the sole starfish

⭐ tenderness is a political act ⭐

Jun 29, 2022

greetings, greetings to you, dear reader.

i had a grand plan to send out a missive yesterday about the concept of community currencies (which are, in the simplest terms, forms of monetary exchange used in a local region). the prompting stemmed from a question from my neighbor, who assumed that i had more in-depth knowledge than he on the topic. and as i am wont to do, i went through a deep dive on the internet. and figured i’d send it your way!

but alas, grand plans, as we know, are meant to be diverted from.

and my ability to follow my own schedule is often thrown to the wayside by the intricacies of the world around me. so, here i am, a day late, writing to you in the hopes of finding some grounded sentence, some through line, some form in which the tornado in my brain might make sense to myself.

the news of the past week has left me and the folks in my community in a state of shock.

you don’t need me to tell you this, dear reader.

it’s a time when i’m glad to not be on social media, as i remember that we are likely to all be sharing the same graphics of ways you can help and ways you can get help. i appreciate the two of those in their simplicity.

but then i head to my polling place yesterday to vote in the new york state primary elections, and both candidates i voted for lose.

my faith in politics dims each year, not in my belief that there is an underlying, undergirding support system that can be of benefit to a community. but that the framework with which we have created a nation, and, in fact, a nation of fifty nations, has continued to fail.

that each time a blow is dealt to the rights of queer folk, the rights of trans folk, the rights of folks with uteri1, the rights of black and brown folk, the rights of incarcerated folk, the rights of poor folk, the rights of anyone who isn’t a rich, white man — we are told to show up. we are told to head to the voting booth. we are told to volunteer, to spend our money, to engage in a political activism that might stem the tide of vitriol targeted at the bodies of our people.

the voting booth can’t save us. donations can’t save us. volunteering can’t save us.

the system was not built for us to thrive.2

maybe it’s my optimism, my faith itself that precludes me from seeing any of the national political world around us as a gift or a blessing or a stability from which folks can thrive.

there is a need for hope, for a desire for something bigger, for a blessing upon a blessing upon a blessing.

but where can the hope be found when what stems from a national politic is fear and rage3?

where can the hope be found when folks are dying? when folks will continue to die? when the country we live in upholds structures that kill people? when the wealth of few controls the bodies of many?

hazel henderson wrote in 2006 that “the word is out that economics, never a science, has always been politics in disguise.”4

sixteen years later, the words are still true.

writing this missive makes me feel more rage. because i don’t want to write about the crumbling world that has always been crumbling. i don’t want to look at my phone or computer and fall silent by the news of the world.5

so i’ve walked away from the computer and my phone and organized my car.

control is an illusion, and yet, the codes through which our nation governs us do not make us free. control is an illusion, and yet, i’m organizing my car, i’m emptying my vacuum cleaner, because i do not have control.

henderson wrote later in the same piece mentioned above that “as with politics, all real money is local, created by people to facilitate exchange, transactions, and is based on trust.”

trust.

trust, y’all.

i can see it in the trees, i can see it in the flowers, i can see it in the lakes, i can see it in the hand holding mine.

but i cannot see it in the broader world today. i cannot see it in the systems and structures by which we are meant to thrive.

this system was never built for us to thrive.

i’ve been angry for a long time. maybe not about politics, specifically. but i’ve been angry for a long time.

anger is good. anger isn’t something to shift away from. it’s something to look straight into the eyes of. anger reminds us of what we cannot accept as a reality of ours. anger reminds us that when all else fails, when our bodies do not have anything left to give, we must rest. we must find another hand to hold, we must see it in the trees and the lakes and the flowers.

tenderness is a political act.

like the starfish parable, in which the girl on the beach continues to throw the starfish, dying on the sand, back into the ocean — i do not know how to save all of the starfish.

but tenderness is a political act. and perhaps one starfish after another is all i can do today. perhaps, i am just the sole starfish today.

tomorrow, i will wake up and find motivation for more, i’m sure. and if i don’t, perhaps the motivation is only a sunrise or two away.

perhaps.

there are three quotes on my mind today, that i want to leave you with, dear reader: one from wendell berry, one from helen macdonald, and one from a workbook from artists u.

berry wrote: “so far as i can see, the idea of a local economy rests upon only two principles: neighborhood and subsistence. in a viable neighborhood, neighbors ask themselves what they can do or provide for one another, and they find answers that they and their place can afford. this, and nothing else, is the practice of neighborhood.”

artists u reminds us that “building a sustainable life is political. you are committing to keeping your voice strong in our culture. our culture needs you to make your most visionary work for as long as possible. the culture may not act that way by showering you with money and attention. but that’s what it needs. the key to making it sustainable is to make it easier.”

and helen macdonald wrote in vesper flights: “it’s impossible to regard the natural world without seeing something of our own caught up in it. back on that wintry riverside, a swan had come towards me and offered me strange companionship at a time when i thought loneliness was all i could feel. and what comforts me now, watching these arctic swans in our era of rising political nativism, is how clearly they are home.”

onward,

sara