I realized I've let this blog go dark. I blame 2020 and the small fact that nobody actually reads blogs. My year was probably a lot like yours: a bit like a roller coaster, with a lot of hurtling downhill. I'm sure I don't need to expound, except that for me, the high points generally involved these two cute little people, who arrived in April and June: Which felt like amazing gifts in the middle of the rest of everything. I found I couldn't write last year, as things developed, and fell apart, and sometimes exploded. Silence, even in the face of growing awareness of suffering and inequity may still be very far from violence. Sometimes silence is listening. Processing. And listening sometimes takes all your energy as you reach to understand something that no one can ever completely understand--another person's suffering--through hearing their stories. Sometimes it becomes almost impossible to listen, like when people who in face-to-face real life are thoughtful, ...
With many/most of us stuck at home waiting out the novel Corona virus and generally freaking out because, I mean, plagues and earthquakes? Waking up and your bed is shaking and lights swinging from the ceiling and now that the power is back on are you going to have a job tomorrow? And there's no toilet paper on the store shelves, and more importantly, Harmon's is running out of Cadbury eggs! Gah! So stop stockpiling already! So, you could sit around frying your brains and shortening your attention spans obsessively scrolling through social-media feeds, watching cat videos, binge-watching Netflix... Or you could maybe re-discover the pleasure of reading aloud--to your cat or your brother or your roommates or sister. Or to your fiddle-leaf ficus plant. Whatever or whoever you happen to be stuck inside with. Ficus is a good listener Might as well make it a community thing. Loneliness can suck your soul as much as any virus. Even alone with a book you...