Weekly Zephyr #19: October 5th, 2017

Michelle Kingdom, What is done cannot be undone, 2015

At least we're all here together

  That's not nothing.    I'm not a Christian and I'm not planning on joining the team but I have been thinking about Jesus this week.  I think about him a lot, honestly. Magnetic appeal. I don't know what everybody's been doing with him, collectively—you've got to call that a mixed bag—but I do like to think of this, what, this major dude...this...RESOURCE hanging around in the ether for us. I don't mind saying that I place a call from time to time. I've heard about him for so long that he feels familiar and he gives a face to that worrisome endlessness. And I am often stumped, to say the least.

  And I'm not up for no hotlines in this place.

   What I've been thinking about is "Forgive them for they know not what they do."   I try to imagine what somebody like that who may have said something like that would have been seeing when he said it.    

Innocence

   , I guess, is what that must have been.

Seems obvious, of course, but lately obvious things don't seem so obvious Like I think I have a working understanding of the ego, and then I'm all WAIT WHAT WHAT THE HELL IS IT See also: all workings of the heart  what is happening in there I'm not going to assume I know

Things can be true at the same time that their opposites are true.

  I was grocery shopping tonight, and—after a brief argument on Facebook with someone who lives elsewhere in the world—I was conscious of myself as an American, and my fellow shoppers as (likely) Americans, and how we just can't get it together. Heavily armed, rudderless children flailing around, not caring for ourselves or each other

With exceptions, but.

and I'd been feeling hot shame and sadness all day.   But when I was pushing my cart around Trader Joe's and looking at my fellow shoppers—all us hapless, ignorant bastards, endangered and dangerous even right in that moment in that store—because in all stores and places everywhere—by our own stupidity—I just felt love for every shopper I could see, and even me.   I mean, what the hell are we doing? Laugh-cry. What are we doing?

O guy by the grapefruits, YOU, and YOU, jam lady, and me, heading onward from the bagels, we are out here in these aisles and we don't know the first thing about anything important enough about being alive. And it's awful. It's awful. We're ruining everything, we're killing people and animals and icebergs and hope and the atmosphere and anything we can get our hands on. We're disastrous.

White Americans, too, the very worst. It must be said.  Whiteness is nothing, in reality,

nothing,

but we keep it in play to keep poisoning humanity with it

   I'm not letting us off the hook, either. We're exhausted and scared but too bad because we have to try to keep gluing what we keep breaking.

5Calls.org: BLOCK THE DEREGULATION OF GUN SILENCERS 5Calls.org: DEMAND ACTION AGAINST GUN VIOLENCE

*

     but what if also we have innocence

not only innocence

but also innocence

*Michelle Kingdom, Still the sky was blue, 2015

Innocent things are easier to love. And we must be loved. We're not adults. We are, we are, but we're not. We wouldn't act like this. The real definition can't be about the size and age of our bones. That's stupid. So we're not.  Love might be** the one resource we can't wreck. **is

This is what I have for you this week.

one.

A great article on the legendary theater-maker Peter Brook: "To give way to despair is the ultimate cop-out." I'm so happy he's still walking around here with us. His Hamlet back at the turn of the millennium remains one of my favorite pieces of theater I ever did see. If you're not a theater person, that doesn't mean you shouldn't get busy with his books. Any maker of anything who's interested in new forms to keep us awake and subvert expectations should go for it.   here's a link to an excerpt from his new book, Tip of the Tongue: Reflections on Language and Meaning and here's an excerpt from the excerpt:

two.

I made a playlist for you. I figured what if you're like me and these are some sounds you could use this week  Weekly Zephyr #19 Spotify Playlist     

Love,