February Gratitude & Some Reading

Cat painted by me, printed by Andy. Dragons also printed by Andy, on my soon to be painted list. Photos by Ariana.

Andy

Sometimes it feels like these are times that want to clutch at every stray thought and drag them into the stream of consciousness depths via a concrete encased torpor. An epoch, it often seems, where it feels like a necessary evil to seek and parse out the validity of all that becomes the tapestry of our history, our collective fates…to then be rewarded with the mental pall of surrealism hinting in a garishly coquettish way of future diminished prospects. What a lovely idea it was to search for an outlet based in creativity that allows still for our disparate interests. Thank you for recommending we turn 3D printing and painting into the type of thought blocking that can enhance us both, an escape that can reduce risks for illness and mental health decline. I was so very touched that you went out of your way to prioritize some of my pet projects first, that you liberally spent so much of your time looking at templates that revolved around my personal likes. I wasn’t too sure I’d have the fine motor skills still to paint like this, and I can’t thank you enough for encouraging me in something that allowed me the happy realization that I still do. I thank you my sweetheart, for believing in me.

Some Reading & Viewing To Consider

The Let Them Theory, by Mel Robbins.

If you are a female between 25 and 40 something, you have probably heard of “your friend Mel,” as she describes herself. Personable and with a mix of showing you the dust under her historical rug vulnerability and motivational direction on how to sweep that type of crud out of your life, the vast majority of her audience is women. That being said, I think this book could be a helpful read for men as well. As she acknowledges early on in her book, the recommendations contained therein are based on centuries old philosophies such as Stoicism and the research of experts in fields of relationships and motivation. The premise is a simple two part equation throughout the book: let people do what they are going to do and be who they are going to be and then let yourself focus on what you can do in response. She focuses on influence and not attempting to control, on coming to recognize that you should see yourself in similar terms as a Jennifer Lopez song from “Marry me:” the love of your own life. She wants you to dream bigger than being someone else’s support character, saying that “you weren’t put on the earth to be somebody’s wife or husband. You are here to fulfill your dreams….and create a big, beautiful, amazing life.”

Even though this is a book about relationships, the main focus isn’t romantic relationships- though that is a theme that does earn some chapter real-estate. I think much of what she says is powerful and written in a heartfelt way. My main criticism relates to her comments about enabling and paying for the life of an adult child. Recent data points have made it clear that with the exception of eggs, most grocery items are more expensive now than they were a year ago. Rents are more expensive, nearly everything but gas is more expensive. Your average young adult can’t afford to pay for their own life right now, and unfortunately some survival based necessities for them currently shouldn’t be viewed as enabling in my book, it should be seen as everyone doing the best they can to survive in less than ideal times financially. That being said, I think that there is some very solid and practicable advice in this book to navigating relationships and moments where we bump into each other in a way that can allow relationships to still thrive rather than be wrecked in the ongoing aftermath.

WATCH: Minneapolis resident and U.S. Citizen Aliya Rahman describes being detained by ICE, PBS Newshour (click the title for a link to the video)

This is a follow up video to the one I posted last week, and shows Ms. Rahman’s testimony about the incident in which she was detained while going to her doctor’s office before the U.S. congress. Many disturbing testimonies have been given before congress of late, everything from Nazi-style death cards being left by ICE in Colorado to significant and life-altering injuries inflicted without an actual justifiable cause as per available verifiably real video evidence. Her chilling words about how actively living human beings being brought into the ICE facility she was detained at being called “bodies” should be heard by each of us. I feel like we should deeply search ourselves and ask if these are the types of policies we can support regardless of our political views. I feel that we should never condone stripping the humanity away from others. I have read the Bible many times, and could never picture the Man many in our country call a Savior using that kind of language or behavior. Blessed are the meek he has said, as you have done to the least of these my brethren, asking each of us to consider whose behavior should justify being considered a neighbor when comparing a foreigner who showed compassion to religious men who ignored an injured man…to paraphrase, those are the types of things He talked about, the kind of precedent He asked each of His believers to follow. And therefore it is my hope that we can hold onto our true religion more than our politics in all of this.

Hungerstone, by Kat Dunn

I must preface this recommendation with a couple of warning related caveats: this book isn’t for every one of my readers. Firstly, it is quite dark. The content is best described as a form of Gothic-inspired horror. Second, there are three intimacy based scenes that are described with a bit more detail than some of my readers would be comfortable with based on their religious positions. And lastly, though I personally do not feel like this next matter should be conflated into the causes for the behavior of the main female lead, this is a book in which a lesbian relationship emerges from the ashes of a rather sinister supernatural background.

I feel that if this book had a theme song, it would be “Is That Blood?” by Sara Diana. Based on a novella that was a precursor influential work to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Hungerstone shares the tragedy marred history of Lady Lenore, who married to free herself from an emotionally abusive abode with her Aunt. In doing so, she ends up making some morally reprehensible decisions very early in the marriage to protect the man she knows her survival depends upon. She gains the attention of what the book flirtingly implies is a female vampire. As the author herself notes in an interview I listened to, these are not two likeable female leads. My take on this is that Lady Lenore was herself in a dangerously desperate position, and born into a time where women had no rights to financial independence, votes, or even to know their own minds in many instances, she was left to confront a reality where the choices for a woman to survive in a dark situation were equally blighted and desperate. Her suppressed sexuality is, I think, just another casualty of a society (rather than the cause of her ultimate choices) that restricted her ability to self-determine or even protect herself from a husband who held all of the cards of power and was trying to kill her so that she could be replaced by his younger mistress. I believe this story invites us to view the desperation of the powerless and to perhaps ask ourselves what each of us might be driven to if the power imbalances were so distributed in our own lives.