Dear Curiosity Mars Rover:
Thank you.
Thank you for existing and being so cool that I stayed up way past my bedtime watching live internet video of the control room at Jet Propulsion Labs as the team of badass nerds who made you lost years of their lives to the stress of hoping you'd land successfully, then got those years back at the joy of knowing you'd touched down OK, and then gained some years with the excitement of seeing the first pictures of you on ANOTHER FREAKING PLANET OMG WTF BBQ? I mean, you had people on Twitter posting that they'd name a newborn Skycrane if they'd just given birth... well done, robot the size of a minivan, well done. (The last Mars rover had totally put a particular size and shape of interplanetary exploration robot in my head, so I was totally stunned by the full-size model of you at the American Museum of Natural History's Beyond Planet Earth exhibit back in December... yeah, I gotta go back and check that out again before it closes in less than a week... I could go on and on. Anyway.)
Thanks for being so very inspiring, Curiosity, and not just to me and this letter. I finally started writing after I saw today's XKCD comic about you, but Dinosaur Comics pretty much hit it out of the park: A BUNCH OF PEOPLE WHO TASTE LIKE PORK PUT CAR-SIZED ROBOTS ON FRIGGIN' MARS, HOW'S THAT TASTE? I say it tastes like winning.
Thank you for being deliciously good news in the face of a day that also included some jackass shooting up a Sikh temple for reasons officially as yet unknown but which are totally going to be reported as the act of an isolated individual rather than representative of an ethnic group (the shooter was a white guy, members of the unmarked category are allowed to have individual agency instead of standing for "their kind" — at best he's a "bad apple" but I doubt he'll even be labeled as such). Product of a society and culture that tolerates entirely too much hate and racism and access to deadly weapons? Nah, couldn't be. But I digress. Back to something awesome... you.
Thank you for being a use of technology on behalf of everything that's good about people — asking questions, learning, exploring, working together for causes greater than our own little petty selves. Hell, I know it's not exactly like you had a say in the matter, but thank you for your name, which makes me a little weepy as I think about it in terms of everything that's good about my species.
Thanks in advance for whatever you find out there, Curiosity, you state-of-the-stuff mini mobile science lab, you. Thanks again for being just about as real as magic gets.
Just... thanks.
Love,
-Tracy
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
06 August 2012
06 November 2011
49. Global Climate Change
Dear global climate change,
I believe in you. Really. Kind of a lot. You don't have to keep proving yourself over and over on my account, especially not with freaky disastrous weather, please.
Is Bangkok such a hotbed of climate deniers as to be in any way deserving of the wreckage you've inflicted there recently? It's a lovely city! Not unlike Monterosso, in northern Italy! When did anyone there ever do anything to offend you? Now my former classmate Christine has gone from writing a dreamy story about gastrotouristic entrepreneurship to documenting the damage from storms and mudslides on her new home in the Cinque Terre. Harsh! (And, yes, I am writing you in a public forum in part to circulate Christine's blog, which includes links to ways people can help out her flood-ravaged region, because thinking about it too long gets me all overwhelmed so I don't know what else to do).
I'll grant that it was nice of you to back down Hurricane Irene until she was just a tropical storm by the time she got to New York City on my birthday. For all everybody's whining we still got in a good round of practice on how to be super-prepared for future extreme weather events, so you were practically performing a civil service. On the other hand, did you have to go and shut down large chunks of Vermont? Was that really necessary?
On a more lighthearted note, I'll grant that it's unfortunate how so many people call you "global warming," when that's an oversimplification and "global weirding" is a much better term (more fun, too!) That's still hardly any reason to snow all over the northeast United States in October, when there's still leaves on trees all over the place, so the weight of "wintry mix" (worst precipitation ever!) breaks extra bonus branches which in bring down turn power lines and more. I mean, I hate this rhetorical device as much as anyone, but: think of the children! You pull these shenanigans on the night before Halloween, for monkeys' sake? Just listen to this sob story from a 10-year-old in the suburbs:
Ok, I mostly couldn't resist quoting that, because it cracked me up, and I needed the laugh after all that other bad news. I hope that little girl believes in you now, but I promise, I know you're real. You kind of scare the crap out of me any time I think about you too hard, and I don't know what else to say except that I know you can't read this but I'm putting these ideas out in the world to share my hope that people will get better at organizing to be resilient to your effects and maybe even prevent future disasters. That's my hope.
Love,
-Tracy
Published 6 November 2011, last updated 6 June 2014
I believe in you. Really. Kind of a lot. You don't have to keep proving yourself over and over on my account, especially not with freaky disastrous weather, please.
Is Bangkok such a hotbed of climate deniers as to be in any way deserving of the wreckage you've inflicted there recently? It's a lovely city! Not unlike Monterosso, in northern Italy! When did anyone there ever do anything to offend you? Now my former classmate Christine has gone from writing a dreamy story about gastrotouristic entrepreneurship to documenting the damage from storms and mudslides on her new home in the Cinque Terre. Harsh! (And, yes, I am writing you in a public forum in part to circulate Christine's blog, which includes links to ways people can help out her flood-ravaged region, because thinking about it too long gets me all overwhelmed so I don't know what else to do).
