is hard to feel like we have learned what we needed to learn.

 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/01/i-did-not-march-rally-or-burn-anything.html

 

Democracy and the 2024 election

I have been posting daily about election-related things. That has included bad things about Trump and Vance, good things about Harris, Walz, and Biden, and things about business and media literacy.

I was starting to do one last post for today, and it started to have too much substance. I thought, okay, it's a blog post, and then it started to get kind of long for that too.

I generally do have a lot to say, but I am going to try and stay focused on this one aspect.

I was thinking about it because of the ballot box fires, but that came about because of the Proud Boys claiming they will be at polling places and various lawsuits about not counting ballots or removing voters from rolls. I was thinking about how great vote-by-mail is, but then in states with that, you still have people trying to take away the vote from people they don't like.

Of course, they have to be assuming they won't like those votes for the ballot box fires, but they are happening not just in states that tend to vote blue, but near the larger cities, also more likely to be blue. I mean, maybe it would make more sense to try it in Seattle than in Vancouver, but I if it's the same car in Portland and Vancouver, maybe they are too lazy to drive all the way up to Seattle.

It's probably someone different in Phoenix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_ballot_drop_box_arson_attacks_in_the_United_States 

Anyway, what I was thinking about was all of the times I have seen people chime in -- when democracy is mentioned -- that we are not a democracy, we are a republic.

That is not a lie; on a federal level our laws and a lot of our budgeting are done by elected representatives. 

That is even frequently true for states, though 26 states have ballot initiatives or referendums available.

Those initiatives and that selection of who represents... I believe that is important, even though imperfect.

I can't help but notice that the people who have been so quick to negate democracy have tended to be conservatives. They tend to be the same ones who get irritated that the votes of some counties have more weight, without really dwelling on how that's because there are more people in those counties. 

(You know, if we decided the land should vote instead of the people, it would just end up being the land owners voting. Don't they already do enough damage by lobbying and buying up news sources?)

It also seems worth noting that some of those less democratic/more representative institutions -- like the apportionment of electoral votes and legislator allotment -- tend to favor the former slave-holding states. 

I will also note that when people put forward conservative ideas, it is unusual for it to be original; they tend to come through the same few sources and then get amplified.

Then I see men tweeting about how women shouldn't be allowed to vote (something coming up a lot this election cycle, even though one would think it had been settled over a century ago).

It makes sense that a party that knows that it can't win if everyone votes would teach contempt for democracy. 

It doesn't make it a good idea, and it doesn't make it right, but it makes sense.

I just wish people didn't fall for it so easily.

I know we are capable of better.

That's my wish going forward, and my goal is to help with that.  

More movies! -- Hispanic Heritage Month 2024

By more movies, I don't mean that I have already written about some this year and now am writing about more. 

(Actually, some El Salvador reading that should bring in another movie and a documentary.)

Instead, this is going back to that professor's list of movies he used in class that really helped you understand the country:

https://x.com/MPaarlberg/status/1560397489156624384

There was a list of fourteen films, and I have been slowly working my way through. That is not just due to my usual speed issues, but also that some of the movies have been harder to locate. 

I was able to find four in 2022 and five in 2023, but it was hard to be optimistic about finding the final six. As I managed to view three of them this year, it feels more likely that next year I will be able to finish.

For this year's movies, there were some stark contrasts.

Who is Dayani Cristal? (2013)

This is mostly a documentary. Gael Garcia Bernal does some retracing of the path, but it is not really re-enactment. There are times when it almost feels that way, as he is passing through these same places and using the same transportation, meeting some of the same people. Really it is that there are so many people following that same path.

It started with a body in the Arizona desert. The people who try and identify these bodies and return them to their families have one clue, a tattoo across his chest, "Dayani Cristal". 

Eventually they find the Honduran family of the man, learning his identity. We meet his parents, wife, and his children, including Dayani Cristal, his daughter. 

Like many, Dilcy Yohan Sandres-Martinez tried to make it to the States to earn more money. The need was more urgent due to a son's leukemia treatments.

Immigration "reform" has done more to increase death than decrease attempts.

I was touched to see the caring dedication of the research team. 

La Sierre: Muerte en Medellin (2004)

I have to put an asterisk on that date. I found it described as a 2005 documentary and a 2006 television episode that was about half the length of the movie. I assume that the full-length movie was cut down for television presentation. I watched the full version (as far as I know), but the credits showed the year 2004, which is why I am using that.

Medellin is a neighborhood in Colombia which is run by teenage paramilitary groups. Two members and the girlfriend of an imprisoned member are followed by the cameras.

The first most horrifying part is how young they are, and the frequent reminders of how young they are. There may be an extent to which it matures them prematurely, but they really are kids. (And they are very much children having children; Edison was a 19 year old father of six.)

The next most horrifying thing was the apparent futility of it all. Even as they defeat one group, it leads to more war. They work out an amnesty, but there are other neighborhoods. 

It did remind me of the organizations in the favelas in Tropa de Elite 2, but it also made me think of the Crips and Bloods.

Tres Bellezas (2014)

Given that there is so much less death, this shouldn't be more disturbing... maybe it is just differently disturbing.

A former beauty queen in Venezuela is determined to have one of her daughters become a beauty queen as well, setting her daughters at odds with each other and neglecting her son. Even when she briefly gives up beauty there are similar dynamics, but pageants return. It is ghastly, tragic, and terribly typical. 

Constant death and poverty are hard, but they are not the only things that are soul-killing.

For some context: 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/12/venezuelans-obsessed-with-beauty

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/01/hispanic-heritage-month-2022-movies.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/12/la-raza-heritage-month-movies.html