the news

i don’t often write here about the wider world, or news from home. part of that is a simple fact of isolation and lack of access, but lately, in the lead up to what may prove to be the Darkest 4 years in US history, i simply cannot bear to tackle it. there is so much being said, and much of it better said than what I might muster, so I’ve just left well enough alone. but now news of the fire at the Ghost Ship in Oakland has reached me, and with it, the heavy and horrible news that friends lost their beautiful, gifted and gorgeous child. a loss so profound it stupefies. facebook feed floods with condolences and a rallying of the vast community they have to draw strength from, and that is achey & beautiful. this morning, tho’, i was able to get a bit of public radio online, and listened to ostensibly concerned interviewers and officials speak of codes and illegality and such, and it felt so wrong. i mean, i get it - people want to make sure a horror like this never happens again - at last count 36 people lost their lives, and there are many still  as yet unaccounted for - but surely now is the time for Remembrance, to focus on telling the stories of those lives, to celebrate the art they made, the love they gave, their unique threads in the great weaving. that is the “news” i crave hearing. perhaps the general media is not the place for that. i am sure such things are happening in kitchens and art spaces and bars and street corners all over the bay area and beyond. and when the media does what it does, i would only hope that they include a discussion of the dearth not only of affordable housing for all, but also the rarity of such spaces of inclusion, of creativity, of community created outside the dominant value system. i hope that they can honor the totality of what such spaces represent, the complexity and depth of each life lost. half a world away, this is what i hope.

* i offer this one grain of salt prayer to Leisa and Sunny, in remembrance of Cash.