undisposable

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My body and I had to come to Jesus this morning in

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the wee dark hours. It kept shouting outside my window

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carrying signs I couldn't read. And so I shouted down and said,

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"what are your demands?" and it just made uncomfortable possum

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sounds or the noise that a baby otter makes before it touches

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water for the first time. And I said, "okay, but really?" and it

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said, "ow." And I said, "okay, but where?" And that is how I

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ended up lying awake at 5am with my thumb pressed into the muscle

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just to the left and center of my sternum, feeling the

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throbbing all along my rhomboids, the point of my

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shoulder, and assorted other places that I'm not used to

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feeling sensation at all, that humans are not really made to

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feel sensation in at all, unless perhaps, we have been hit by an

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arrow or a falling log, which I have not. But what I have been

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hit by is two plus years of pandemic, poverty, heartache,

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separation from my loved ones, exhaustion, burnout, and the

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flailing of late-stage end-stage some-stage? of capitalism, that

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part where fascism and oligarchy try to take over, over and over

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again. And somehow, we do not smoothly make the obvious

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transition from being wealthy to sharing that wealth. Socialism

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seems obvious to me. But in the meantime, we have to have some

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kind of bridge, something that helps us regain our humanity,

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because it has already been lost in this morass. I know about it,

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because the point of my shoulder and my rhomboids told me so. But

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I am informed by reliable sources that most people have

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long since forgotten how to hear what their bodies are telling

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them, because it hurts too much. And as a consequence, cannot

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also hear what the body of humanity, the body of the Earth,

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the body of life are saying. And by saying, I mean shouting. Even

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when it is also ourselves down there doing the shouting,

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holding literal signs that literally say what we literally

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want. But we forget that the people in the tops of the

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skyscrapers can't actually read the signs once they get up

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there. They can't see the signs once they get up there. And

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hiring a sky writer is both dangerous and ineffective, not

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to mention expensive. Ani DiFranco said, if he doesn't

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come down and put change in her cup, she's coming up, which is a

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great line. But the fact is that the elevator is guarded and

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stepping into a small box into which one can be locked for

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basically ever makes that strategy probably not the most

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effective way to create change. And so what is the most

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effective way to create change? And how do we recognize who we

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are? And we are in fact, the ones also with the keys to the

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elevator, we are in fact, also the ones leaning out the window

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squinting at the shouting, perhaps even sincerely engaged

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in the possibility that we might be able to meet the demands of

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the people down there while retaining our seats up here.

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That is not really how it works. In the old days, the buildings

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were shorter, even on the fifth storey, you can basically tell

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what people are yelling about. And I think that's important to

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being in touch with the ground from which we come is

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a vital part of our survival. And at the same time, we need to

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start stacking people better in cities so that we retain some

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compactness of resource distribution. And at the same

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time, we need more people, more kinds of people moving to the

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places where the skies are open, and the farming is good. I

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believe in us, my friend Mina Raver believes in us; she is not

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the only one. My friend Vanessa Burnett believes in us; she is

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not the only one. I believe that those of us who believe in us

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are actually in the majority. I believe those of us who want to

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simultaneously be in power and share the power are not as

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unique or as far apart as the narratives that we hear would

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have us believe. Even the people writing the newspapers sharing

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the stories have become the people leaning out the 125th

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floor of someplace, squinting down the street, trying to read

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the signs and figure out what the shouting is all about,

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trying to figure out what the demands really are. Because from

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up there, it all sounds like possum sounds. This morning, my

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body and I had to come to Jesus and I lay there at 5am firmly

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consistently pressing out knots that my body doesn't even let me

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know that I have, most of the time. Usually, there is no

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shouting. The shouting is a way of finding the problem. Shouting

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is a way of knowing there is a problem. The shouting is the

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first step. But it is only the first step, then somehow,

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somehow there has to be consensus, consolidation of the

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people at the top of the skyscraper and the people at the

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bottom. Somehow, my body has to trust me enough to let me work

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out the knots in my pectoral muscle. So that my shoulder can

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move freely, so that I can exercise, so that I can breathe.

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So that I can meet the very things about which it has been

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shouting, that I can meet it on the ground. It can meet me in

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the air so they can meet everywhere it wants to. The

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signs aren't merely symbolic. I'm relieved about the shouting,

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but only when the shouting leads to something.

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Here's the irony. My personal trainer and I have been on this

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exact problem. My personal trainer and I have been working

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on this for months, trying to find our way down the fire

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stairs, floor after floor after floor all the way to the bottom

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every chance we get. Every time we get a clue as to where we

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might find the doorway, the entrance, the way to find out

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what's happening down there. The way to read the signs the way to

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hear the demand- something, something gets in our way.

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That's the way of capitalism. But I have known intuitively and

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from the beginning, that the key to this problem is heart ache.

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And the way the human body curls around the center of the chest

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in defense. My body has to know simultaneously that my heart is

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breaking and that I am doing everything that I can to save us.