I'll grant that it was nice of you to back down Hurricane Irene until she was just a tropical storm by the time she got to New York City on my birthday. For all everybody's whining we still got in a good round of practice on how to be super-prepared for future extreme weather events, so you were practically performing a civil service. On the other hand, did you have to go and shut down large chunks of Vermont? Was that really necessary?
On a more lighthearted note, I'll grant that it's unfortunate how so many people call you "global warming," when that's an oversimplification and "global weirding" is a much better term (more fun, too!) That's still hardly any reason to snow all over the northeast United States in October, when there's still leaves on trees all over the place, so the weight of "wintry mix" (worst precipitation ever!) breaks extra bonus branches which in bring down turn power lines and more. I mean, I hate this rhetorical device as much as anyone, but: think of the children! You pull these shenanigans on the night before Halloween, for monkeys' sake? Just listen to this sob story from a 10-year-old in the suburbs:
When I found out Halloween was canceled, I was so bummed; it was the worst day ever... I went over to my grandparents’ house in New Milford because they were, like, the only people on the planet who had power. But we still didn’t get to go trick-or-treating. There were too many trees and wires all over the place. So I sat there on the couch and did nothing. I said, "I can’t believe it’s Halloween and I’m sitting on a couch!" This is an outrage!
Ok, I mostly couldn't resist quoting that, because it cracked me up, and I needed the laugh after all that other bad news. I hope that little girl believes in you now, but I promise, I know you're real. You kind of scare the crap out of me any time I think about you too hard, and I don't know what else to say except that I know you can't read this but I'm putting these ideas out in the world to share my hope that people will get better at organizing to be resilient to your effects and maybe even prevent future disasters. That's my hope.
Love,
-Tracy
Published 6 November 2011, last updated 6 June 2014
26 February 2007
44. Compassion
Dear compassion,
When did you infect my brain?
Um, I write that like it's a bad thing, but really it's not. I just don't have a better way to express my surprise at the weird-but-good ways in which you manifest in my life — for instance, the event that inspired me to write this letter.
I was riding to work in the bike lane along a busy street, when a big, scary dog — a Rottweiler maybe? something bred to kill — lunged at me from the back of a parked truck, where it was tied up. I swerved, managed to stay out of traffic, was relieved to see that the dog couldn't reach me, and my next thought — a split second after "holy fucking shit run away watch out for cars" and "it's okay, it's chained up, I'm safe" — was "oh, that poor animal." Being tied up in the back of a truck next to a busy street with cars whipping by is not my idea of a good time. But that thought, that reflexive moment of empathy, completely overwhelmed my fight-or-flight response. I rode on in a daze, suddenly oblivious to the adrenaline coursing through my veins, marveling that I could go from "it's gonna kill me!" to "poor doggy" in far less time than it takes me to put those thoughts into words. That was when I started thinking about writing you.
Sometimes I feel like you and your friend, kindness, are in short supply in this world, compassion, and I know I'm often part of the problem. So it's okay if you've infected my heart, or my brain stem or whatever involuntary nerve cluster reacts even faster than my oh-so-verbal mind. For one thing, as stupid and clichéd as it may be to say, experiencing you makes me feel better about myself as a person, even if I'm frequently startled to find myself possessed by the better angels of my nature, so to speak. It's even oddly appropriate that I can't write you very articulately, since those possessions seem to be faster than the speed of words. Go ahead and grow inside me, compassion, not like a tumor but like an immunity to the ways in which I'm brought down by the world when the people in it suck. And please, feel free to replace that part of my brain that made me fill this letter with so many adverbs. Thank you for everything, especially good things to come.
Love,
-Tracy
Published 26 February 2007, title abridged 1 December 2011
When did you infect my brain?
Um, I write that like it's a bad thing, but really it's not. I just don't have a better way to express my surprise at the weird-but-good ways in which you manifest in my life — for instance, the event that inspired me to write this letter.
I was riding to work in the bike lane along a busy street, when a big, scary dog — a Rottweiler maybe? something bred to kill — lunged at me from the back of a parked truck, where it was tied up. I swerved, managed to stay out of traffic, was relieved to see that the dog couldn't reach me, and my next thought — a split second after "holy fucking shit run away watch out for cars" and "it's okay, it's chained up, I'm safe" — was "oh, that poor animal." Being tied up in the back of a truck next to a busy street with cars whipping by is not my idea of a good time. But that thought, that reflexive moment of empathy, completely overwhelmed my fight-or-flight response. I rode on in a daze, suddenly oblivious to the adrenaline coursing through my veins, marveling that I could go from "it's gonna kill me!" to "poor doggy" in far less time than it takes me to put those thoughts into words. That was when I started thinking about writing you.
Sometimes I feel like you and your friend, kindness, are in short supply in this world, compassion, and I know I'm often part of the problem. So it's okay if you've infected my heart, or my brain stem or whatever involuntary nerve cluster reacts even faster than my oh-so-verbal mind. For one thing, as stupid and clichéd as it may be to say, experiencing you makes me feel better about myself as a person, even if I'm frequently startled to find myself possessed by the better angels of my nature, so to speak. It's even oddly appropriate that I can't write you very articulately, since those possessions seem to be faster than the speed of words. Go ahead and grow inside me, compassion, not like a tumor but like an immunity to the ways in which I'm brought down by the world when the people in it suck. And please, feel free to replace that part of my brain that made me fill this letter with so many adverbs. Thank you for everything, especially good things to come.
