I am in my room.

My room.
It's still nice to say it. Still doesn't feel true.
I still feel weird if I choose to stay in here. I feel weird if I occupy in any other room in the house. I am uncomfortable using the kitchen at all, let alone having my own food in the house or cooking.
I still feel like a visitor. Like I am crashing with friends and overstaying my welcome.

I was looking at dog adoption pages the other day—a horrible idea for a sentimental fool who can't even feed himself—and read the most heart-breaking story about a one year old lab that was driven to some nice neighborhood and abandoned there by his family. For three days, he just sat by the gate waiting for the family to come home. He would get excited at every car that passed by, only to lay back down in defeat when he saw it wasn't them.
He was terrified of strangers, so anytime someone from the neighborhood tried to approach, he would run off into the woods. People left food and water out for him and eventually earned his trust.
Now as a foster dog he freaks out if his human isn't in his line of sight and is terrified of being in the car because he's afraid he'll get abandoned again.

I feel like that dog. Maybe we all do. No one gets out alive. We all have so many scars, so many echoes of trauma that still send us into a panic.

I woke up early so as to drive for those ride-share apps that I depend on for survival. I have named my car Manna, for she provides me my daily bread and little else.
I am overdrawn at the bank (a now regular occurrence) and my cell phone is past due and rent is due next week.
But I am feeling super anxious again now that I do not qualify for medicaid in Oklahoma and can no longer afford my medication.
So leaving my room is becoming increasingly difficult.

But I woke up early to make myself drive.
But decided to finish last night's Rachel Maddow first.
Then spent the last three hours reading the news.

I read stories of police brutality. I read what the officers said in defense.

I read the story of an American missionary woman who pretended to be a doctor in Uganda and was responsible for the deaths of a hundred children.

I read about a magician in India who tried to reenact a Houdini water escape but instead was washed away be the Ganges. They found his still bound body downstream days later.
His last words were "If I escape it'll be magic, if I don't it will be tragic."

I'm sure beautiful things are happening right now. Someone is helping a neighbor. Someone is listening to a lonely elderly person. Orgasms are culminating. Ideas are being had. Babies are being born. Someone's life is being saved. Another's suffering has finally ended.

Maybe the world is just too vast and we aren't supposed to know everything that's happening.
Maybe we can only handle the joy and grief of our own community.
Maybe that's why we keep going back to tribalism.
I don't know.
But regardless, I know beyond my neighbors and tribe. I hear the screams from places I've never heard of. I bear witness to bigotry, oppression, and violence every day. I read the clear warning signs of pending global war and the far more destructive plague we are bringing on ourselves through climate change. These problems are big and so beyond comprehension that most of us would rather ignore or dismiss them.

I want to do something. I speak out. I volunteer. I try to truly see and love and really listen to everyone I meet. But what is that compared to anything we are facing as a world? Or as a nation or city or even just as a circle of friends? Some of us are suffering so much right now that we feel paralyzed.
Think about the work and energy and patience required to help just that one dog I mentioned above. And that's just one dog. How will we ever save the world?
We hold our matchsticks up against the darkness and the darkness feels like more than the absence of light. It feels heavy and oppressive. It feels like it will take over the world.

I do not believe I am the only one that feels we are in for a long night.

And what's best thing to do for a long night?

Create shelter.

Fuck. That's not at all what I thought I was going to write about. I think I am turning this into a longer essay for my public blog.

9:55 a.m. - 2019-06-19