Footnotes On the Map

Hello,

It is January. Western modernity is destroying the earth and killing us. Some of us are dying, and some of us are watching while not yet dying. It is murderously seductive to be an autonomously striving individual.

As an autonomously striving individual, I ran a 35k trail race last weekend with my love and it may or may not have been enjoyable. In fact as I was climbing the last couple of miles and hundreds of feet of elevation, I thought, "this is extremely hard, not very fun" and also at the same or a similar-enough time thought, "I am already forgetting how bad this is." A benefit of diminished brain function after running for several hours is that your brain forgets what is happening almost as it is happening. Memory is so funny, and also horrible, allowing as it does for terrible things to be repeated on and on. From the mundane to the genocidal.

Three things from this month that I would like to remember and that will erode from the circuitry of my brain, but might not erode from the circuitry of the internet, unless the internet explodes, which it might, anything that can happen will (call-forward to Interstellar):

I rewatched Interstellar (I actually rewatched it on a Friday and then re-rewatched it on a Sunday), and think it is one of very few movies that is actually really good at being a long movie. There is the first part, which is sort of mostly about the earth and its problems and an escape-to-space plot, and then there is the second part which is about a fun version of quantum physics I think (who knows), and wormholes, and time, and they almost feel like different, equally interesting movies. Space movies love to represent the future of the human species with very specifically angular/long white faces (I just realized– well, I just googled–that I thought Anne Hathaway, who is in Interstellar, was also in about ten other space movies, but it turns out I am thinking of Liv Tyler, who is in about a million space movies and who looks a lot like Anne Hathaway, and since I'm making an argument about types of faces in space, my argument still stands. Also, see e.g. Natalie Portman in Annihilation, which I also rewatched this month, and which is just okay, not that good. Also see, e.g., why I don't get to write reviews).* If you can get past this, and why should you, space movies can be such a relief. Get us away from here, we are dying.

*Also, oops, Annihilation isn't actually about space.

Second, I can't believe you suckers had to wait three years for the second season of Severance when you could have been like me and watched all of Season One for the first time over the past three days. Thank you, it is perfect timing. Although you might say that I actually should have waited until after Season Two finished airing, and then I could have watched two nine-hour movies back-to-back. Is watching television basically the same as being severed? What about running a 35k trail race? Memory is nuts!

Finally, I must be into things that feel disjointed, because I am also finally reading Joanna Russ's The Female Man, many times recommended in various essays by Samuel Delany, and which, the more of it I read, the less of it I understand. Understanding, I have come to think, is underrated, or at least it is only a specific state that you should only occasionally strive to arrive at.*

*Oops, I meant overrated.

Without context, here is a passage that I loved:

Whileawayan psychology locates the basis of Whileawayan character in the early indulgence, pleasure, and flowering which is drastically curtailed by the separation from the mothers. This (it says) gives Whileawayan life its characteristic independence, its dissatisfaction, its suspicion, and its tendency toward a rather irritable solipsism.

...Eternal optimism hides behind this dissatisfaction, however; Whileawayans cannot forget that early paradise and every new face, every new day, every smoke, every dance, brings back life's possibilities.

I remembered, while reading–for the briefest moment–life's possibilities! I am so bad at remembering happiness. And this, too, allows for terrible things to be repeated.

I had so much fun running last weekend. It was so beautiful, and very cold, but my arms regained feeling two hours in, and I accidentally left my love at the last aid station, but she found me! And look at us, how silly and cute, running for so many miles together, striving and striving.

Until next time,

Endria

PS / footnotes

>> I have a new story, "Good Water," out in Transition Magazine!

"Some say prayers that are answered are messages from god. Others say the answers are plain insight, won in the silence of contemplation. Whatever the answers are, the actions that follow are often impossible for mere humans to grasp. What I know is that living fully, which required us not only to know and exercise the extension of life, but to control—to wield—its limits and boundaries, was a dream that the founders of Lowridge, all extending from slavery, all cloaked in relative shades of blackness, were determined to explore in its entirety. Maybe that is why, just as the moon was rising in another empty sky, Neddra’s grandma walked up the hillside—taking our good road—and, perhaps after sitting for a while on its rim, praying and thinking, let herself down into our last flowing well. What she thought as she fell into the water, searching for a future, I will never know. Perhaps she knew that some women are destined to be sacrificed at the altar of History, unknown or symbolic in life, given meaning only once they have joined that nameless rank of Man, in the afterlife."

You can read the full story online here.

>> The Fall edition of my Bay Nature column (The Human Animal) is online here.

>> If you'd like to support women with incarcerated loved ones that have been impacted by the LA wildfires, consider donating to Essie Justice Group. A list of updated mutual aid resources for the LA wildfires is here.