Love,
-Tracy
Published 26 February 2007, title abridged 1 December 2011
02 January 2007
42. People
Dear people,
Whenever I start writing a letter to the world, it always turns out I'm writing to you. In the words of the late, great Bill Hicks, I'm a misanthropic humanist: I think you're great, in theory. I'd be a member of his People Who Hate People political party if that brilliantly self-defeating oxymoron of an idea could ever get off the ground. Still, even though some of you are stupid restaurant customers, guys with loud car speakers, or responsible for cars parked in the bike lane, others of you are my friends, who — like green beans, cats, and David Bowie — are so awesome as to convince me the world isn't all bad. So people, here's to you: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.
Love,
-Tracy
Published 2 January 2007, edited 6 January 2007, updated 28 October 2011, title abridged 1 December 2011.
Whenever I start writing a letter to the world, it always turns out I'm writing to you. In the words of the late, great Bill Hicks, I'm a misanthropic humanist: I think you're great, in theory. I'd be a member of his People Who Hate People political party if that brilliantly self-defeating oxymoron of an idea could ever get off the ground. Still, even though some of you are stupid restaurant customers, guys with loud car speakers, or responsible for cars parked in the bike lane, others of you are my friends, who — like green beans, cats, and David Bowie — are so awesome as to convince me the world isn't all bad. So people, here's to you: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.
Love,
-Tracy
Published 2 January 2007, edited 6 January 2007, updated 28 October 2011, title abridged 1 December 2011.
08 November 2006
39. Apple
Dear Apple,
You're a dream, I know. But sometimes I still think it would be cool to get together with my friend Allison to start a punk rock teahouse, and we both agreed your name would be Apple, in honor of Eugene Mirman's "Punk" sketch, and there you go. On a scale from one to ten, how punk are we? You guessed it.
I daydream that you would be a huge old Victorian house, like the Pied Cow in Portland, with a yard that we could use for extra seating when the weather's nice. Live music could happen outside, too, and how extra-mega-super-awesome would it be if we could garden parts of the yard and make teahouse treats using fruits and veggies grown on the premises? Aw, yeah. The ground floor would be the teahouse, serving fair trade, preferably organic tea, and of course scones, and little sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and other treats. For people into occasionally eating things bigger than the palms of their hands, we could run meals Moosewood Daily Special-style: soup, sandwich, and salad. I would be in charge of the soup, which would almost always be vegan, because I'm so proud of the many vegan soups I made or invented during my time as prep cook at Sundance. Sandwiches would be a little trickier, but I think I could manage them, too. We'd have to hire somebody good at baking for the scones and similar treats, especially the sweets. Penny maybe, while I'm dreaming, since she's good at both the vegan baking and the punk stuff. Also she's up for just messing around with food till it works, and we could sell her less-successful experiments at half price, or at least make a display case of them as decoration because a sign that says "eat me at your own risk" is punk rock. (Hell, we should sell T-shirts with that slogan.) Also of course, Apple, you'd be an art gallery, if only for Penny's stuff and whatever else we feel like sticking to the walls. Damn, I really get into dreaming you.
Besides Penny's spectacular baked goods, we would of course do high tea with all the trimmings. Allison would be in charge of costuming, hats and gloves and safety pins and zippers and of course lots of black eyeliner (she pointed out that since I'm the hippie, Penny's the punk, and she's the goth, we have to keep an eye out for a kickass raver to join our crew... of course, we're all giant geeks). Back to the food, because I'm obsessed. I wonder if a cup of soup would balance on one of those three-tiered high tea serving contraptions. We'd have to hire kickass waitstaff, I guess. Not that I'd want anything else. I can't really fully express my high opinion of kickass waitstaff, nor do they ever believe me when I tell them they're awesome on a level that I will never achieve, so I mostly just tip really well. But I digress. Apple, only your ground floor would be the teahouse and restaurant (we'd have coffee, too, something locally roasted and organic and fair trade, like Eugene's Wandering Goat, only I don't think you'd be in Eugene) because Allison and Penny and I would live upstairs. Ideally we'd also have an attic, nice and roomy enough for someone to live in (or studio space?), and a basement for storage, although mostly deep storage --- it would sort of be a logistical nightmare if we had to put the kitchen or walk-in fridge down a flight of stairs. Eek.
Before I forget, back to the staff. Like I said, they'll be awesome. So awesome that I wouldn't ever need to talk to customers, except of course if we needed to bounce someone. That kind of customer service I'll perform with pleasure. At Apple, we'll explicitly reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Period. First of all, we could hardly be punk fucking rock without being able to tell people to go to hell (with spitting if necessary), and second of all, it's in our religion. Allison and I are the founders of the First Discordian Church of Don't Be A Jackass, after all, and it seems only fair that all of our enterprises, including the fantasy businesses, proceed in accordance with those principles. (Did I mention that our menus will be more like manifestoes? They'll change a lot, with waitstaff of course fully authorized to edit them with black marker whenever we run out of stuff or they get sick of describing the specials, and would include lots of room for people to draw and color and whatever. Crayons on the table for everyone, and paper tablecloths in case the menus aren't big enough. In my "unlimited funds" daydreams the tablecloths are fabric and we give everyone markers and paint pens, but I digress.) In keeping with our proud Discordian heritage, we'll serve hot dogs on Friday at Apple. (Yes, your name is very fitting here, too.) The special should be veggie dogs with bacon, for extra bonus points. Hail Eris!
