Life Wish #6: The Calm Before the ???

Hi hi hi! I’m writing to you from under both a weighted blanket and a heavy yoga bolster, so that’s how this week is going for me … I’m fine, honestly, but feeling the urge to keep things as slow, small, and simple as I can. Staying calm and making gentle, deliberate movements feels like the right course of action right now. Does this mean I’m in a state of acceptance, or denial? 

People keep asking me what I think is going to happen with the election and the truth is I do not know, but I definitely feel a disturbance in The Force, and you probably do, too. Big changes are underway, some of which are dropping very soon, and I don’t feel worried, exactly? But I do feel attentive. 

For the last four years, we’ve all been in an abusive relationship with the Donald, most of us without our consent, and it is both enraging and exhausting to have his particularly toxic brand of shit stinking up the world, attracting clouds of flies, buzzing around us from morning till night. We are tired. TIRED IN OUR BONES. 

And the fight isn’t over yet. Abusers become even more dangerous when the abusee tries to get away, so I am thinking there may be a bumpy patch up ahead.

My besties Elizabeth Ann Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez agree — in this interview last week they were like “yeah we ALL KNOW this a-hole is gonna be AS BIG A PRICK AS POSSIBLE and so are his cronies so we gotta make sure we beat their asses at the polls and also be ready to take to the streets and yeet their asses into the sun, manually if required” (I may be paraphrasing). 

The death cult is gonna death rattle on its way out. I don’t know what that looks like -- it could be everything from weak and embarrassing hijinks to a full-on shitshow -- but, if need be, I’m ready to get into the street and force these yahoos out of power and into prison where they belong (please Santa?) because fuck them. The future has no use for their death cult. The future belongs to the living. Unlike them, the future wants us to make it.

The future wants us to figure out how to live with each other in our many-branched diversity, to drop the old hierarchies, to stop trying to dominate every damn thing. 

The future wants us to be humble students of the brilliant and elegant processes of our planet and its biosphere, and to build upon them, using the very brains and opposable thumbs given to us by those processes. 

The future wants us to see ourselves as part of and partners to life. The future wants us all to keep going. 

So that is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna keep myself out of the online horror show. I’m gonna do some real work to push things where I want them to go. And I’m gonna get some real, delicious rest. Today and every day.

Small moves <3 

Madge

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LOVELY LINKS & RECS

If you are anything like me, you are definitely going to want to watch this video of a COOKING CAT

Here’s a playlist I made for you, full of songs that make me happy (plus “We Belong Together” by Mariah Carey which is super sad but somehow still makes me happy because it’s such a banger? Art is mysterious) 

Surely you’ve seen the cute church-boy twins who react to music they weren’t allowed to listen to growing up? Their reactions are always very sweet and wholesome and I love when they get surprised, like the first time they listened to Missy Elliot. Also really love their reaction to “We Belong Together” and “Feeling Good”. 

Ever since my partner introduced me to Sault, I can’t stop listening to them -- their music is perfect and perfect for this moment. Start with “Wildfires”, then go on to their recent albums Untitled (Rise) and Untitled (Black Is). I don’t know how they made two complete, beautiful albums in less than one year but they did.

I watched Ted Lasso this week and though I am not usually interested in sports shows or shows that are like 90% dudes, I loved it. I would describe the story like this: a non-toxic dude converts the toxically masculine folks around him to non-toxicity. It’s amazing to watch it spread!

We watched David Byrne’s American Utopia the other night and that was also a lovely display of non-toxic masculinity. If you don’t have HBO, this older performance of “Road to Nowhere” captures the same kinda energy. 

My last shift of deep canvassing wasn’t as fun as my first one -- I had two dudes in a row tell me I was full of shit! -- but I was also able to help a lady figure out her mail-in ballot, so Even Steven I guess. Though I never look forward to it, I’m always happy I did it when it’s done! So I’m going back in a few more times before Election Day.

Speaking of which … you have a plan to vote, right? If you want to help out the last few weeks of the election and you’re not sure where/how, reply back to me and let’s chat it out <3