When I sat down to write this piece, I thought I was going to write about the new law in Texas that tells women that they are less important than a cluster of quivering cells. My daughter and I have t-shirts that say “Girls just wanna have fundamental human rights” so, yes, I feel strongly about this to put things mildly. The last thing I want for her is some middle-aged white men deciding what she can and cannot do with her body. There is no counterargument to that; my daughter is her own person and no one is going to mess with that. Period. End of story. As much as I would like to digress into that whole topic for the next few paragraphs, I just don’t have a drop mic kind of piece in me today. Someday I will, I promise. Not today, not today. Labor Day is a day of rest for those who work, even for us social justice warriors.
“OK. Taking a leap of faith here. On its way.” he said. With that I was given access to the side I had not met yet, the creative side. The songs doused my flames, cooled me down, and dramatically shifted my creative side—this piece. Sure, the fire is still there and always will be (my RBG dissent t-shirt is en route). Sometimes, however, I need a good old-fashioned hose down when my fire burns out of control. Shortly after listening to the songs, I got sucked into watching an interview with Jay Shetty. To be honest, I find a lot of his videos quite cringey yet can’t look away. I’m sure those who have seen his videos know what I mean. Anyway, something he said in his interview struck a chord and that was his “seed vs. weed” concept. The gist of this concept is that on any given day we have thousands if not millions of thoughts. In all the nonsense that we think about, certain thoughts are either seeds or weeds. A seed is a thought that will grow into something beautiful if tended correctly, a weed will take over if not dealt with properly. I immediately thought about my writing and how each week I write about a thought that grows into something larger. Today, I sat down to write about a woman’s right to choose but have found myself dwelling on the words “taking a leap of faith” instead—weed v. seed. It’s not that my thoughts about abortion and outrage over what is happening in Texas are “weeds” that need to be destroyed, it’s just that those thoughts were beginning to consume my sacred energy and steal my precious peace. Then I listened to the songs he shared and that peace returned like a cool ocean wave. A leap of faith made both my day and this piece.
When things start to go epically wrong in the world and you find yourself becoming a servant to your rage, challenge yourself to stop for just a minute. Yes, there’s a crap ton of injustice BUT just like you can’t pour from an empty cup, you can’t take down the patriarchy if you’re totally batshit or completely fatigued. It took an act of courageous sharing and vulnerability to make me come to that vital realization—thank you. I’m going to go ahead, soon with my RBG t-shirt, and search out less consuming and more subversive ways to deal with all the patriarchal bs in this country. So many of us and so much subversion will get the job done for sure. In the meantime, I’ll find a daily way to create some good where I am and maybe listen to some John Prine as I do that. Yes, I think that’s a very good plan.