What else? Well, Apple, you love cats. My Iggy Pop and Otis and Allison's Lilith and Penny's Samantha all live in and around you, in whatever way we can get away with and not get busted by the health department. (Penny's law degree could come in handy all over the place!) And because you are a dream, I hereby declare that any and all cats associated with you will live forever, which is all the more reason for you to magically come true already because Samantha is not doing very well, but she is a fantastic sweet lovable kitty and I love her and don't want to miss her in a permanent way and if I'm saying this having only met her the once, you can probably imagine how much I'm freaking out wanting to hug Penny every time I hear about how Sam is doing. Wah.
And while I'm complaining about reality, Apple, I should probably mention that it's the biggest obstacle standing between you and me. Stupid reality, what with the fact that restaurants run super-tight margins and all our fair trade and organic and local ideals aren't exactly the cheapest around (and do NOT get me started on how fucked it is that ethically raised animal products are so expensive). Our ideal clientele couldn't afford to patronize us, and even if we lucked out and punk rock "the customer is wrong, bitch" service was trendy for like a week, that'd mean we'd what, break even for like a day? Yeah, that's not so good. Stupid reality.
But enough ranting about reality. Apple, you're a beautiful dream, and I enjoy fantasizing about you to escape from stupid, stressful, boring old reality. Thank you for always being there, in my imagination, and for growing steadily more awesome with every re-imagining.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 23 October 2006; published 8 November 2006, way early in the morning, when I should have been sleeping, last updated 6 January 2007. Title abridged 1 December 2011.
You're a dream, I know. But sometimes I still think it would be cool to get together with my friend Allison to start a punk rock teahouse, and we both agreed your name would be Apple, in honor of Eugene Mirman's "Punk" sketch, and there you go. On a scale from one to ten, how punk are we? You guessed it.
I daydream that you would be a huge old Victorian house, like the Pied Cow in Portland, with a yard that we could use for extra seating when the weather's nice. Live music could happen outside, too, and how extra-mega-super-awesome would it be if we could garden parts of the yard and make teahouse treats using fruits and veggies grown on the premises? Aw, yeah. The ground floor would be the teahouse, serving fair trade, preferably organic tea, and of course scones, and little sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and other treats. For people into occasionally eating things bigger than the palms of their hands, we could run meals Moosewood Daily Special-style: soup, sandwich, and salad. I would be in charge of the soup, which would almost always be vegan, because I'm so proud of the many vegan soups I made or invented during my time as prep cook at Sundance. Sandwiches would be a little trickier, but I think I could manage them, too. We'd have to hire somebody good at baking for the scones and similar treats, especially the sweets. Penny maybe, while I'm dreaming, since she's good at both the vegan baking and the punk stuff. Also she's up for just messing around with food till it works, and we could sell her less-successful experiments at half price, or at least make a display case of them as decoration because a sign that says "eat me at your own risk" is punk rock. (Hell, we should sell T-shirts with that slogan.) Also of course, Apple, you'd be an art gallery, if only for Penny's stuff and whatever else we feel like sticking to the walls. Damn, I really get into dreaming you.
Besides Penny's spectacular baked goods, we would of course do high tea with all the trimmings. Allison would be in charge of costuming, hats and gloves and safety pins and zippers and of course lots of black eyeliner (she pointed out that since I'm the hippie, Penny's the punk, and she's the goth, we have to keep an eye out for a kickass raver to join our crew... of course, we're all giant geeks). Back to the food, because I'm obsessed. I wonder if a cup of soup would balance on one of those three-tiered high tea serving contraptions. We'd have to hire kickass waitstaff, I guess. Not that I'd want anything else. I can't really fully express my high opinion of kickass waitstaff, nor do they ever believe me when I tell them they're awesome on a level that I will never achieve, so I mostly just tip really well. But I digress. Apple, only your ground floor would be the teahouse and restaurant (we'd have coffee, too, something locally roasted and organic and fair trade, like Eugene's Wandering Goat, only I don't think you'd be in Eugene) because Allison and Penny and I would live upstairs. Ideally we'd also have an attic, nice and roomy enough for someone to live in (or studio space?), and a basement for storage, although mostly deep storage --- it would sort of be a logistical nightmare if we had to put the kitchen or walk-in fridge down a flight of stairs. Eek.
Before I forget, back to the staff. Like I said, they'll be awesome. So awesome that I wouldn't ever need to talk to customers, except of course if we needed to bounce someone. That kind of customer service I'll perform with pleasure. At Apple, we'll explicitly reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Period. First of all, we could hardly be punk fucking rock without being able to tell people to go to hell (with spitting if necessary), and second of all, it's in our religion. Allison and I are the founders of the First Discordian Church of Don't Be A Jackass, after all, and it seems only fair that all of our enterprises, including the fantasy businesses, proceed in accordance with those principles. (Did I mention that our menus will be more like manifestoes? They'll change a lot, with waitstaff of course fully authorized to edit them with black marker whenever we run out of stuff or they get sick of describing the specials, and would include lots of room for people to draw and color and whatever. Crayons on the table for everyone, and paper tablecloths in case the menus aren't big enough. In my "unlimited funds" daydreams the tablecloths are fabric and we give everyone markers and paint pens, but I digress.) In keeping with our proud Discordian heritage, we'll serve hot dogs on Friday at Apple. (Yes, your name is very fitting here, too.) The special should be veggie dogs with bacon, for extra bonus points. Hail Eris!
