xenotopia (a strange place)

We are in a strange place. I would leave it at that, but I’m trying to encourage myself to articulate my thoughts, maybe clarify what I’m thinking.

I feel today, with the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the same as I have felt many times. Just in the last few days, shaking my head over Supreme Court decisions and gun control and women’s reproductive rights, the January 6 Insurrection hearings, the ongoing climate catastrophe, the fall of Sievierodonetsk, Ukraine. I felt it very strongly when Trump was elected. Heck, I even felt it when Ronald Reagan was elected. I am in a strange place, a place I don’t understand. Things are happening that I don’t agree with and that are not conducive to flourishing.

What do I feel? These days I don’t cry. Sometimes I feel sick or transparent. I don’t feel angry. I would feel weird and ineffective getting angry. I feel some fear, but it doesn’t easily penetrate the comfortable, seemingly secure every day life I experience.

What do I rely on? This question is much more interesting to me. What do I reach toward for stability? Reassurance. What do I trust? (A word I’m now seeing everywhere, since Grace started Trust Time!)

A list:

1. I am a Buddhist. I don’t usually say that, this is probably the first time I’ve put it in writing, but I really am. That statement is bundled with a whole set of views and paths and practices that I won’t go into, but it helps my understanding. Feels like a new home, unfamiliar and strange, but offering some sense.
2. Compassion. There are people who suffer and will suffer more because of decisions and actions taken. I really feel strongly about pregnant people who will suffer even die due to this cruel and misinformed decision. I wish I could help them. I think of the Jane Collective, the underground network of feminist abortion facilitators who took matters into their own hands back in the day. I would do that if the opportunity arose.
3. Oppressed peoples look at us overprivileged types and ask “What did you expect?” I tend to want to follow the thoughts and philosophies of those who are not at the top of this insane hierarchy we live with. I read this article by Layli LongSoldier yesterday “Now, You Will Listen – Trust Issues with American Schools and the Care of Our Native Children.” I felt I’d much rather think about it than about the congressional hearing. The first half talks about form and uses ingenious typography to relate very painful situations. She uses that word “trust.” In the second section, called “Metamorphosis,” she writes about art-making.
4. The earth and our bodies are interconnected.
5. We don’t know what picture is being painted. This is something Sam used to say a lot. He got it from somewhere, somebody. But it has come in very handy. My whole lifetime has basically been in a period of increasing right-wing extremism, white supremacy, and as they say “late stage capitalism.” The pendulum swings, it has to, change occurs. I don’t know the timeframe and I don’t know the lineup of causes and conditions. But taking a long view has always served to calm me.
6. Xenotopia is a nice word because it is undefined whether the place is a utopia or a dystopia. It could have elements of both. It’s just strange, uncanny. Also, it’s escapist. I am not above being escapist. I like to explore. I find a lot of value in science fiction, speculative fiction, surrealism. Margaret Atwood, of course. Ursula LeGuin, my favorite. I’m going to start reading Octavia Butler.

So that’s it for now. It makes me uneasy to express myself this way. But today seemed to call for it.

“Transform yourself to transform the world.”

Grace Lee Boggs