you do not have to be jazzed
an anti-pep talk to myself
Beloved:
You do not have to be psyched about the future.
You do not have to self-optimize or make a battle plan.
You do not have to eat the most vegetables* or have the tidiest home.
You do not have to drag yourself through 365 days of mindful journaling, repenting.
You do not have to be the most ethical consumer, the most compliant patient, the most active activist, the most enlightened being. You do not have to Do Everything Right in order to do your part.
If the soft animal of your body is wounded, frozen, clenched, despairing, let it be. Give it water. Give it shelter. Give it time and quiet, away from the clamor of capitalist and white supremacist exhortations to excel, to numb out, to perform, to never stop grinding. Away from the voices insisting that you can—that you must—save the world all by yourself.
Dear one, this world has teeth of knives. It is natural to be bleeding.
xo,
K
—
The knives are more than metaphorical for me this week, as I recover from a minor medical procedure. My body is bleeding, which is exactly what it should be doing in response to being cut open. It will heal, but only if I listen. If I lie down. If I let it.
I try to remind myself that I cannot see or solve the future, just as I can’t undo the past. All I can do is today. And if what I need today is to cry or sleep or draw worms or talk to trees or call a friend, then that’s what will ready me to lift my sword tomorrow.
speaking of blood
A few weeks ago when I was trapped and whirling in the Must Be Good vortex, my therapist said “Didn’t you make a sticker about this?”
(The sheer audacity of some people. Honestly.)
If, like me, you need a visual reminder, I’ve still got two of these stickers left. They’re $4 apiece, including postage. Leave a comment or email me to grab one or both.
a different kind of reminder
Not to undermine my own demotivational speech, but: I do still passionately believe that some things are good. (Birds, mostly, and a fair scattering of people.) My poem about these glimmers of hope is out now in The Last Word on Nothing. You can read it here.
Thank you for staying alive with me. I am so, so glad you’re here.
*There is no evidence for a single universal approach to “healthy eating.” As a science communicator (and a disabled person whose body struggles to digest vegetables), I will bang this drum forever.
“Why isn’t the rabbit reflected in the water?,” I asked myself while looking at a draft of this newsletter. “You identify with the rabbit. What does it mean, to have drawn a version of yourself that leaves no mark on her environment, that can find no sign of herself in the current and future world?”
“It means,”—and this part I actually said aloud, with a deep sigh and a shake of my head—“that you drew this lying in bed while the anesthesia wore off. And if you’re seriously asking this question now, you need to get back into bed.”
Thank you— I needed this. Both the letter and the poem💛💛💛