What else? Well, Apple, you love cats. My Iggy Pop and Otis and Allison's Lilith and Penny's Samantha all live in and around you, in whatever way we can get away with and not get busted by the health department. (Penny's law degree could come in handy all over the place!) And because you are a dream, I hereby declare that any and all cats associated with you will live forever, which is all the more reason for you to magically come true already because Samantha is not doing very well, but she is a fantastic sweet lovable kitty and I love her and don't want to miss her in a permanent way and if I'm saying this having only met her the once, you can probably imagine how much I'm freaking out wanting to hug Penny every time I hear about how Sam is doing. Wah.
And while I'm complaining about reality, Apple, I should probably mention that it's the biggest obstacle standing between you and me. Stupid reality, what with the fact that restaurants run super-tight margins and all our fair trade and organic and local ideals aren't exactly the cheapest around (and do NOT get me started on how fucked it is that ethically raised animal products are so expensive). Our ideal clientele couldn't afford to patronize us, and even if we lucked out and punk rock "the customer is wrong, bitch" service was trendy for like a week, that'd mean we'd what, break even for like a day? Yeah, that's not so good. Stupid reality.
But enough ranting about reality. Apple, you're a beautiful dream, and I enjoy fantasizing about you to escape from stupid, stressful, boring old reality. Thank you for always being there, in my imagination, and for growing steadily more awesome with every re-imagining.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 23 October 2006; published 8 November 2006, way early in the morning, when I should have been sleeping, last updated 6 January 2007. Title abridged 1 December 2011.
11 May 2006
31. Uterus
My dear uterus,
Thank you for more or less making peace with the new foreign object inside you. I know you've been wondering about it, or at least I've felt you cramping, and I choose to interpret the resultant discomfort as bewilderment and confusion on your part, which is about as good as our communication ever gets. You seem calmer now, and that's great. Please don't go back into uncomfortable spasms just to spite me for writing that; I've left this letter unfinished for over a month because I didn't want to jinx anything by getting too optimistic. Maybe I should have gotten up the courage to write sooner, but I was worried, and also I didn't want to interrupt what seemed like some pretty productive discussions with our mutual friend ibuprofen. Now that it's been a few weeks and a menstrual period since we got what I've been calling our radical new piercing, and as of yesterday the awesome nurse lady at Planned Parenthood says everything looks and feels perfect, I'm finally feeling confident of everything I have to say in this letter.
I'll start with the basics: helpful information. The copper and plastic contraption you feel is called a Paraguard IUD, and it's supposed to keep us from getting pregnant, even if nobody's exactly sure how. I know, that's a little freaky, but so are all the side effects we've experienced with hormonal birth control, and I'd rather talk to you and ibuprofen about cramping than to my head and even more ibuprofen about migraines. Also I'd prefer to make my own mood swings instead of going crazy from drugs for awhile, and as an extra bonus, the Paraguard could be good for as long as ten years, which is pretty freaking sweet. If you hate it too much, I guess we could switch to an IUD with hormones in it, but really if I'm going to go back to messing with my biochemistry I think I'd prefer to use drugs that I can quit myself, without the help of a nice nurse lady.
Speaking of which, wasn't it great to see the nice nurse lady again yesterday? Remember how much it hurt when she gave us the Paraguard piercing last month? Since I sort of doubt you were listening to her at the time, much less understanding, I'll just tell you that she said that cramping then was a bit like a labor contraction, and joked that if I'd thought I didn't want to have a baby before, that pain probably made me more certain. She was ever so right, and I hope that you're coming to agree with me. Meanwhile, I'm still here to help however I can. I don't have a heating pad, but I can always fill my belly with nice warm tea, and sometimes I can persuade one of the cats to sit on my belly and purr. I'm sorry if it was wrong of me to go on a big bike ride when you were still in the first throes of shock, but maybe you'd been freaking out all along and the ibuprofen wore off at an inconvenient time? I owe exercise a thank-you note at the very least, but I could probably turn it into a whole letter without too much trouble. But I digress.
Back to you, uterus. Are we cool? I don't want to jump to conclusions or take you for granted or anything that might send us back into a world of not severe but persistent and annoying pain. Like I said before, I'm here to help. But meanwhile, in a spirit of cautious optimism, I hope you don't mind if I thank you once again for being awesome, as always, in this exciting time.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 5 April 2006, published and last updated 11 May 2006. Formatting edited 8 April 2014.
Thank you for more or less making peace with the new foreign object inside you. I know you've been wondering about it, or at least I've felt you cramping, and I choose to interpret the resultant discomfort as bewilderment and confusion on your part, which is about as good as our communication ever gets. You seem calmer now, and that's great. Please don't go back into uncomfortable spasms just to spite me for writing that; I've left this letter unfinished for over a month because I didn't want to jinx anything by getting too optimistic. Maybe I should have gotten up the courage to write sooner, but I was worried, and also I didn't want to interrupt what seemed like some pretty productive discussions with our mutual friend ibuprofen. Now that it's been a few weeks and a menstrual period since we got what I've been calling our radical new piercing, and as of yesterday the awesome nurse lady at Planned Parenthood says everything looks and feels perfect, I'm finally feeling confident of everything I have to say in this letter.
