13. Work in Progress.
This week has been a slog; my whole family has some kind of non-COVID allergy/flu/cold mashup, so for the last couple of days I’ve mostly been puttering about the house in various muumuus, drinking tea and sneezing and asking people to please repeat themselves because my ears are stuffed up, but I did manage to divide and repot this baby Monstera I purchased in Pittsburgh into two pots, one for home and one to bring to work.
I’ve never had a Monstera and I learned from Jasper’s bestie Jackson that the process of getting those beautiful slits and holes in the surface of the leaves is called fenestration, and it can take up to several years, and I am so excited to begin this journey with these new friends. I will, obviously, keep you posted.
The World
Second Annual Grief in Public Day
Grief has always been communal, always been shared and consequently has traditionally been regarded as a sacred process. Too often in modern times our grief becomes private, carrying an invisible mantle of shame forcing our sorrow underground, hidden from the eyes that would offer healing. We must restore the conversation we need to have concerning the place of grief in our lives.” ~ Francis Weller
Today, Sunday, April 23, marks the Second Annual Grief-in-Public Day. Though I haven’t attended any of their events yet, I’m appreciating and lifting up the work of Salt Trails Philly, a collective of “healers, grief and death workers, artists and ministers” organizing public grief rituals here in Philadelphia. As death midwife Naila Francis describes:
[since 2020] we have all experienced profound loss, been pressed, whether we chose to acknowledge it or not, to the bare bones of grief. The disruption of the lives we knew and the plans we held for them, the death of our loved ones, the traumas of state-sanctioned violence and political upheaval, the relentless crises of social inequity and climate change — all of it has taken a toll. Some of us are tending our wounds, sifting through the layers to do the brave, vulnerable work of healing. Others of us are trying to push past the ache, find our way to a life that bears some resemblance of what we once knew. Many of us may not realize the impact of what we’ve been through for years to come.
Yet, as West African elder Malidoma Patrice Somé says: “We have to grieve. It is a duty like any other duty in life…Grief is seen as food for the psyche. Just as the body needs food, the psyche needs grief to maintain its own healthy balance.”
I think I am just beginning to understand how completely transformative and generative a life lived in ongoing, active relationship with grief can be, and I’m thankful for the artists and guides who are making a way in our communities for this transformation to take place. Of course, I think of Glo, a gifted ritualist, whose own grief and healing work resonates clear and strong beyond her own death.
“You Have a New Memory” by Merritt Tierce
In my house, we joke about being “one with the internet” when our phones read our minds. It’s a joke instead of a fury, and sometimes it’s even a marvel, because it’s become so ubiquitous, and because we’ve tacitly agreed to it, and because we can’t stop scrolling. We’ve all read the articles that affably explain how we shouldn’t worry our silly little heads over it, how complex algorithms and data extraction merely make it seem like our phones are reading our minds. But when I experience what feels like the singularity, when I have an extremely random funny thought and share it with Duncan and then two hours later a standup on Netflix makes the same joke, (an experience made even more surreal by the fact that this article describes an almost identical experience the author had) when my phone knows I’m menstruating even though I don’t track my period in my phone or anywhere digital, and serves me ads for tampons and the Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer tea at the exact moment that I am drinking that very tea, beyond the technological explanations, there is something much more existential at play, and this (very long) article articulates it so heartbreakingly beautifully.
IT’S THE FUCKING GUNS
As someone who is considering becoming that lady on the subway wearing a sandwich board with handwritten data on why guns don’t make us safer1, I appreciated this call to not give in to hopelessness when it comes to gun violence reform.
*The last two links came to me via The Ann Friedman Weekly. Ann is a true OG of the newsletter game 🙏🏻
I’m sending out the newsletter without the main essay this week, because it’s not finished but my writing day is over, and because perfect is the enemy of good. Be gentle with yourselves and take it slow this week, OK?
xo
Jodi
Home + The World is a newsletter from Jodi Rhoden featuring personal essay, recipes, links and recommendations exploring the ways we become exiled: through trauma, addiction, oppression, grief, loss, and family estrangement; and the ways we create belonging: through food and cooking, through community care and recovery and harm reduction, through therapy and witchcraft and making art and telling stories and taking pictures and houseplants and unconditional love and nervous system co-regulation and cake. Thank you for being here and thank you for being you. ⚔️❤️
“People living in homes with firearms have higher risks for dying by homicide,” according to a 2022 study in the Annals of Internal Medicine.