“It’s a struggle to see everything either as love or an invitation to love.”1
you may or may not remember my voyage to the tow yard last month….i was struck by the ‘redemption’ sign on the gate…but also by this question pinned to the bulletin board behind the people processing my payment.
“r u ok?”
this speech bubble felt strangely poignant to me in a context where it felt like no one gave a single solitary fuck about whether anyone was “ok.”
this photo has been saved on my desktop since my trip, reminding me that tenderness, presence, regard are possible or available in a harsh, extractive context. i couldn’t imagine that the workers there were that ok. i didn’t find an opening to ask because the person i spoke with seemed exasperated and spent.
lately i am finding that the answer to this question — r u ok — is “no” more than i would like it to be. Esther A. Armah writes, “places that are rife with discomfort, where you feel challenged and where you might not want to be. It is in that precise place that the love begins. And it is in this place that you are called to stay.”2
and i’m reminded of Farmer Yon talking about the stench of compost as an indication that the cycle has not yet completed.
emotional stench as generative, as part of the process, as alert. good grief. the stink: and later, black, nutritious soil.
i’ll tell you it smells very very bad in here.
and still, i’m trying.