Painting our walls, painting our faces
Forgive me, internet, for I have sinned. I started writing directly into the Bear post window at the end of the day Friday. I went to a local brewery, a friend joined me, and I locked my phone to be present.
It has been 2 months, 26 days since my last confession.
It has been 12 weeks, 3 days since my last confession.
It has been 87 days.
Status: still alive.
No extension granted.
I live in the United States, in a state adjacent to Minnesota, and I am tired. It is not hyperbole to say the country has descended into authoritarianismâit has been sliding there for years, quietly, bureaucratically, with forms and uniforms. Some hope exists, but the murder of an innocent woman at the hands of ICE is unconscionable.
Somewhere a refrigerator hums in the apartment she will never go back to. Somewhere a toothbrush waits in a cup. Somewhere a dog or cat waits by a door that won't open.
Yesterday, I picked out a new couch. (Receipt emailed.)
Two days ago, I put more cat-urine-damaged carpet into the trash. (City approved.)
Three days ago, I closed a browser without saving. (Data lost.)
The cat whose failing body caused that carpet to be removed is stable now. She has been for a few years. She is mostly immobile. She is also the sweetest cat I have ever known. She still sometimes soils her blanket because she can control some things, but not many.
We control her elimination schedule otherwise. Some control feels like mercy when the world is ungovernable. Some control is just control.
I think of that every morning when my fingers gently press her abdomen, coaxing her bladder to release. Control over another body is a strange kind of power when the body is this small, this trusting, this warm in your hands.
I am gentle with it.
Others are not.
She is one of the few tethers I still have to reality. To sanity. To a world that is not just paperwork and headlines and official statements about unavoidable tragedies.
Today I have a PowerPoint to complete.
(Slide 12: Threat modeling.)
(Slide 17: Risk mitigation.)
(Slide 18: Acceptable losses.)
Tomorrow, I will test-run the presentation.
Two days from now, a new area rug will be delivered.
Forgive me, internet, for I am still alive.
We will pick out paint chipsâ
a new color for the new room.
We will prepare the walls for vibrance, for joy, for hope.
We will paint our faces for war.
In the next room, a small creature waits for me to help her pee.