11 June 2020
Make eye contact
and small talk with strangers, Timothy Snyder writes. Lilith and
I cross paths with the white man and his one-eyed tan dog. She’s a
small fluffy thing, dressed up in a large pink bow, and he’s not
looking at me. I called him a racist. Rosie and Lilith sniff the
important places, and I wish him a good day. He wishes me same.
It’s political telepathy: he knows and I know what we’d say, had we not the courage to go small. I wave to the man in the
cemetery who thinks hospitals make money off ventilators; he asks
after Lilith, who stepped on a bee, and I thank him for suggesting
the stinger was still in her paw. Death’s tasteful industry spreads
all around us. Gladiolas and torch ginger peek from graves’ metal
vases; a paper fish (for boys’ day?) lies on the pavement. Next to
Kahekili, a bright blue face mask with white ear elastics sits on the
green grass. Lilith walks over to sniff it and pee. (“We stopped
for tea and gas.”) Norman asks if we find a difference between our
inner and outer lives; businessmen told him they hated their jobs
more after the retreat. This is not who I am, or you were.
Professions strip our spirit from our performances, as if we were
good actors trapped in the bodies of bad. Hell, thy name is committee
work. One man says he thinks any separation between inside and out is now false. I wonder how, without the huge chain link fence or
the beautiful wall, to balance the video of a murder with what occurs
in my mind. There’s purpose in seeing, but less in re-seeing.
Trauma isn’t action, but re-action, stuck needle at 33 1/3. Jesus
died in that groove; Trump is holding his racist rally in Tulsa.
Symbolic action sucks. Pull back on the lens. Mountains are too grand
in their walking; point at the paper fish that blew off someone’s
grave. Then shoot.
Timothy Snyder, from
On Tyranny, Tim Duggin Books,
2017.
Allen
Ginsberg, “Wichita Vortex Sutra” also gets a quote.
4 comments:
This is a good walk! Each of the meanderings feels purposeful and not random and meaningful. I really enjoyed this.
Awesome. I am here for the first time, it seemed to me very interesting. Thanks!
I really like this one and hear all the weavings and thoughts coming together. These meditations help me understand how purposeful meditations are, or can be. Beginning with its small kindnesses (the courage to go small) engages me and prepares me for what would otherwise feel like wanderings later. Good stuff.
Hell thy name is committee meetings reminds me of C.S. Lewis's version where everyone waits at a busstop in the rain forever. "the courage to go small" is intriguing & makes sense. I hope Lilith's paw is okay. The paper fish gets me.
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