A LIFE ALIVE

I don’t know how to talk to my friends anymore

bell hooks mentioned going through a time in her life where she was severely depressed and suicidal and how the only way she got through it was through changing her environment: She surrounded her home with buddhas of all colors, Audre Lorde’s A Litany for Survival facing her as she wakes up, and filling the space she saw everyday with reinforcing objects and meaningful books. She asks herself each day, “What are you going to do today to resist domination?” I also really liked it when she said that in order to move from pain to power, it is crucial to engage in “an active rewriting of our lives.”

this summer was everything i didn’t do. summer just haunted me, i mean. if there is anything i must take to heart from these few months of all the things i didn’t do, it’s (ever so relentlessly) don’t waste time. make art once a week no matter how fucking shitty it looks or you feel, write everyday whether it’s a day recap or how sad you’ll be when the simpsons will end once the voice actors all die, don’t stop reading the science section of google news, don’t skip the just one hour of calculus daily, and i guess most importantly: never allow yourself to wake up and breathe a little despair. because when a little settles, the rest will rise so suddenly like a wildfire, burgeoning through your lungs and you’ll end up walking with worse posture, flinching when somebody speaks, forgetting your potential to grow, forgetting all the things you can do during the time it will take.

A Google doc with resources for Afghanistan 

Form for U.S.-based attorneys willing to help with Afghans with their SIV, P-2, and humanitarian parole cases (via Afghan Diaspora for Equality & Progress)