I'll start with the basics: helpful information. The copper and plastic contraption you feel is called a Paraguard IUD, and it's supposed to keep us from getting pregnant, even if nobody's exactly sure how. I know, that's a little freaky, but so are all the side effects we've experienced with hormonal birth control, and I'd rather talk to you and ibuprofen about cramping than to my head and even more ibuprofen about migraines. Also I'd prefer to make my own mood swings instead of going crazy from drugs for awhile, and as an extra bonus, the Paraguard could be good for as long as ten years, which is pretty freaking sweet. If you hate it too much, I guess we could switch to an IUD with hormones in it, but really if I'm going to go back to messing with my biochemistry I think I'd prefer to use drugs that I can quit myself, without the help of a nice nurse lady.
Speaking of which, wasn't it great to see the nice nurse lady again yesterday? Remember how much it hurt when she gave us the Paraguard piercing last month? Since I sort of doubt you were listening to her at the time, much less understanding, I'll just tell you that she said that cramping then was a bit like a labor contraction, and joked that if I'd thought I didn't want to have a baby before, that pain probably made me more certain. She was ever so right, and I hope that you're coming to agree with me. Meanwhile, I'm still here to help however I can. I don't have a heating pad, but I can always fill my belly with nice warm tea, and sometimes I can persuade one of the cats to sit on my belly and purr. I'm sorry if it was wrong of me to go on a big bike ride when you were still in the first throes of shock, but maybe you'd been freaking out all along and the ibuprofen wore off at an inconvenient time? I owe exercise a thank-you note at the very least, but I could probably turn it into a whole letter without too much trouble. But I digress.
Back to you, uterus. Are we cool? I don't want to jump to conclusions or take you for granted or anything that might send us back into a world of not severe but persistent and annoying pain. Like I said before, I'm here to help. But meanwhile, in a spirit of cautious optimism, I hope you don't mind if I thank you once again for being awesome, as always, in this exciting time.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 5 April 2006, published and last updated 11 May 2006. Formatting edited 8 April 2014.
05 April 2006
30. Ibuprofen
Dear ibuprofen,
Please address yourself to the discomfort in my lower abdomen as soon as possible. It's been an hour since I took you at noon, and I know I should've gotten around to that earlier, since I've been awake since 9 AM and my last dose was at 8:30 last night, but I did get some pretty glorious sleep in between those times and I'm sort of a macho idiot about pain, especially the kind that's more annoying than incapacitating, which is what I've got going on right now. Still, we've got about two hours before I have to go to work, at which point I'd really like for my uterus to be less of a distraction, but until then I can take it easy and sit around folding laundry and drinking tea and watching trash TV on DVD while you kick in — hint, hint. Also I can walk to work instead of riding my bike if a little exercise is what you and my body need in order to get along. Just start working already, wouldya?
Love,
-Tracy
Title abridged 1 December 2011, formatting edited 8 April 2014.
Please address yourself to the discomfort in my lower abdomen as soon as possible. It's been an hour since I took you at noon, and I know I should've gotten around to that earlier, since I've been awake since 9 AM and my last dose was at 8:30 last night, but I did get some pretty glorious sleep in between those times and I'm sort of a macho idiot about pain, especially the kind that's more annoying than incapacitating, which is what I've got going on right now. Still, we've got about two hours before I have to go to work, at which point I'd really like for my uterus to be less of a distraction, but until then I can take it easy and sit around folding laundry and drinking tea and watching trash TV on DVD while you kick in — hint, hint. Also I can walk to work instead of riding my bike if a little exercise is what you and my body need in order to get along. Just start working already, wouldya?
Love,
-Tracy
Title abridged 1 December 2011, formatting edited 8 April 2014.
03 August 2005
21. Newborn Babies
Dear newborn babies,
For what it's worth, welcome to the world. I want to apologize, over and over again, for the state it's in. I know it's not all my fault; for one thing, the way things are now is the product of everything that has come before, less than 26 years of which had me in it, but still. There's so much wrongness that most of the time I can't even think of anything to do to make anything better. I'm just one person, and there are so many people, and speaking as just one single solitary mess of a human being I get overwhelmed by my own stupid petty little problems, let alone those of the entire human race. Some days that makes me angry, some days it makes me sad, and some days it makes me wish I'd never been born. But life isn't something you can choose for yourself, little ones, which is perhaps its greatest irony. The good news is that despite the fact that life is in many ways one long cruel joke, there's a lot to enjoy. Let's start with you.
I hope, in as non-ableist a way as possible, that you're healthy, because life will be easier for you with the standard number of eyes and ears and appendages for a person of any size. Likewise, I also hope you're relatively free of genes that'll make you prone to illness, both physical and mental. But whatever state it's in, that body you've got is a marvel. People have been trying to understand it and things like it since as long as there were people, maybe longer, and there's plenty that's still a mystery. But one of the good things about being a person is there's all this history and exploring and understanding for you to build and grow on if you want to learn it. And that's getting on to the next great gift you've been given, which is your mind. You can think about anything with it, even if you can't always understand everything. Maybe someday you'll think that's pretty awesome. I sure hope so.
