Dear You,*

I am not weeping alone wishing more from above.

I am making a list of compelling words: frowsy, fortitude, dogged, pluck, cheeky . . .

I am absorbing the latest addition to my ‘best horoscopes’ collection:

Ask yourself: "What more can I accept here?" A power surge comes from letting go of that energy drain known as resistance.

I am re-appreciating the crystalline quality of Bluets by Maggie Nelson:

Mostly I have felt myself becoming a servant of sadness. I am still looking for the beauty in that.

I am discarding old journals written by younger me. Life is very much write & repeat. Then, again and still, I worried about my writing, my body, my purpose and place. I was then, and often now, both fevered and frail.

I am struck by a passage in This Is Not For You: An Activist's Journey of Resistance and Resilience by Portland, Oregon black activist Richard Brown:

Every day someone would ask how I kept doing the work without burning out. And I'd tell them it was easy: I only did the things for as long as I wanted to. As long as I was feeling useful and hopeful, I'd keep going, but as soon as something started to feel like a battle I know I wasn't going to win? I'd stop, and I'd move on.

I am thinking that resistance and resilience is the theme of our time. Not the grit of gripping tight, but the daily dull of keeping on.

But sometimes standing still is also life.

— John Ashbery

Dear You and You and You,
I am not weeping, or wishing, or alone.
I am standing still, holding on.

* Read: Dear Mr You by Mary-Louise Parker.

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The world turns on words, please read & write.