surviving a world on fire

spoiler: I'm still trying to figure it out

Image Description: Falling Birds (1994) by Ross Bleckner, a painter whose work frequently engages with the AIDS epidemic. Against a black backdrop, light blue birds are portrayed mid-fall, wings blurry, each in a different position—some looking as if they have a chance to catch themselves.

Ross Bleckner’s Falling Birds (1994) is one of my favorite paintings. In all the times I’ve stared at it, though, I’ve never felt as much like one of those birds as I do now. Caught mid-fall, a blur of movement yet frozen in time and space. The precarity—on the verge of something terrible, or perhaps on the verge of a miraculous flight.

The past three months have been incredibly difficult, riddled with chaos and pain. When I first started testosterone, I found myself unable to cry; that’s no longer a problem. It’s not lost on me that this period of my life began with top surgery, which perhaps shifted whatever blockage lived in my chest, throat, eyes and kept me from crying. Whatever the reason, I now have the opposite problem: I’m constantly just one stubbed toe or stressful work call away from breaking down.

The circumstances and events of the past three months have pushed me to the limits of my capacity—and, at times, beyond the limits. They have demanded that I continually confront the question of what it means to live by my values. Am I doing enough? Too much? Not enough?

I don’t know. I just know that I’m doing my best.

Image Description: A meme featuring a man in a black shirt and baseball cap looking off into the distance. The text reads, “I bring a sort of ‘Liberals are necessary to enable fascism’ Vibe to the conversation that the local democrats don’t really like.”

It’s all been so fucking awful. We are witnessing stomach-churning horrors, day in and day out. We are watching as (finally) the illusion of “two parties,” of US democracy, is dispelled, all while being lectured about the importance of voting blue so that we can keep the genocide we have instead of risking the potential for a different flavor of genocide. FUCK. THAT. Time and again, the current president has recommitted himself and the nation to enacting genocide, abroad and at home.¹ The Supreme Court ruled that sitting presidents can act with impunity. The legislature has only acted to uphold these same ideologies and decisions. I am tired of the status quo, tired of cheap attempts to spoon-feed us bullshit. I am so fucking tired.

I have a sticker from Coyotesnout’s shop on my laptop: a tree stump with a frog beside it, underneath the words, “what if something good happens?” I’m embarrassed by how angry I’ve gotten at times when reaching for my computer. In those moments, I don’t feel any hope that something good will happen. My morning pages recently have been pleading letters to God: Please, please, just give me one good thing. Please. Jo and I deserve one good thing. I’ll be good forever, I promise, just give me one good thing. Please, please, please.

Faith. In God, or the universe, or the strength of my love and partnership, or all of the above, or something else entirely. I’ve been clinging to faith. To prayer.

Image Description: A blurry, very distant photograph of Chappell Roan on stage for her Midwest Princess tour. She is backlit by yellowish white light, and everything aside from the stage is near-black.

In moments of deep despair, I have seen only one way out: community. We have to dedicate ourselves to one another. There is no other way. As the Empire creeps toward its collapse, we have to come together—to love, to work, to fight, to heal, to hope.

And God, is it hard.

Jo and I have been doing our best to juggle our jobs; our non-job work (you know we love a good project); caregiving for friends, family, Marmalade, and each other; community-building; tending to our home and hygiene tasks; and reaching for dreams we desperately want to come true. We don’t have a clue what we’re doing, but we keep stumbling through the dark trying to figure it out. Every day, I ask how long we can keep it up; every day, we keep going. I’m so tired, but I don’t know what else to do in the face of… everything.

The Empire is ending. Take my hand, and let’s stumble through the darkness together.

There is no other way. There is no other way. There is no other way.

Image Description: A small brown bird (a house finch, maybe?) perched on the bumper of a gray pickup truck.

1. The current administration’s recent statement on healthcare for trans youth was exactly what anti-trans activists were hoping to hear; see the brilliant reporting of

Erin Reed

to learn more about that statement and about the burgeoning genocide of trans people in the US.