what's good : balance
Specifically, between acceptance & resistance
It’s 2025 now.1 I am not in love with this number for a lot of reasons deeper than the fact that it’s odd and I’m awkward at writing 5s.2 But we’re here in it so I’m seeking (EXPLORING, if you will) ways to live well & better here. Even though I’ve been practicing meditation since I got the Headspace app back in the Social Isolation Times, I still need daily reminders from Andy and Kessonga and my new fave, Dora to “simply notice” and not [over]analyze intrusive thoughts & concerns & anxieties. Balance is also a big thing with them, so I’m especially trying to embrace that as I find myself swinging from the desire to acknowledge every happening in the news to curling up into a weeping ball under blankets with my cats. We must find a middle place.
In poetry, part 1: Let’s start with this poem that serendipitously popped up in my email last week after I’d been startled, for the tenth time this month, by how different the sunset looked from an evening just one week before.
I strive to mentally be in a place where I can feel like this most of the time: “…nothing was trying to be anything much and nothing/was being suggested.” This year (not to mention the next four, because you know) will be so goddamn exhausting from its core outward; please help yourself find pockets of calm, mundane beauty to breathe in.
Acceptance by Kerry Hardie Yesterday it was still January and I drove home and the roads were wet and the fields were wet and a palette knife had spread a slab of dark blue forestry across the hill. A splashed white van appeared from a side road then turned off and I drove on into the drab morning which was mudded and plain and there was a kind of weary happiness that nothing was trying to be anything much and nothing was being suggested. I don’t know how else to explain the calm of this grey wetness with hardly a glimmer of light or life, only my car tyres swishing the lying water, and the crows balanced and rocking on the windy lines.
In TV: If you haven’t yet watched Shrinking, this is your official3 therapy assignment from me. I started it because I found out Brett Goldstein, the brilliantly lovable sometimes-asshole Roy Kent in Ted Lasso, is a creator + producer + writer and I stayed, laughing & sobbing & laughing again & sobbing some more, for Jessica Williams, Harrison Ford, Michael Urie, Jason Segel, Luke Tennie, Lukita Maxwell…literally every actor in this unassuming series is genius at balancing the humor of one liners, dad jokes, and droll asides with the tragedy of a dead mom. It is at times jarring but always feels real, in the rawest but ultimately best ways. We will 1000% need dark cathartic laughter this year; get onto someone’s Apple TV+ account and watch at least once daily until mood improves.
In social media: Balance, especially between acceptance & resistance, means acknowledging the nonsense we all participate in [and sometimes often probably always perpetuate], particularly regarding race. It can feel confusing and complicated for white people, definitely uncomfortable… As a [white] former teacher, I know I made foolish mistakes in class and in conversations with colleagues & students - I know because I was lucky enough to have relationships that encouraged them to tell me about my missteps. Yet despite my brightest/whitest intentions, I continue to say and/or do stupid shit now & then so clearly I need help. Enter The White Woman Whisperer. I had the massive good fortune of stumbling upon one clip of this woman’s work and immediately signed up for a year of access. That was before I spent two hours listening to her material4 then went back to upgrade my Patreon membership. All I can say is that I’m super excited to finally have a Professional Black Friend.5
When you subscribe you’ll get to watch a magnificent segment about Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin resisting [white men’s] foolishness, with pointers on how to use these white women as examples of useful Ways To Be. And, you can see an inspiring, lovely tribute to the inimitable Nikki Giovanni, giving us a final word on the meaning of revolutionary on this particularly bleak January day.
In poetry, part 2: No comments from me other than a wish that you are able to tune out the noise of nonsense during this coming year, and design your own resistance. Naturally.
Revolutionary Dreams by Nikki Giovanni
i used to dream militant
dreams of taking
over america to show
these white folks how it should be
done
i used to dream radical dreams
of blowing everyone away with my perceptive powers
of correct analysis
i even used to think i’d be the one
to stop the riot and negotiate the peace
then i awoke and dug
that if i dreamed natural
dreams of being a natural
woman doing what a woman
does when she’s natural
i would have a revolutionOof, it has been a minute since I found a few good things to share, so sorry. Welcome back, us!
I can never quickly decide if I want to just make it an S with a flat top or do the bottom part then a separate straight line across…as I said, awkward.
Disclaimer: Though I was a teacher of teenagers for decades and have participated in some personal counseling sessions, I have no professional therapist credentials.
And composing a haiku for her in a comment. I feel both proud and cringy about it.
SHE CALLS HERSELF THIS.
Thanks for the recommendations and yeah, finding balance right now is tricky. And each day I have to find balance in a fresh way, constantly thinking-re-thinking-examining-re-examining. Anything but compliance, right?
Thank you for your wonderful words <3 Balance is definitely what I need for this upcoming year (+ more). And resistance too.