Now I want to take a paragraph to write about your family, by whom I mean the people you'll live with at least until you're old enough to wonder why you live with them, but probably longer. It's likely to include the people your immediate family lived with until they were old enough to wonder, too, even if they're unlikely to define their families in quite the same silly cynical and all-inclusive way I do. Anyway. What I'm going to write now is something I wish someone had told me sooner instead of leaving me to figure it out: your family are the people who will see you at your worst, and you will see them at their worst. If you're like me, and I know I am, there will be times when you will hate your family for being such a bunch of freaks, but the fact is no one's normal and everybody's pretty good at hiding it most of the time but not all of the time and comparing your insides to other people's outsides is a surefire way to make yourself feel bad about not just your insides and their outsides but the whole world in general. What's more, since your family are the people you can't hide from all the time, you'll get to know their insides a bit, and comparing what you see there to other people's outsides isn't going to be a picnic, either. Dang. None of that sounds very reassuring at all now that I've written it, but it's still important, at least to me, as a way of keeping things in perspective, and I really don't mean it in an all bad way. What else can I say about family? Well, like life, you didn't choose them, but you're mostly stuck with them, too. And at times you will love them even if they are such a bunch of freaks that it's hard to imagine that just about any other group of people would be at least as freaky if they were stuck together all the time, and I hope the times you love each other for no reason outnumber the bad times by far.
But while I'm talking about the other people in the world, I shouldn't stop with your family. Neither should you. At some point some well-meaning older person may try warning you to never talk to strangers, but like all rules, that's really just a guideline. It should be more like, "Be careful when you talk to anybody, not just strangers, but don't be too careful, because living in fear is no fun." If you never talked to strangers, you might never make any friends, and believe me, friends are way up there on the list of things that are just plain awesome about being human. Maybe more than anything else I could wish for you, I hope you'll make and cherish many good friends, and I hope they become just as close and dear and in their own way impossible to you as those family freaks I was telling you about a bit earlier.
What else? I could've sworn I had more to say than this, but then again I started this letter months ago and I didn't keep very good notes on all the topics I wanted to cover. That said, I wish you luck in training your memory and learning in general and of course figuring out ways to sort through your thoughts and decide what's important to you. There's no pause button on life, unfortunately, or I'd spend a lot of time between moments, thinking, hiding, and generally missing all the good stuff. Go ahead and live all your moments, because there's no way of knowing whether or not the life you've got is the only one you're getting, and you might as well make it a good one even if it turns out I'm wrong about reincarnation. All our lifetimes are full of countless chances to live right, and all we can do is make the most of those chances as best we can.
I know this is a silly letter to write. By the time you're able to read this, you won't be newborn anymore. Even if someone were to read it to you right now, before you got too old to be considered newborn, there's no telling how much you'd understand and absorb, much less remember. But I think about you, little ones, and it fills me with a mix of envy, and relief, and hope, and despair, and love. I guess that's life. Again, for what it's worth, welcome to it.
And happy birthday.
Love,
-Tracy
P.S. I tried to write this letter in the most general terms possible, but I would be a big liar if I said the idea of writing it arose full-formed in my brain, unprovoked by events in my world. That said, "Dear Newborn" is dedicated to Stony Raine Lohr III and her parents, Stony and Janelle, on her birthday, 5 February 2005, even if it took me a really long time to write. Hey rugrat: good job on those teeth! I was sort of arbitrarily waiting till you'd been around 6 months, but I appreciate the reminder that it's well past time I declared this letter done and sent it out.
Started 10 February 2005, text updated 14 October 2005, title abridged 1 December 2011. Reformatted 8 September 2013, last updated 6 June 2014.
For what it's worth, welcome to the world. I want to apologize, over and over again, for the state it's in. I know it's not all my fault; for one thing, the way things are now is the product of everything that has come before, less than 26 years of which had me in it, but still. There's so much wrongness that most of the time I can't even think of anything to do to make anything better. I'm just one person, and there are so many people, and speaking as just one single solitary mess of a human being I get overwhelmed by my own stupid petty little problems, let alone those of the entire human race. Some days that makes me angry, some days it makes me sad, and some days it makes me wish I'd never been born. But life isn't something you can choose for yourself, little ones, which is perhaps its greatest irony. The good news is that despite the fact that life is in many ways one long cruel joke, there's a lot to enjoy. Let's start with you.
I hope, in as non-ableist a way as possible, that you're healthy, because life will be easier for you with the standard number of eyes and ears and appendages for a person of any size. Likewise, I also hope you're relatively free of genes that'll make you prone to illness, both physical and mental. But whatever state it's in, that body you've got is a marvel. People have been trying to understand it and things like it since as long as there were people, maybe longer, and there's plenty that's still a mystery. But one of the good things about being a person is there's all this history and exploring and understanding for you to build and grow on if you want to learn it. And that's getting on to the next great gift you've been given, which is your mind. You can think about anything with it, even if you can't always understand everything. Maybe someday you'll think that's pretty awesome. I sure hope so.
