New Season

The past two weeks have been kind of whirlwindish. I took part in organizing a conference, attended a conference in New York, hosted several folks at my home, and, oh yeah, bought a house. Well, poor Chris is the one who has borne much of that responsibility, but still.

I'm not sure if it's spring or the promise of the end of coursework or the anticipation of tearing out drop ceilings and ripping out carpets but everything feels a little bit better and entirely more manageable. I am still struggling with sitting still - or at least coaxing my brain to stay still - for more than 10 minutes but I wonder if that's just who I am.

One thing that I've been feeling is a sense of possibility that I frankly haven't felt in a long time. This is in part because I have been feeling more connected lately. For Left Forum, I went to the obligatory environmental panels because I still believe that it's the most pressing and frightening issue I can think of. But I also went to "indulgence" panels. One such panel was entitled "Organizing in a Culture of Isolation", the other "Pun Rock: Cultural Space for Transformative Politics?". Both moved me in that I started thinking about the politics of space, place, and emotional connection. And the two speakers who moved me most were the least academic in their demeanor and presentation. In the Culture of Isolation panel, three of the (male) participants spouted off (useful) statistics and relevant reading materials. The last one to speak was an activist (female) who described the space in which she works and the function of food and comfort in good organizing. She was very smiley. Part of the reason I went to the punk rock panel was that there was a woman speaking on it who I knew from my post-riot grrrl feminist activism days. She was a key organizer for the Visions in Feminism conference. I didn't think she'd remember me at all. When I walked in, she immediately recognized me and her face lit up into this broad beautiful smile. And when it was her turn to speak, she started by saying that in coming to consciousness, she was comforted to realize that she wasn't crazy but just felt things really hard. She then went on to describe the culture in which we live as being like receiving a million little paper cuts (she borrowed this from someone) and discussed the transformative but tricky spaces of music and DIY as a way to reclaim the lost dignity of an oppressive and deadening culture.

Strangely, these panels informed how I think about my "work" as much as the panels on ecological destruction and the logic of "late" capitalism. It's all tied together. Isolation, internalized oppression, consumption, loneliness, lack of community, and the absence of vision that can paralyze people. I just remember how beautiful my feminist community was then. I take for granted all I learned in those days - I didn't forget it, I just take it for granted because, my g-d, how could my life be any other way?