Dear Naomi. I read your aside carefully. I value your writing enormously, even when we see the world differently. But I want to gently say that for some of us, this is not an aside.
As I write this, I am sitting in a bomb shelter with my 90-year-old mother. When ballistic missiles are aimed at where you live, geopolitics becomes immediate. It is no longer theoretical, nor symbolic, nor about personalities in Washington or Ottawa.
You may see reckless escalation. From where I sit, I also see a regime that has openly vowed for decades to wipe me off the map and has armed those who act on that vow. Those realities coexist.
I do not celebrate war. I dread it. I fear suffering - on all sides. But I also cannot reduce what is happening to the will of one “orange bully,” as if the threats we live under are imaginary or incidental.
You once wrote about shared sacred time - how the new moon depends on human eyes. We are looking at the same moon, but from very different shelters.
I continue to read you with respect. I hope we can hold complexity without flattening each other’s lived realities.
I agree it's complex and painful. I think of the humans on the ground everywhere, living in dread because those in power are vicious bullies, on all sides.
…not only vicious bullies, but are also powerful enough to make decisions that affect lives, and we have so little power to influence those decisions, but are left to fend for ourselves as to whether to comply.
Yes! When in doubt, bake cake! And yr right, of course you are, it's absolutely essential to carry on talking about someone you've lost. It's full of trip-wires, naturally, but that's just how it is.
It is lovely to read of the support and love carrying you through this time. I take solace in the thought of building muscles to carry grief - and of the joy that seeps back in to life. (I believe it was Sohla El Waylly who mentioned MFK Fisher’s orange segments in snow.)
Dear Naomi. I read your aside carefully. I value your writing enormously, even when we see the world differently. But I want to gently say that for some of us, this is not an aside.
As I write this, I am sitting in a bomb shelter with my 90-year-old mother. When ballistic missiles are aimed at where you live, geopolitics becomes immediate. It is no longer theoretical, nor symbolic, nor about personalities in Washington or Ottawa.
You may see reckless escalation. From where I sit, I also see a regime that has openly vowed for decades to wipe me off the map and has armed those who act on that vow. Those realities coexist.
I do not celebrate war. I dread it. I fear suffering - on all sides. But I also cannot reduce what is happening to the will of one “orange bully,” as if the threats we live under are imaginary or incidental.
You once wrote about shared sacred time - how the new moon depends on human eyes. We are looking at the same moon, but from very different shelters.
I continue to read you with respect. I hope we can hold complexity without flattening each other’s lived realities.
I agree it's complex and painful. I think of the humans on the ground everywhere, living in dread because those in power are vicious bullies, on all sides.
…not only vicious bullies, but are also powerful enough to make decisions that affect lives, and we have so little power to influence those decisions, but are left to fend for ourselves as to whether to comply.
Yes! When in doubt, bake cake! And yr right, of course you are, it's absolutely essential to carry on talking about someone you've lost. It's full of trip-wires, naturally, but that's just how it is.
Such beautiful, heartbreaking writing Naomi 🙏🏻
Thank-you!
It is lovely to read of the support and love carrying you through this time. I take solace in the thought of building muscles to carry grief - and of the joy that seeps back in to life. (I believe it was Sohla El Waylly who mentioned MFK Fisher’s orange segments in snow.)
Thank-you...and for help with crediting Sohla☀️
Beautiful - thanks for sharing your thoughts and this recipe for cake.