getting along

on early December and old friends

A few weeks ago a friend of mine died in an accident. It was that kind of accident that in my imagination happens at some other time in the world. The kind of time where people threw beer cans off the roof or where no one wore seatbelts.

But it was that kind of accident. Unexpected. Tragic. And leaving a community with a hole that was full of a big laugh and bigger love.

Persimmons, Ruth Asawa, from the Whitney Museum of Art Collection

On my drive between school drop offs in the deep fog of early December I find myself falling into a daze at the colors of the leaves turning. It’s early winter in California. Splashy with bright gingkos, pink pepper trees, and the plum leaves deep purple. They startle me with their brightness.

I haven’t seen this friend in ten years as happens while life trudges on. And I feel tentative to write about him because our friendship exists in a very specific moment. It was a hopeful moment where ridiculousness was held dear. We jumped fences, at our weight in fruits, rode bicycles through the night only to get wherever we were going and dance and dance and dance.

Here is the thing, I am very lucky. I have spent much of my life spent with people imagining and building experimental worlds. I helped and watched them build farms, weave books, lead organizations, walk long walks, show up in struggle for then possibility of peace, of clean water, of rematriating.

I feel in his death the way it felt to be with so many bodies marching against the war in Iraq. To be falling in love with movement as a pulsing alive force.

I have been so lucky because while I am not someone who has ever felt very comfortable at the center of groups, I have been held by the tensile strength of this optimism and imagining. I was held by Justin as so many others were.

Right now as we once again find ourselves navigating an acute moment of unimaginable violence and trauma, I feel bolstered as I look around and feel the tenderness of many years of organizing. I feel commitment to the continued imagination of how we be. I feel the possibility a newly discovered ripe persimmon tree in an abandoned lot. Glowing orange, sweet and full.

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News:

SO FUN to have book club!!! Can't wait to do it again in the new year! I will send out a book and a date next week! Stay tuned!

Come see the show I am in at Petaluma Art Center! I am loving getting to know who makes what here in this new town.

Reading:

The Story of a Poem: Matthew Zapruder

Still picking it up and putting it down. It is so beautiful and austere. I love when dads write about parenting with this kind of tenderness.

The Vaster Wilds: Lauren Groff

Her writing is incredible! This book is so hard for me to read right now because of the amount of trauma in it. Any one else reading this and having thoughts?

Listening:

We are serious about Scandinavian winter traditions over here this year. Here is the top jam about Santa Lucia at our house right now.