It's Not an Airport

We had nearly a week of storms here, a lot of flooding, and several trees down.

One of my favorite trees in a neighborhood park was one of the casualties. An old, black cherry tree that stood apart from the treeline - serpentine in how it grew toward the sky. Beautiful, and it had a sense of being proud - rightly so. It was not a steady nurturer like oak or a curious grandfather like pine. And I liked that about it.

When I saw that it had fallen, I leaned against it once more, feeling my heartbeat thump against it, slowing as I was still. And wouldn’t you know, I think I got a little rash on my neck from it. This is hilarious to me. One last lesson from a cat of trees.

What it’s made me think of is inflammation in my system, since I do have a tendency for that. What follows is my search for what is not helping. So I can stop.

These days, whenever I am asked how I am, I sort of freeze. Because… personally, things are pretty good. But my body is in distress. So, “How are you?” feels simultaneously like “I’m great” and also “WHAT THE FUCK.”

Looking at this favorite tree of mine, lying dead and flat on the blooming clover, made me realize something else.

Each time I walk or run by it, I try to make it sink in that this tree is never coming back. But how can that be? It’s my favorite! I’ll see it next time. Someone will fix it.

The current political climate/being an American right now feels kind of like that.

And also, like the months before my brain surgery. I’ll explain.

Everything is going to change. And actually, it already has, and maybe it can be argued that it was never actually what I thought it was to begin with.

But I still have the illusion that it can go back to being the same, even while I feel dread for what is coming.

The brain surgery put certain things into perspective for me, reorganized priorities, and I’m finding that being mired in bullshit is doing the same thing, finally.

I notice I am anxious, I am more easily embarrassed about current and past behaviors, I am more uncertain than I have ever been. It feels like being ill. And I think I am finally ready to address a cause that I have known about this whole time (because that is the nature of any addiction).

I recently shared a couple of things through social media that were a bit vulnerable, certainly personal, and they went almost entirely unseen and unnoticed. Unremarked upon, at least. My bid for attention? Ignored. The horror.

It made me feel a bit like a kid with a new art project that everyone keeps talking over. Because of course it did, because that’s what social media does. Keep posting, keep liking, keep scrolling, maybe someone will validate you. Maybe someone will care. Maybe it’ll mean something.

But that isn’t accurate, in reality. The reality is that, for all that I have left to learn, I’m good at what I do. It has been told to me over and over again, by many people (who I will thank in my heart for the rest of my life). And again, there is a whole other stratosphere for what I am still needing to learn, but the no one is doing me a purely altruistic favor by paying attention to what I create.

I won’t say which things went unnoticed exactly, because my intention is not to stir pity or inspire comfort (do not). I mention it to provide context for a realization that I’ve had this whole time, but that finally hit me in an actionable way.

None of this algorithm cloud shit is real. It doesn’t matter.

It’s not

fucking

real.

I guess that very obvious statement hadn’t landed for me on a deeper level yet.

This morning, I was walking around barefoot in a little cluster of dandelions, and that was all I wanted to keep doing. We drove home along old highways, rather than the usual here-to-there interstate, and it was the most charming and nostalgic thing I’ve done in a while. Big fields with blooming wildflowers, tall grass, old buildings and sentimental clouds. It felt real.

Before I put my shoes back on, I deleted the Instagram app from my phone. I’m sure they’ll make it very easy to reinstall, should I decide to, but for now I’d like to keep it gone. Might re-introduce it on a desktop and keep it there, but I’m not sure when yet. I wonder sometimes if a cold turkey approach is what works best for me with things I get too attached to. We’ll see.

I just 

I want it to be real. I want it to matter.

I want to connect with what others create and talk about it and commiserate. I want to read what I actually say I want to read. I want to move, to care, to exist.

If this country is going to go down in flames, kidnap its legal residents and citizens, bomb children, impoverish its citizens for the stock portfolios of billionaires… I don’t want to watch it on a goddamned screen.

And then ask people who, if invited, wouldn’t come to my birthday party to pay attention to me and validate me.

I am tired of trying to appeal to the attention span of an algorithm. 

Beyond that, I don’t know yet practically what it will mean for my online engagement, but that’s at least where I’m at today.

I’ll keep writing here. I’ll keep being in person.

And we’ll all keep figuring it out.

Love y’all.