Last time I showed up to this digital space — a month ago now — I hit the publish button from the new annual ritual of my solo weekend away. There was still no wifi in my cabin, but rather than miss posting I settled nicely into a deep mustard chair in the lounge of the main lodge, with a fire burning next to me and a sweet version of Gymnopédie playing quietly over the speakers. The hotel workers passed through occasionally, talking affably with each other. I thought: next week I’ll write more about this trip but for now, I am here, with this quilt for my friend with me — ready for quilting stitches, and to have this ritual of mine become a part of what it holds, as well.
I was on a roll, for a wee bit there — posting every week, four weeks in a row! I was loving my rhythm. Being mindful throughout each week about what I wanted to record, what felt important to me to capture. Signing in to tell people I had posted, and then promptly deleting my Instagram app (I love deleting Instagram), and reveling in the extra mental space. I felt deeply connected to my practice, and my documenting of my practice.
And then, after I returned home, I found I could not show up here. That Monday I read Michelle Tea’s piece Bearing Witness; I read it at 9am, at my desk, at work, while the tears rolled down my face and I felt: writing about luxuriating in a cabin alone at the beach could not be more tone-deaf, more myopic. Instead, the only thing I wanted to do was ask you to read that piece, too. The week after, all I could think about was Aaron Bushnell. And then, an email from a longtime faraway friend, chastising my husband for the use of the word genocide.
It can feel impossible to know how to move through a world where we can’t all agree on what seems the most basic and fundamental things. Where the killing of babies, the elderly, the infirm, whole families, can result in arguments around semantics. It makes the wordsmithing of writing a weekly blog about a small, self-indulgent, artistic quilt practice feel ugly.
I think often these days about the Vietnam war, about the mass mobilizations against that meaningless slaughter. I can’t stop thinking about this campaign: the call for greater mass mobilization.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Vietnam War protest billboards; December 1969
This sentiment, I cannot get out of my mind. If you want it.
Outlets are required. Outlets for everything. Outlets for our rage and our sorrow and our terror and also our joy and our love and our creative impulses, our loneliness, our connectedness. For a while in my city there were many and frequent outlets for the rage at the injustices and horrors perpetrated against Palestinians; having those outlets made showing up here easier. But after the end-of-year holidays, there was a real vacuum, a lag. A lack of organizing, and direction, and for a while I think a large wave that was the lack of hope. An outlet for textile work is not as high on my hierarchy of needs as an outlet for the despair over unspeakable atrocities.
But meetings are convening for political organizers here in the state of OR to launch our version of the Listen to Michigan campaign. A slew of smart, caring, hardworking, dedicated people are going to help push for a political protest vote; a continuation of the work that has already been done in many other states. Our northern neighbor Washington just ran this same campaign, backed by the largest labor union in the state; now it’s our turn. This work has tangible, measurable needs, and hands-on work through which to channel our hopes for an end to the bombing and the killing. I’ve also committed to sending a quilt block to an enormous community-quilt protest project. This work is an outlet.
And so I’m back here this week. To resume the ritual. To mark the passage of time. I am still not yet ready to write about my time away. I need to digest that experience (though I do have some exciting fabric finds that I need to document here.) And so I plan to return next week, and keep myself accountable to my art practice — while also striving to stay accountable to my global citizen practice.
If you feel inclined to share with me other resources — your outlets, your researched ways of trying to make any small positive impact during this time — I welcome it.
War is over! If we want it.