I went to see Naomi Klein speak earlier this month at the UCLA Institute of Inequality and Democracy. I fucking love Naomi Klein. Top 5 fantasy dinner party guest, along with Andre 3000, Reggie Watts, Morgan Bassichis, Michelle Tea and actually looking at this list I’m pretty sure I’m like only one degree away from making each of these invites possible. Maybe Patti Smith too? Anyways, I went all by myself, artist date style, driving over an hour to Westwood in a cute outfit and clogs. I didn’t recognize anyone there, which was refreshing since I had no small degree of anxiety about returning to my former place of employment. Then she began her lecture and I stopped thinking about anyone or anything else because I was overtaken by a sort of full-body understanding that the person I had been before this talk was changing into the person I would be now - not a wholesale transformation but the definitive before-and-after that can only happen with the acquisition of a new framework through which to see the world.
Naomi said a great many things, several of which can be found in this Guardian essay co-written with Astra Taylor, but the one that lodged in my gut, that gnaws at me still, that I’ve repeated to anyone who will listen, is this: the various constituencies who comprise the current far-right coalition have all given up on this realm. Perhaps they are waiting to be raptured to some kingdom of heaven, or beamed up to a Mars colony, or fortressed inside of an opulent survival bunker, or immortalized as some disembodied consciousness uploaded to a robot hard-drive. But this (as I gesture wildly around at real actual life, springtime in Los Angeles, birdsong, jacaranda and nasturtium blooming, hummingbirds in the bottlebrush tree, Meyer lemons dripping over the fence, we fill a colander with lemons and put them out in front of our gate with a sign that says Help Yourself for the beautiful humans who walk our street on Sundays) represents, to this far-right faction, the end times: the foregone tragic conclusion of history, one in which they have not only been complicit but actually accelerationist, so might as well get it over with and move on to Peter Thiel’s private island or whatever.
The spiritual implications of Naomi’s thesis had as profound an effect on me as any religious doctrine, and have sent this agnostic girlie reeling, galvanized. We have to fight for this realm.
Leo has also recently become preoccupied with the concept of realms, of departing from and arriving to this one from possible others. Some sample quotes:
Who made me?
Am I alive?
Are we in a book right now? Is someone reading it?
Where did the dinosaurs go?
Mom, where were you when the dinosaurs were here?
If another asteroid hits Earth where will we go?
How do babies get into mama’s bellies?
When will I die?
…etc. Casual! Just some casual bedtime or breakfast table conversations with the absolute central celestial body around which my inhabitance of this particular realm orbits with the desperate centrifugal force of maternal love. It’s cool. I’m cool.
My in-the-moment replies to each of Leo’s existential questions have been, in my humble opinion, pretty darn good: drawing upon my long-cultivated Capricornian death acceptance practice about which I have written previously in this Substack, I quickly paint over my initial shock and awe with a gentle patina of child-friendly Zen Buddhist cosmology. What I want him to understand more than anything is that, alongside our contemplation of the hypothetical or theoretical nature of other realms, as well as our unflaggingly rigorous analysis of and resistance to ways in which this realm may be structured by systems of oppressive power and violence, we must remain dedicated to the practice of identifying the ways in which this realm is worth it. Worth fighting for. Worth staying. Much like the giant wooden sign that hangs in the Deer Park Monastery that says, simply, This Is It, Leo must know that this realm is where it’s at.
On the dresser next to my bed I keep a small ceramic cup that Amrit gifted to me, into which I used to habitually deposit the small pieces of whimsical detritus that would end up in my pocket in the early days of parenthood as a way of constantly sweeping choking hazards from the floor: beads, pom-poms, pebbles, dice. One day toddler Leo got wise to the existence of the cup and figured out how to maneuver his way high enough to grasp it and pour its contents all over the bed. It is now one of our favorite lazy morning activities to just lie on mom & dad’s bed and go through its individual contents, sorting and taking stock and remarking on each object’s individual qualities and provenances, musing aloud about what might have become of Treasure Cup contents past. Where is that teeny-tiny ceramic unicorn, anyways?
