As a follow up on perfection and taking that much needed break, I’m here to report that I did indeed take that break - and also my partner and I got covid in the first few days of said break. In case you missed it, the west coast (as well as the rest of the country) was/is in the midst of a huge covid wave. Especially in the last few weeks I’ve known many people, myself and my partner included, that almost certainly had covid but never tested positive on rapids. If you’re not feeling well, it may be best to assume it’s covid, especially if you’ve had an exposure. If you’re someone who’s been more lax about masking, it’s a great time to get serious about it again! Don’t forget, we protect us. We’re both thankfully doing much better and managed to lean very much into care and rest - a privilege many people don’t have - especially with lack of government support. It’s not lost on me that the care/rest part went from an aspiration/plan to a requirement for health and safety and I am so grateful that we had the time and space to recover as much as possible.
“What would it do to movements, to our society and culture, to have the principles of healing at the very center? And what does it do to have healing at the center of every structure and everything we create?”
I happened to bring (only!1) two books with me on this trip - the very timely What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World by Prentis Hemphill, exploring how embodiment and healing is inextricable from social justice movements and revolution. I also brought Mrs. S by K. Patrick, a very sensual queer novel with captivating prose centering around a newly hired “matron” at an all-girls boarding school in an undisclosed decade (not current) and her intense entanglement with the headmaster’s wife, Mrs. S. It found its way to my nightstand as a lending library gift from a friend, and it already had my attention via this book list from one of my favorite queer/trans owned bookstores. I chose them both simply because I wanted a non-fiction and fiction option, and I’m pleasantly surprised at these little conversations I’m picking up between the two, particularly on longing2.
In the first chapter of What It Takes To Heal, Prentis recalls a time they were asked by a therapist about what they longed for - not wanted but longed for - and how challenging that was to answer. They explore how longing and wanting are totally different but often confused for each other.
“Longing is personal and, in that way, a part of what might be an authentic self. We tend to long for what our bodies need in order to heal and feel whole. Visions are rooted in longing”
What It Takes To Heal
What do you long for? What does wanting vs longing feel like in your body? Longing vs wanting is a juxtaposition that felt superficially obvious to me at first interpretation, and as I was sitting with the question longer I found it more challenging to answer. Longing in this sense feels very enmeshed with desire, something deeper that’s always with you, something that you could build a life around.
“Without waiting for me she removes her white shirt. Each button a piece of my own spine, undone”
Mrs. S
The longing (or maybe more yearning) in Mrs. S is a totally different flavor, as it always is when you are deeply longing/yearning for a person vs what you want your life and life’s work to look like. A pinch of delusion, a handful of projection, a dash of chronically unmet needs, with intermittent splashes of slow burn escalation. This probably won’t go well. A classic recipe the queers love!
I’m certainly not saying these explorations of longing are the same, but for me they evoked similar thought experiments - what would it be like to be so in touch with what I desire and long for in life, that this becomes the backbone and guiding force of everything I do? The thing you come home to at the end of the day. How do we actually do that? As Ayana has said “commit to a cadence of creating from inside your zone of desire in order to actualize it. Weekly visits to the zone of desire can actually manifest into a lifetime spent inside of it”
From the Mrs. S perspective, what would it be like to feel this deep, slow desire build, stoking its flame even when you know the subsequent fire will likely lead to your undoing? Hot. It’s been a longggg time since I‘d felt that deep desire towards a new person (one may call that a crush), but I did have that experience in the last few months and wow, I really needed it. To be clear, I am not looking to set my life on fire because of a crush. Definitely been there, definitely done that.
Here’s to manifesting our lifetimes being lived in our zones of desire and longing in ways that feed us (and maybe not cause destruction) as much as we can. Day by day.
1 I say only because I have a habit of bringing several books and not opening one - is this a sign of my lack of downtime when I’m traveling? Who’s to say!
2 I haven’t finished either of them yet and I know there are many other themes and explorations in both books, this is what I’m noticing at first go
What I’m Up To:
Tomorrow eve I’m doing one of my favorite annual work events - Vino & Vulvas!! It’s a wonderful live sex educator panel that my dear friend and colleague Heather Edwards started in Asheville, NC. This year the absolutely incredible Whitni Miller (aka BDE moves) is co-hosting. If you haven’t rabbit-holed on her social media accounts yet, you’re welcome. Feeling very lucky to be on a panel with two other wonderful educators, moderated by two of my absolute favs!
Revisiting Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography and Sari van Anders’ hormone research in prep for this panel - I’ve been meaning to return to this content, and it’s still deeply relevant with all the Olympics bullshit targeting Imane Khelif.
Next yard sale fundraiser is officially scheduled for 9/7, 10-5pm! More details to follow.
What I’m Paying Attention To:
Harris, Palestine, and the Spectacle of Liberation by Ismatu Gwendolyn
Read it read it read it - or listen to it! or both. I recommend both.