i’ll not take on the burden,
the responsibility,
the blame,
for how we are
together,
alone.
we ride together,
we drive together,
we face life together,
we decide together.
with each other,
for each other.
so,
no.
this isn’t a taxi.
you sit up front,
with me.
\ är′tĭst \
Definition
(noun):
1. a person who co-creates and communicates intentional, reflexive experiences with perspective.
2. a person who interacts with and processes the world primarily through aesthetic experiences, i.e. art.
*An entry from A DIY Healing Dictionary of Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Social Being. The dictionary is a work in progress and part of the larger DIY Ph.D. - Prefiguring Learning for the Ecocene performance.
warm, inviting, kind
and yet
hiding
probing
interrogating while
observing
in front of and behind
that invisible two-way
mirror
your panic room.
i feel this, and
hesitate.
is there space for me?
will there be,
space for me?
i could run
could call it
quits. my heart
tightens
relaxes,
then swells.
and instead i
lean in
feeling my way to your core,
behind the reflection
i try to clarify, connect
establish
deep, true
emotional
intimacy
intimacy
intimacy
taking it slow? yes
please
i agree.
taking it slow? more like
hesitation,
holding back,
at arms length.
promise of
deep, true
emotional
intimacy...?
of joy
joyful togetherness...?
never fulfilled,
thwarted.
my words
misheard
not heard
twisted
to fit the
assumptions
stories in your head
the plots drawn
from other plays
plays i know not of
am not a part of.
i reached for you because
yes,
this is a
"soul" connection
and we
could be...
could be
happy. i suspect
so, i reached for you.
deflected
i reached for you.
a crumb
i reached for you.
dodge
i reached for you.
a crumb
tasty crumb
i reached for you.
defend
i reached for you.
a crumb
soft, delicate, delicious morsel
i reached for you.
run
evade
disengage
close the door
hide...
is not freedom.
is not security.
false friends
isolating
lonely
empty,
not happy.
my bruised heart? still
open
warm
holding space
to write
a song
many songs…
such an innocent question.
it’s ok, don’t worry, it’s not
your responsibility.
oh, no.
i see your face
crumple
deflate
a faintest flicker of
shame
the tiniest of wounds.
but you said you found it adorable…
i do.
and
it’s not your responsibility.
OK.
your spirit
just that little bit
flatter
my complicity
unintended.
i want to hold
your hand
give it a squeeze
hold you
to reassure,
boundaries
healthy ones luv.
it’s ok to be mindful
and
possible to care
without
being responsible.
and squeeze you
just that little bit more.
i don’t.
afraid if
i do
you’ll
jump and
run.
instead,
i smile,
hoping it’s reassuring,
and drive on.
dancing near and
toward each
other,
holding still,
nearer,
holding,
nearer yet…
hoping
the other does
not back away.
both wondering
what patterns we may be repeating,
will this person accept me will they treat me as well as I’ll treat them will they treat me as well as i deserve will we enjoy each other’s company will they run away…
inclusivity, care, agency, and growth
Reading that is continually freeing me to (re)negotiate and prefigure a life within the cracks.
- A Call for Revolution, The Dalai Lama
- A History of the World in Six Glasses, Tom Standage
- Am I Normal?, Sarah Chaney
- The Anarchist Imagination, edited by Carl Levy and Saul Newman
- Art as an Experience, John Dewey
- Badass: Making Users Awesome, Kathy Sierra
- Being Wrong, Adventures in the Margin of Error, Kathryn Schulz
- The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk
- The Care Manifesto, the politics of interdependence, The Care Collective
- The Compassionate Mind, a New Approach to Life’s Challenges, Paul Gilbert, PhD
- The Conquest of Bread, Piotr Kropotkin
- Creative Connection, Natalie Rogers
- The Drunkard’s Walk, How randomness rules our lives, Leonard Mlodinow
- Encyclopedia Brown, Donald J. Sobel
- Essentialism, Greg McCowan
- Highly Sensitive: Practical strategies for understanding emotions, managing relationships, and maximizing your potential in an overstimulating world, Linda Hill
- Judeaism as a Civilization, Toward the Reconstruction of American-Jewish life, Mordecai M. Kaplan
- The Lottery, Shirley Jackson
- The Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Ward
- The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Beverly Cleary
- No dig gardening, raised beds, layered gardens, and other no-till techniques, Bella Linde and Lena Granefelt
- Nonviolent Communication, 2nd edition, Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD
- Parenting with Presence. Practices for raising conscious, confident, caring kids, Susan Siffelman, MFT
- The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Irving Goffman
- The Problem that has No Name, Betty Friedan
- Prisons in Turmoil, John Irwin
- Radical Help, Hillary Cottam
- Salt, a World History, Mark Kurlansky
- Social Theory for Action, William Foote Whyte
- Street Corner Society, William Foot White
- Teaching Critical Thinking, Bell Hooks
- Teaching to Transgress, Bell Hooks
- Unfinished Business, Anne-Marie Slaughter
- The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
- When the Body Says No, Gabor Maté
- Your Money or Your Life, Vicky Robbin and Joe Dominguez
- Zero the Biography of a Dangerous Idea, Charles Seife
\ frē′dəm \
(noun): the capacity to imagine how things might be elsewise, with the flexible support to try, and the hope of possibilities.
(adverb) freeing: the state of imagining possibilities; relieved of the restraints of the singular, opened to the multitudes of potentialities.
(verb) to free: 1. to imagine, illuminate, share, and explore potentialities. 2. to flexibly support, facilitate, or otherwise encourage exploring potentialities.
Often conflated with related concepts of autonomy and agency. Is social as much as personal.
*An entry from A DIY Healing Dictionary of Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Social Being. The dictionary is a work in progress and part of the larger DIY Ph.D. – Prefiguring Learning for the Ecocene performance.
- How well do you know yourself?
- What are your core needs?
- Do you enjoy being by yourself as much as with others?
- What pattern(s) might I be repeating?
- What happens when you don't get your way?
- How do you handle it?
- What is your joy?
- How do you relate to the world?
- Process it?
- And interface?
- What would break your heart?
- How does someone learn about you?
- get to know you?
- Connect with you?
- Deeply?
- What do you like to talk about?
- How do you experience the world?
- What is foreplay for you?
- What role does conversation play in your life?
- How deeply do you think?
- Feel?
- How critically do you think?
- Feel?
- How do you share of yourself?
- Do you? (share of yourself?)
- How many more questions can I get away with?
- How many more questions until I feel like I know you?
- How many more questions until I feel like you know me?
- How many more questions until I know myself?