Hanif Abdurraqib, whose writings I have also referenced previously in this Substack, recently composed a New Yorker essay about his suicidality recovery, in which he talks about reasons to stay. Much of my job these days, for both myself and my kid, living as we do in conditions of modernity to which despair is a reasonable response, is to cultivate and perpetually replenish our internal treasure cups, to move through the world as Ross Gay does in The Book of Delights, collecting the reasons to stay. To stay in this realm, commit to it, believe in it. Beauty. Poetry. Nature. Culture. Joy. Art. Welcome to the world, baby says a piece of art that Chelsea sent us when Leo was born, that hangs on the back of his door. It’s like that Good Bones poem except Leo doesn’t need to make this place beautiful, it already is - especially, phenomenologically, by virtue of his being here. “The cosmos is also within us,” says Carl Sagan. “We are a way the cosmos can know itself.”
Here is a list of some contents of my ontological treasure cup gathered since I last wrote:
The bees. As you may recall from my last Substack, our ceiling was recently inhabited by thousands of bees. It was an honor and a privilege to house them, but unsustainable for many reasons, and so we fought with our property management company to prevent them from being slaughtered and instead hired a lovely slavic man named Tomasz to come over with his, I kid you not, bee vacuum and spend hours gently and lovingly siphoning the bees from a hole in the ceiling into a large container to be transported to a new, better location. He hand-cut the comb they’d spent weeks meticulously constructing so that their handiwork could be repurposed in their new home, and after an entire afternoon of this labor Tomasz was stung a miraculous total of zero times. I got to witness some of this process from inside a bee suit and was genuinely moved by such a seemingly tender and humane way to approach this situation. We love Tomasz, and we love bees.
The beet. The playground by Leo’s preschool is adjacent to the East Hollywood community garden, and the other day he and I were playing on the swings when a woman walked out of the garden gate holding an armful of beets. Without hesitating he ran (hard to call it running, really, because it’s more of a bounce, what he does, or just like imagine the cutest possible way that a tiny person could quickly move through space) up to her and said “can I have a beet?” The woman looked at me and asked “do you cook?” “I do,” I replied confidently, and the beet was gifted to Leo, the root as big as his head, giant leaves like fronds, wafting on their red stalks. I wanted to take a photograph so I said “lift it up in the air, Leo.” He did, and, unprompted, called out “Free Palestine.”
DIY empanadas. Do I cook. Ha! As a matter of fact, I take the ready-made pizza dough from Trader Joes, roll it into little circles on a floured cutting board, and fill it with anything from curried chickpeas to beans & cheese to chicken & corn to pizza sauce & whatever else we have lying around. Remember last month when I said I wanted to start an empanada food truck?! Do people still say yes chef?!
Infinite Jest. I know, I know. But when I was sick in bed last month I read all of Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake in the space of like three days and it was such an intense pleasure that I got cocky and decided I can read anything I put my mind to. I figure if I read 8 pages a night I can finish it by the end of the year, and am currently on page 75, so only like a thousand million to go!
Volcano Easter Eggs. As opposed to regular easter eggs: you mix the dye with baking soda until it forms a paste, smear it on the egg, then lower it into a cup of vinegar and voilá: science-fair level explosion and a dyed egg. SO FUN. I’d taken Leo to his cousin Lilah’s actual elementary school science fair the night before and she was nervous about presenting, so he went up to her beforehand and said “you’re gonna do great”. It instantly made everyone in the vicinity, including Lilah, feel genuinely great, and so the following evening every time it was Lilah’s turn to do the Easter Egg volcano experiment Leo would make sure to earnestly tell her “you’re gonna do great.” Can we each have a tiny little magic person telling us we’re gonna do great when we try new things please?
Orange Blossoms by Lucius.
Forest Nativity, by Francis Bebey. Leo heard this psychedelic 1980’s Cameroonian gem while driving to preschool listening to Novena Carmel on Morning Becomes Eclectic (which I have also written about in this Substack! There is like some kind of greatest-hits roundup energy happening with this installment) and he became kind of obsessed with it, which I think is in keeping with, or part and parcel of, his obsession with the whole this realm vs. other realm thing.