Now I want to take a paragraph to write about your family, by whom I mean the people you'll live with at least until you're old enough to wonder why you live with them, but probably longer. It's likely to include the people your immediate family lived with until they were old enough to wonder, too, even if they're unlikely to define their families in quite the same silly cynical and all-inclusive way I do. Anyway. What I'm going to write now is something I wish someone had told me sooner instead of leaving me to figure it out: your family are the people who will see you at your worst, and you will see them at their worst. If you're like me, and I know I am, there will be times when you will hate your family for being such a bunch of freaks, but the fact is no one's normal and everybody's pretty good at hiding it most of the time but not all of the time and comparing your insides to other people's outsides is a surefire way to make yourself feel bad about not just your insides and their outsides but the whole world in general. What's more, since your family are the people you can't hide from all the time, you'll get to know their insides a bit, and comparing what you see there to other people's outsides isn't going to be a picnic, either. Dang. None of that sounds very reassuring at all now that I've written it, but it's still important, at least to me, as a way of keeping things in perspective, and I really don't mean it in an all bad way. What else can I say about family? Well, like life, you didn't choose them, but you're mostly stuck with them, too. And at times you will love them even if they are such a bunch of freaks that it's hard to imagine that just about any other group of people would be at least as freaky if they were stuck together all the time, and I hope the times you love each other for no reason outnumber the bad times by far.
But while I'm talking about the other people in the world, I shouldn't stop with your family. Neither should you. At some point some well-meaning older person may try warning you to never talk to strangers, but like all rules, that's really just a guideline. It should be more like, "Be careful when you talk to anybody, not just strangers, but don't be too careful, because living in fear is no fun." If you never talked to strangers, you might never make any friends, and believe me, friends are way up there on the list of things that are just plain awesome about being human. Maybe more than anything else I could wish for you, I hope you'll make and cherish many good friends, and I hope they become just as close and dear and in their own way impossible to you as those family freaks I was telling you about a bit earlier.
What else? I could've sworn I had more to say than this, but then again I started this letter months ago and I didn't keep very good notes on all the topics I wanted to cover. That said, I wish you luck in training your memory and learning in general and of course figuring out ways to sort through your thoughts and decide what's important to you. There's no pause button on life, unfortunately, or I'd spend a lot of time between moments, thinking, hiding, and generally missing all the good stuff. Go ahead and live all your moments, because there's no way of knowing whether or not the life you've got is the only one you're getting, and you might as well make it a good one even if it turns out I'm wrong about reincarnation. All our lifetimes are full of countless chances to live right, and all we can do is make the most of those chances as best we can.
I know this is a silly letter to write. By the time you're able to read this, you won't be newborn anymore. Even if someone were to read it to you right now, before you got too old to be considered newborn, there's no telling how much you'd understand and absorb, much less remember. But I think about you, little ones, and it fills me with a mix of envy, and relief, and hope, and despair, and love. I guess that's life. Again, for what it's worth, welcome to it.
And happy birthday.
Love,
-Tracy
P.S. I tried to write this letter in the most general terms possible, but I would be a big liar if I said the idea of writing it arose full-formed in my brain, unprovoked by events in my world. That said, "Dear Newborn" is dedicated to Stony Raine Lohr III and her parents, Stony and Janelle, on her birthday, 5 February 2005, even if it took me a really long time to write. Hey rugrat: good job on those teeth! I was sort of arbitrarily waiting till you'd been around 6 months, but I appreciate the reminder that it's well past time I declared this letter done and sent it out.
Started 10 February 2005, text updated 14 October 2005, title abridged 1 December 2011. Reformatted 8 September 2013, last updated 6 June 2014.
18 July 2005
19. FreeCycle
Dear FreeCycle,
Please stop sending me offers of kittens, especially ones with pictures. I want them all, and my Iggy Pop probably does too, but I hope I'm still several decades away from turning into a crazy cat lady, so yeah. In the meantime, if you could just remind everybody to spay and neuter their pets, that would be great. Thanks!
Love,
-Tracy
published on Epistolography on 22 September 2005, title abridged 1 December 2011.
Please stop sending me offers of kittens, especially ones with pictures. I want them all, and my Iggy Pop probably does too, but I hope I'm still several decades away from turning into a crazy cat lady, so yeah. In the meantime, if you could just remind everybody to spay and neuter their pets, that would be great. Thanks!
Love,
-Tracy
published on Epistolography on 22 September 2005, title abridged 1 December 2011.
01 February 2005
8. Stress
Dear stress,
I know I ignore you a lot. It's my coping mechanism or whatever, and it's gotten me through many a tight spot, which would be a good thing if I dealt with you afterwards, but mostly I don't. Which is bad. For one thing, your effects, combined with those of boredom, often leave me crushingly depressed, which is probably a topic for another letter. Lately, however, I've been becoming more aware of the fact that when I tune you out with my mind, my body takes a beating.
Headaches, sometimes even migraines, nausea, upset stomach, diarrhea, and most recently a return to menstrual irregularities the likes of which I hadn't seen in a few months, since before I switched birth control hormones. I just finished a notebook, which meant rereading it, which in turn meant revisiting all my health complaints of the past four and a half months. And with the exception of a particularly wretched bout of stomach flu, just about all the health problems I complained about coincided neatly with the times I had the most to complain about stress wise.
Usually work was the culprit. But whatever. I mostly don't have to work with the guy who it turns out literally makes me sick anymore, and I've started a new job that's much more mellow and self-directed, with coworkers who are at once friendlier and less immediately involved with what I'm doing. