Back By Popular Demand

Here’s another life update for those with the desperate desire to receive an update from Idaho.

I am still here. I am still breathing in and out most of the time.

Yesterday I saw a moth the size of my palm. It looked as though it had just emerged from its cocoon. It was wobbling around on little finger-puppet-legs. Gently fanning its wings. I watched it to make sure it made it off the sidewalk and somewhere safe.

I guess if I’m going to create a heavy-handed metaphor about this (which is about 50% of all my writing), I might suggest that the moth is me. If I’m feeling less self-absorbed (which is rare), I might say the moth is our potential future. The bright one. Or one of the bright ones. The future where white people don’t shut down after a few weeks. The future where the police and prisons are abolished.

It would be a fragile future, maybe a bit unsteady on its legs, but beautiful and brilliant and in need of gentleness.

It isn’t easy to be alive right now. I don’t think it’s easy for anyone I know. I get this feeling that we’re all raw and angry and alone.

And I think we need protests. And I think we need fire and dismantling and destruction. But I also think when and where we can find it, we might need gentleness.

We might need the curling head of a new sprout just pushing through the soil as much as we need the surge of flame that made the soil rich.

Scout and I are here. We’re doing our best.

Sending love.

LAF