Hand In My Pocket, by Alanis Morrissette, especially in relation to the aforementioned phenomenon of encountering daily reminders of Leo’s existence (a sock, a rock, a sequin, a sticker) in my pocket. I’m broke but I’m happy?? I’m poor but I’m kind?! I’m sane but I’m overwhelmed?! Tell me about it babe.
Lemonade Stand. Leo picked the lemons from the tree, washed them in a bucket, sliced them with his little toddler knife, squeezed and strained and sugared and stirred and served up big beautiful cups from a big beautiful container to friends and family and strangers and made a hundred million dollars. He even made his own little sign, scribbling the word LEMONADE (illegible) by hand. I kvell!
County Fair. Played hooky all afternoon for a root beer floats and a corn dog and a frozen banana on a stick and an all-access kiddieland wristband and no regrets.
Biking along the shore from Santa Monica to Venice Beach on Mother’s Day to buy myself a new belly button ring at some crusty tattoo shop and drink Thai tea and watch skateboarders with Leo.
Flying kites with friends at the Los Angeles State Historic Park Kite Festival.
Dinosaur Hike. To do this you walk on the path just behind your kiddo and every once in a while toss a small plastic dinosaur into the air so that it lands in the brush on the side of the path up ahead and makes a rustling sound and your kid rushes towards it and declares “Mom! I found another dinosaur!”
Pool season! I have two new suits and I am out here wearing them. If I don’t swim once a week during these times I go fucking crazy. Catch me later this afternoon at the Glassell Park pool vibing to 94.7 The Wave.
Date night with spouse but we pretend we’re on a Tinder date for the first time, I will not be elaborating further.
Choreographing a Pink Pony Club music video with Leo and his preschool buddies.
Line dancing at the Autry holding a watermelon margarita with one arm and Leo with the other.
Oop, the churn of toxic positivity has hit my gut and I can’t continue writing this list. Even the treasure cup has its capacity limits. Look at this cup that can hold the ocean, Rumi says, as though one vessel alone could contain it all, as though I could dare to write about any of these things and also Palestine in the same sentence. Which I know is the point, is what the Palestinian people teach us every day, as they continue flying kites within and in spite of abhorrent circumstances.
We are headed to a film festival in New York next week and I chose a shiny jumpsuit garment with cape sleeves for my step-and-repeat outfit. Then watching Andor the other day the wealthy senator who is secretly supporting the rebellion gets drunk and dances wildly to channel her internal conflict and turmoil and complicity and she is also wearing a fabulous shiny garment with cape sleeves! and suddenly I hated myself for giving even one little brain cell’s thought to something as insipid as a fancy red carpet outfit while the world burns. Next month is June which will be the twelfth month of this newsletter - one year in total. Will I keep writing into year two? I haven’t decided. This newsletter has raised over $3,000 for relief for Palestinian people. It’s something, it’s not enough, it’s never enough. Which is also the title of the final entry in my Treasure Cup list:
The album-length film that this video is part of will also debut at the fancy film festival next week. There is something deeply meaningful to me about the fact that the same band who will be at the same fancy film festival as me is also this band:
Punk is not dead. We are not dead. We are alive alive alive. When Leo asked Ewen “Are we in a book right now?” Ewen replied “What an amazing question. You know what? If you write a book about your life someday, then yeah, I guess we are in a book right now.” Sometimes I worry that I make choices about my life because I think they would be good for a story, rather than actually good for me. I’m not sure I can always parse the difference. Look at this cup that can hold the ocean, Rumi says. He also says:
Light again, and the one who brings light!
Change the way you live!
From the ocean vat, wine fire in each cup!
Two or three of the long dead wake up.
Two or three drunks become lion hunters.
Sunlight washes a dark face.
The flower of what’s true opens in the face.
Meadowgrass and garden ground grow damp again.
A strong light like fingers massages our heads.
No dividing these fingers from those.
Draw back the lock bolt.
One level flows into another.
Heat seeps into everything.
The passionate pots boil.
Clothing tears into the air.
Poets fume shreds of steam,
never so happy as out in the light!
Maybe we are all craving rapture, whether a great seething sea of energy or a tiny shiny wonder in the hand. Maybe it’s not an either/or, but a matter of whether we can find it in the here and now. It’s Walt Whitman’s birthday today. Maybe there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe.
