meanwhile
Because to be alive is to listen to the whump thump of the heart valve clapping, one and then another, in and out, turning into a pulse.
I lost an earring the very day I got them, and I notice the limp when I walk, and I get upset at my teenager for making a mess in the bathroom this morning while shaving.
Meanwhile, 212,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the U.S., while being told it is not real and it is not so bad, and we should get out there and carry on.
Meanwhile, a fly took over the vice presidential debate.
Meanwhile, the police keep killing people. The police keep killing Black people for doing anything and everything. For existing.
Meanwhile, powerful uprisings are happening all over and if you read what many people have to say about it, it would seem we care more about buildings than lives.
Meanwhile, I lost my memory over two years ago and I keep waiting for it to come back except it is not.
Meanwhile, we are being sacrificed right now, and capitalism is killing us.
Meanwhile, my invisible disabilities are perhaps not invisible as much as ableds are not required to see them, to learn to have the vision that sees all those subtle ways of being and doing that come from a lifetime of adaptation in a world that does not want you.
Meanwhile, there is still no justice for Breonna Taylor.
Meanwhile, we say abolish the police but insist on policing and punishing one another in our own communities.
Meanwhile, white men still seem to think they have all the answers, and can and should come in and offer all the solutions, as if they are the original thinkers and problem solvers and innovators, claiming they are here to listen while they insist on doing all the talking.
Meanwhile, I have an orchid in my bedroom, the softest white, and it has lasted and lasted and the flowers do not wilt and I dare not tempt this by writing the words, but it seems to want to stay.
Meanwhile, the quarantine shutdown happened in March, and this was now seven month ago, and nothing is back to the way it once was, and nothing is yet resolved, and the unknown still hangs over every interaction like a fog while we keep being offered veiled promises that are also threats that are also false and there is nothing said that can be believed anymore.
Meanwhile, babies were born today.
Meanwhile, sometimes I am so, so scared and I cannot even name the specific of what I am scared of or for or about, only that it won’t leave and it takes up all the space in the room and me.
Meanwhile, pain levels return to high when the cold comes and my muscles feel like they will tear off of all my bones and tendons.
Meanwhile, love happens.
Meanwhile, fires burn and skies go orange and billionaires are a real thing that actually exist.
Meanwhile, Sandra Bland should still be alive.
Meanwhile, healthcare is not a human right in the U.S. and so my biopsy was postponed another three months because of insurance issues and the waiting is a very real dread. So too is the endless feeling of the body betraying itself.
Meanwhile, apples from a tree have never tasted so good.
Meanwhile, mass hysterectomies were performed at ICE detention camps, violently and forcefully removing the uterus of people they incarcerated. This is ethnic cleansing and white supremacy.
Meanwhile, mending is one way of not just discarding and disposing of things but learning how to care.
Meanwhile, I am making more carrot cake with cream cheese icing, and the lightbulbs need to be replaced, and the dog really needs a bath.
Meanwhile, we still accept women’s pain as collateral damage in men’s personal-growth.
Meanwhile, we once got soaked in a fire hydrant water fight in the late city summer, and we swore it was the best experience we had ever had, and he was so beautiful, and now if I ask him about it, these ten years later, he does not even recall it from his childhood because that is just how it goes.
Meanwhile, the magic eight balls seems all out of answers.
Meanwhile, your worthiness is not in any way dependent on your productivity, or your work, of your weight, or what you did or did not do today.
Meanwhile, forgiveness is not everything I was told it would be and it turns out is not at all required to heal. But healing is so very real and beautiful, even when it too looks nothing at all like I imagined it would be.
Sometimes I cannot hear my own heartbeat because all I hear is the rushing sound of so much blood. Pulsatile Tinnitus. Roaring and pounding, no in and out or heart clap to be heard and it is only the constant whoosh. Or it goes silent and still, like muffled underwater, distant and far from me even as it works its life inside of me. It is all happening, and all of the time.
There is no other life than this.
So meanwhile, I listen.
