Having just read the post I last published from 1 year and 351 days ago… I am not making comment at this time. I’m. here. for. to. day.
Today woke up with a headache. Today wonders where these hangovers are coming from when I haven’t had a drink in days. Today feels like water, stretches, and quietly resting may hold answers. Today doesn’t appreciate the judgmental response to those needs. Sissy. Real freedom fighters didn’t need so much rest. Today feels this is a false characterization. Today knows how depleting capitalism really is. Today knows how much work each day is. Today knows that having white skin and a decent home makes freedom look present. Today knows that is another of capitalism’s veils yet to drop.
Thirteen years ago I was a baby. I was 25 and I didn’t know nothin. I was blind to white privilege. I believed I could quit the corporate track that ill-intentions had put me on or moonlight while staying on it. I believed I could “swerve”* and start working as an escort or prostitute. I believed that my life as a lower-middle class first-generation college-graduate would simply allow me to make two or three times more money by looking pretty and being easy. I believed I could find a way to sashay my way out of the rules of capitalism and hop over to a track where creativity and intuition were nurtured. It felt deeply unfair that I had so much debt and no say in what my life was going to look like. It felt unconscionable that I was young and dis-allowed adventure. It felt like I had just started to experience my way of moving in the world when I became shackled and told No.
Even though my suffering was true it was very privileged thinking that allowed me to pretend I had what it would take to be a sex-worker. Authors, like Diablo Cody, who had been supported by the white supremacist structures, and movies like Striptease and Show Girls, imparted a message to me that “good,” “regular,” girls could easily step into sex-work and make big money.
Today understands that time is a killer. That time is a mind-set. That my mind has been thoroughly colonized by capitalism and my swerves today can be small, yet powerfully intentional acts of defiance and re-definition.
To restructure my entire life, I have to move one moment at a time and recognize it is all a long game. Capitalism and white supremacy are, by their natures, hidden and dissociating structures. Not only do they separate people from one another, they separate the heart from the mind. I then find myself believing I do not have time to thrive. I catch myself believing I have time for self-care only on Sunday. That rest is for vacations.
It is strike time. Spike time. It is time to take advantage of knowing the movements of the planets. It is time to recognize that emotions are at a high-spike. We are peak frenzy and rising. Waking with a hundred revolutionary ideas and not having a structure of revolutionaries to support me in executing them is a symptom of the sickness of capitalism. The post I wrote 1 year and 351 days ago was all intention setting. If I look back at the time that has passed since then, I am confused. What happened? Why haven’t I progressed more on those goals?
“My sad, sweet, only-child” is what my fiancé would say to me right now. All my life I have craved a community. A group, posse, squad, friend-family who are implicitly and regularly there for me. And all my life I have Not Known how to make that happen. I am not Sir or Madam Charisma. I am Unsolicited Fan Letter. Sweetheart, people think of me. The truth is I am Desperate for Back Up in Operation Good Life. It feels like mission-failure.
Today there is a Black is Beautiful Bike Ride organized by some very fucking cool musicians in Milwaukee. They are the same age I was when I was drowning in capitalistic ill-intentions. They are my (s)heroes. These folks are living their art. I’m choking on my adoration of that ability. This bike ride is for Black people in the fight for equity and justice (and their allies) to come together and be joyful. It starts half a mile from my home in 4 hours.
Capitalist mental colonization. I’m suffering from time. Do I have enough?
A picture of the Libra scales is almost what I want to draw. What are my top-most priorities? What are my top-shelf desires? I will be moving through this day feeling alone in many ways. No amount of understanding and helpful questioning from my dear fiancé will change that. The only way to rectify it is to understand the order of my priorities and balance it with the needs communicated to me by the power of my intuitive life force. Audre Lorde’s “erotic” feminine power and drive.
It always comes down to balancing the present with the future and just enough future that the focus is on what I want it to be, not what I fear from it. Future dreaming requires the understanding of what expectations I am unwilling to let go of and which desires I must show deference to.
*Michelle Obama, in her book Becoming talks about “swerve” as a moment when one departs from the predicted path to success. One jumps track. Follows ones heart, ones intuitive life force.
Shana Rose Up 