Sunk

Having traveled back across the country, taking from May 27th to June 8th, with stops back up in the Gunnison National Forest, visiting a friend in Denver, to Lincoln Nebraska, Davenport Iowa, Toledo Ohio, and a few days exploring wild parts of Pennsylvania and New York to which I had never been, or had been many years ago, I found the general atmosphere confused, tense, inconsistent (pandemic-wise), dark and feeling heavy. Two days after I left Tempe, my father died, so the entire rest of the trip was wrapped in all of the many responses to that. 

I expected to have internet soon after arriving here, back at my sister's, but through a set of miscommunication and mistakes, it took 8 days. It just went live yesterday. The entire time in between, I was just stressing about looking for a job, feeling aimless. I went to Allentown to help take care of my mother for a few days. Otherwise, it's just been weird. Limbo. 

Meanwhile, the pandemic has hammered Arizona (and many other places that "reopened" much too soon), and I'm glad I got out of there. I was going to stay three nights and I made it two. It felt apocalyptic there. Also, meanwhile, while I was traveling. George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police and the country erupted into protests and round after round of police brutality. I saw hardly any of it on my drive east, as I was passing through areas very little affected, for the most part. But it was always in the background, always on social media. 

Now I'm feeling like I just want a job so I have something useful to do a lot of days, and a place to live from which I can venture out with comrades and get tear-gassed. The purpose of the job is not even to get paid or handle my career or whatever. Just to make some slight semblance of home possible, as a base for participating in some community or other's efforts to defund police, center marginalized narratives, and change for the better. 

Trying to remember to breathe deeply and let go

In spite of everything, emotional keywords are: bereft, lonely, angry, bewildered, sorrowful. Lots of grief in all of its forms unfolding over these days. I am no skilled judge of my own progress, so I take with a grain of salt that I am flat out stuck. Probably something is being worked out in me. 

It definitely does not feel that way. I summon protection, and long for consistent inspiration and fire. But the reality is, I feel sunk.