i’ve lived long enough that i am seeing cycles a couple generations before me, and now, a couple after me. i’ve experienced the pandemics hiv and covid. south africa’s violent apartheid, isreal and their genocide against palestine. i don’t even know how many genocides there have been since they said “never again”. i feel like i’ve been protesting wars and violence my whole dang life. also, the homeless crisis has only gotten deeper. you’d think that capitalism depends on this caste to raise the upper caste even higher. women’s reproductive freedom. people to safely love whom they love, and then there is the climate…

last night i went and saw the film aristotle and dante discover the secretes of the universe, based on the book by benjamin alire sáenz, who talked before the showing of the film. (he grew up here and the story is set in el paso…so you know…local connections) it was a delightfully emotional evening.

the film opens with a dedication to all who had to learn to live by different rules. 

and with those simple words, my stomach clenched, and with a smile, the tears began.

feels like my life has been made of trying to figure out my rules to live by and those to break.

i’m learning that my queer vegan adventures project has been my way of sorting myself out and finding those corners of hidden places that i have been trying to keep from surfacing that keep me from looking past the superficial anger, rage, frustration, fears, judgments… my rules of engagement that i let keep me from me and how i relate to community. and now i am learning to be able to witness these external cycles with a different internal lens. one of the questions that has come up this month is why am i an activist and why do i try to surround my self with people who live intentionally to not feed these violent cycles?

i mean, if you look at the footage of these actions, we look really mad and we are yelling and signing, shouting and laughing, wearing masks in case of tear gas, we have street medics to assist people when the violence erupts from the other side of the line…why? so why do we keep showing up year after year generation after generation?

somehow we want to get people to turn and look and care just enough to listen to what we are trying to say.

the answer i found, much to the surprise of my mind, is love. not the unicorn farting rainbows and glitter love, but love filled with empathy and compassion for people, the planet, all the creatures we share this gift of a planet with, land, the waters, the freaking cosmos…all of it is love. pure and simple.

the vision i created when i learned about visionary fiction, a kind of fiction written by activists, people who envision a world where we can ALL bring our whole selves to…i mean that is pretty fucking beautiful and terrifying. people without labels, just names they like to be called by, getting to do the things that bring them joy, mostly i see people trying new activities and us all laughing at the failures until we find our own ways to do whatever it is we want to learn. i see everything reused and repurposed. a healthy well-fed community with clean air and water to grow and thrive in with big beautiful colorful gardens. no fancy technology or gadgets. just people enjoying life and relations. being creative as hell!

how do we get there?

if you could envision your community where you, could bring your whole self to…what does it look like? i’d like to know.