'Sometimes the only ancestral sisterlove waiting for you is people in books, dreams'
Reading corner Femme futures by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Where does the future live in your body?
Touch it
1
Sri Lankan radical women never come alone.
We have a tradition of coming in groups of three or four.
The Thiranagama sisters may be the most beloved and famous,
but in the 20s my appamma and great aunties were the Wild Alvis Girls.
Then there is your sister, your cousin, your great-aunts
everyone infamous and unknown.
We come in packs we argue
we sneak each other out of the house
we have passionate agreements and disagreements
we love each other very much but can't stand to be in the same room or continent for years.
We do things like, oh, start the first rape crisis center in Jaffna in a war zone in someone's living room.
When war forces our hands,
we all move to Australia or London or Thunder Bay together
or, if the border do not love us, we are what keeps Skype in business
When one or more of us is murdered
by the State or a husband
we survive
whether we want to or not.
I am an only child
I may not have been born into siblinghood
but I went out and found mine.
Made mine.
We come in packs
even when we are alone
Sometimes the only ancestral sisterlove waiting for you
is people in books, dreams
aunties you made up
people who are waiting for you in the clouds ten years in the future
and when you get there
you make your pack
and you send that love
back
2.
When the newly disabled come
they come bearing terror and desperate. Everyone else has left them
to drown on the titanic. They don't know there is anybody
but the abled. They come asking for knowledge
that is common to me as breath, and exotic to them as, well,
being disabled and unashamed.
They ask about steroids and sleep. About asking for help.
About how they will ever possibly convince their friends and family
they are not lazy or useless.
I am generous- we crips always are.
They were me.
They don't know if they can call themselves that,
they would never use that word, but they see me calling myself that,
ie, disabled, and the lens is blurring, maybe there is another world
they have never seen
where crips limp slowly, laugh, have shitty and good days
recalibrate the world to our bodies instead of sprinting trying to keep up
Make everyone slow down to keep pace with us.
Sometimes when I am about to email the resource list,
the interpreter phone numbers, the hot chronic pain tips, the best place to rent a ramp,
my top five favorite medical cannabis strains, my extra dermal lidocaine patch—it's about
to expire, but don't worry, it's still good,
I want to slip in a PS that says,
remember back when I was a crip
and you weren't, how I had a flare and had to cancel our day trip
and when I told you, you looked confused
and all you knew how to say was, Boooooooooo!
as I was lying on the ground, trying to breathe?
Do you even remember that?
Do your friends say that to you, now?
Do you want to come join us, on the other side?
Is there a free future in this femme of color disabled body?
3.
When I hear my femme say When I'm old and am riding a motorcycle with white hair down my back
When I hear my femme say When I'm old and sex work paid off my house and my retirement
When I hear my femme/myself say When I get dementia and I am held with respect when I am between all worlds
When I see my femme packing it all in because crip years are like dog years and you never know when they're going to shoot Old Yeller
When I hear my femme say when I quit my teaching gig and never have to deal with white male academic nonsense again
When I hear us plan the wheelchair accessible femme of color trailer park,
the land we already have a plan to pay the taxes on
See the money in the bank and the ways we grip our thighs back to ourselves
When I hear us dream our futures,
believe we will make it to one,
We will make one.
The future lives in our bodies.
(photo courtesy A and her garden)
Healing notes
I recently read one of the most hard to read but profound pieces of work on repair. It was powerful and I held onto every word (Trigger warnings for abuse). These lines struck a chord with me:
"I’ve spent years in therapy, but I struggle to not replay the same patterns with my lovers and friends. Repair is a skill that I’m always working at."
Flight or fight reactions are part of my everyday. Learning that anxiety is not the only solution is still a work in progress. Working hard at ensuring my physical health doesn't deteriorate my mental health is an everyday battle. It is something if I forget to do one day, the next day is a bit worse. And I have to work twice as hard. It's not really like forgetting to brush your teeth which only has like long term impacts (I guess?). It's like forgetting to clean the cat litter box - which has the immediate effect of poopoo on the footmat. Forgetting to work on myself some days means I wake up some mornings feeling much more beaten.
I was reading Yumi Sakugawa's book on life hacks and I wanted to write a list of life hacks I have learnt along the way:
- Pet the cat when anxiety takes control. Works well.
- Hold a stone in a hand and observe it's texture and surface.
- Wash vessels. Something about the repetitive action and water always makes me feel better.
- Take a quick cold shower. On days when I am tired, this is the hardest.
- Make some tea and sip it slowly. Savouring every sip.
- Spend some time being grateful for what I have.
- Write a small note to myself on what I did well in the day.
- Spend some time with the tarot cards.
- Light a candle/ do some aroma therapy.
- Read a few pages of any book. Even if it's the same page over and over.
- Lie in bed holding a hot water bottle to calm the headache and anxiety.
- Soak feet in epsom salts. Has a grounding feeling to it.
I don't do all of these everyday. But I need to do many of these everyday so I wake up the next day feeling better and not worse. I, of course, slip. And that's why it feels a bit like daily emotional hygiene and grounding. Something I have learnt helps me repair myself a bit each day.
Returning to this powerful essay where she says that she has this in her wallet:
It’s a handwritten note from an ex-lover that says, “be gentle with yourself and others (please)”. I know that gentleness isn’t always possible, but I want to believe that it’s always deserved. Nothing I’ve lived through in my life has ever shown me that punishment and pain brings change.
Gentleness. Kindness. Patience. Possibly these are all signs of repair.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha calls it Crip Emotional Intelligence - the ways in which disabled people react to pain, anxiety and care for each other through it. Sometimes our life hacks are survival techniques, responses to the world, our everyday resistance to difficult situations, trauma. How better can we hold space for each other? How better can we care? How better can our hacks be shared knowledge for healing and repair?
Food experiments
Ande ki piyosi
Last week, my sister, D cooked with my friend's aunt - a wonderful woman and an exceptional cook. She made this traditional hyderabadi dish which I proceeded to fall in love with. Here is a recipe of it.
6 eggs
500 gms khoya
200 gms sugar
100 gms soaked and ground almonds
Some almond and pista flakes for topping
Beat the eggs, the khoya, almonds and sugar together. Heat this mixture on the gas for a short while till the sugar dissolves.
Once done, pour into a vessel and put into the oven at 125 degrees for almost an hour. Top the mixture with the flakes. Cook until it turns brown on top and at the bottom.
It melts in your mouth and is utterly delicious!! Happy eating :)
Dear you,
Some of the heat as eased up and I have no idea how but I am a bit grateful.
Hope it eases up everywhere and monsoons arrive soon <3
Love, kindness and warmth,
Nidsitis
'I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: Am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?' - Rainer Maria Rilke