10 to 16 November 24 QOTW
Image description: clouds and blue skies between buildings. Taken on November 6, 2024 after the disastrous results of the US election.
Sunday
Against a raging torrent of lazy and manipulative language, a deluge of outright lies, our first challenge as creative writers is to grab hold of a reader and pull them out of that relentless riptide.
That is, our words must, like a life raft, offer readers something with enough strength, substance, and, yes, truth, to prevent them from getting sucked away by the mass distraction and destruction all around them.
, Writing in the Dark, Is It True Anyone Can Write?Monday
They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.
The Wobblies used to say don't mourn, organize, but you can do both at once and you don't have to organize right away in this moment of furious mourning. You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who's upset and check your equipment for going onward.
A lot of us are going to come under direct attack, and a lot of us are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones.
People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it's sunny or raining. Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.
Rebecca Solnit, FB on Wednesday, November 6, 2024 the day after the disastrous US election.
Tuesday
Tired
by Langston Hughes
I am so tired of waiting,
Aren't you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two-
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.
Wednesday
And I’m ready to be a part of the beautiful sprouting fucking flowers that will survive and rise from this wreckage. Because they can’t steal our joy. They can’t make us stop caring, as much as they wished we would. They can’t make me stop supporting the future generations of humans who care so much. And they can’t stop me supporting the elders and the caregivers who need us right now.
, Today is the first day of the rest of our livesThursday
Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
From Maggie Smith’s Good Bones as quoted by someone on November 6 on Substack and I apologize for not keeping rack of who
Friday
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.
From the Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry as quoted by @jeannineoullette in Writing in the Dark, "We write the scenes that are most resonant, then rely on summary to pitch us forward in time, until we arrive at another important moment" ~Rachel Beanland
Week One | Art of the Scene: Moving Through Time
Saturday
There are times in our life when we must go underground…
video recording the day after the election: A Few WordsIf you have inspiring and intriguing quotes to share, please reach out. I’d love to include them here.
Thank you to those who have supported my efforts via a paid or free subscription or by buying me a coffee.
Thank you. in From Stress to Happiness a documentary film, American monk Steindl-Rast, 92 says, 'you don't have enough energy to be distrustful...it is a waste of energy. Just imagine, if you don't trust life the worst has already happened. You have so many reason to trust life. If somebody says, ok, digest your breakfast...even the scientists don't know the things that are necessary to digest a cup of coffee." "Life gives you moment by moment a world. I have to give an answer to this world. What does life want from me...In other cases not so easy....To listen to what life wants and to respond. and when you really stop and listen you find that life most of the time is giving you energy, and you learn how beautiful the sunshine, yes I have troubles. I can breathe. (other's can't) Life gives this to you." When catastrophe struck a new tragectory began, new learning. Many options became available. Real friends. If we are alive we can do. Indigenous people have many of the solutions for climate - we can listen. Turn away from the 'big brassy light' and I am not speaking from a know it all way because learning comes each day, often in dreams, in places we didn't look.