It’s the Racism
My art group met online today to make oracle cards together. I’m excited about this project; making a single card a week for the year! I’m going to finish up two cards tomorrow to get started.
I’m always happy to discover that my friends are either already been doing the work to interrogate their whiteness or are getting started without question. Even still, I’m stuck at how much white people dance around racism.
There’s been energy invested in pointing to economic downturns, but this is just smoke and mirrors. It’s about white people not wanting a world that is filled with people who are Black and all other colors, who are queer, who know gender is on a continuum.
I’m tired of a “both sides” approach, there is no balance when one side thinks you don’t deserve to live.
Two Days, 8000+ Dead
COVID deaths are over 4000 a day.
I can't stop thinking about these numbers. How people who think it's a hoax urinated and defecated all over the Capitol Building. They stole, they killed, and desecrated.
People are finally taking this all seriously and it feels like they are too late.
I'm making up cocktails at home because I can and it's a creative outlet. I'm using my vintage barware, which is fun. Although I dropped the lid of the shaker and it vanished; perplexing.
Coup Hangover
A student told me how grateful she was that I taught today. Others shared her sentiment, saying that my class brings some balance and normalcy during these riotous, pandemic days.
It feels so good to know that I'm helping people, but it's also fatiguing to create this for people.
It's estimated that 4000 people died from COVID today.
Trump is still in office despite having provoked a coup attempt.
I lightly bumped my left hip at the market, but I hit a tender point! My body reacted with intense pain that's still lingering, several hours and ibuprofen later. Thankfully I have PT tomorrow, so that tender point will get attention.
I picked up fresh rose water while at the market so I'll be experimenting with my coup cocktail again soon.
Sedition
At the end of teaching chair yoga today I commented that we all might leave to see good news from the Georgia Senate runnoff election.
After lunch we planned to knock out a bunch of work on our back taxes.
Then the seditious riot began at the U.S. Capitol building.
We turned on a news channel, keeping it mostly muted worry captioning to reduce the load.
It's an utter fiasco.
Oh, and over 3,500 died from COVID in one day.
Biden was confirmed about 20 minutes ago.
Now we prepare for inauguration chaos.
What Ifs
At therapy today I had a round of "what ifs".
What if I hadn't been born to a family with intergenerational trauma going back who knows how far?
What if anyone in my family took my side.
What if support within my family wasn't always transactional, if it was offered at all.
I noted, and my therapist agreed, that these part of my grieving. She reminded me that having a supportive family doesn't yield a positive results. Well-off people from loving families end up living on the street, alone.
They came up after considering how my Mother would say to me when I was an adult how hard she tried to be a good parent, that she did the best she could. As I process new trauma I'm once again angered at this, that this was the best she could do.
My therapist said that, sadly, this was true. She really couldn't have done better than what I got. It brings up the grief for a childhood that I never got.
I started the year by making the best gluten free cornbread ever! Bubbles!!! I'm making it again this week to try and replicate, then document!
Back in Class
I started teaching online today. 13 students came and they're stayed after for kirtan! It felt pretty good to be back at it.
I considered taking another week off since CK is still off, but I think I made the right choice to start. We still have the afternoon to connect, aside from tomorrow which is a therapy day.
We're both continuing to make progress on various house projects. I feel hopeful that tomorrow's session won't be too destabilizing. I haven't felt as much from Age 6 Sherri the past 2 weeks; there's been a lot happening and she's felt cared for.
New Year Nesting
I cleaned up cobwebs and sentient dust brings from the office downstairs. Then I vacuumed. I organized the storage area in a way that will enable us to have origami paper easy to get to. I also folded towels and put fresh linens on the bed!
A gift I ordered for CK for Christmas, a stunning light, arrived with a small chip. The expense was such, and it was a gift, that I told the company about it. Today a another lamp set arrived, no need to send back the slightly damaged one!!!
We'd considered a second for my side of the bed because CK set her gift up her side, loving the way it provided indirect, low light, and is a small sculpture. Now we have two!
This also meant a pair of small lamps, over if which I'd used in the bedroom, became altar lights. I love how it looks at the light it gives me while meditating is great!
I also got a reply to a difficult letter I sent last month; a company changed their bag-check policy after I had a terrible experience being told I had to check my wallet because wearing it on my body, as opposed to in a pocket, made it a "purse"
That feels HUGE!!
I'm sure I'll ache a lot when I wake up, but I feel good about what over accomplished!
2021
So it goes. A new year is here but existence is still fraught. Time feels even more like this construct these days.
With that in mind, some hopes for the New Year.
I'm hopeful vaccines will become available to us. I am hopeful I will get access more quickly than CK since I'm a hospice volunteer, this is good since I have more exposure.
I'm hopeful we'll be able to have routine health appointments next year, things like having our teeth cleaned.
I'm hopeful that CK and I will continue to work together to support each other.
I'm hopeful that I will integrate several more terrible years of childhood trauma, giving me more balance and presence.
I am hopeful that we'll survive without Unemployment Insurance payments, even if it scares me.
I'm hopeful we'll really make a budget.
I am hopeful that we'll get rid of a lot of stuff and get better about having a cleaner, more organized home environment.
I am hopeful that we'll get the taxes caught up and paid off, somehow.
I am hopeful that CK's company will address relocation assistance and we will begin our move to Canada.
I am hopeful it will be safe to take long drives and walk on the beach again.
Ending Hard
Tomorrow I'm going to run errands that involve delicious food for us for a few days. There will be at least one instance of standing in line outside in the rain. Maybe I'll reach out to friends to have a happy hour Zoom.
The end of 2020 is here and I can't say that I'm hopeful about the new year. The accumulation of the headlines this week, the pictures of people screaming for the freedom to not wear a fucking mask as thousands more die.
The reality was hitting me hard today. Umm going to hit the anniversary of not teaching online in just about 10 weeks. March 13, 2020; nearly a year.
The new normal isn't great and I'm afraid it's going to get worse when the election isn't certified in a timely fashion.
Kindness is a Warm Blanket
I made it out of the house with all my things, even though I tried to leave in my slippers!
I got to OHSU South Waterfront, where the diagnostics lab is, and got myself checked in.
There were a lot of kindnesses that helped so much.
The staff folks checking me in were very sympathetic and understanding of my anxiety about risk. They had me wait separate from the open atrium waiting area so there wasn't anyone coming by me.
It was a bit of a wait.
Being inside a closed up medical building waiting for a procedure is a whole new level of anxiety.
Once in I was delighted to find out that the scan used a CT, so I could wear my high-protective mask, didn't have to worry about my nose/ear piercings, and I even got to keep my bra on since it didn't have underwires! I kept on my tank top too since the electrodes could be placed around and under my clothing!
The very tall, kind man, Brandon, who conducted the test got a pillow to support my legs so my back was comfortable. He also brought me a warm blanket, which helped my anxiety hugely!
I told him I have Complex PTSD, he'd not heard of it before. I noted that for me it's due in large part to developmental trauma.
"My Mother had a personality disorder.", I said.
I've come to find that telling people that just lets them know enough to realize that I've survived some terrible stuff. Usually no one asks more, which is fine.
Brandon nodded, "Yeah, I hear you. That's too bad. You just let me know if you need anything else to make this easier."
Then three electrodes and lying still and breathing when the machine told me to. About five minutes.
We chatted a little at the end about why I was there. He laughed, "You mean you're here because you're being proactive about your heart health?!"
I said that was about it. I was keeping ahead of my family's genetic issues, where possible.
He told me he was proud of me and that he wished there were more patients like me.
That was pretty awesome!
Now I wait to hear from my doctor about the results.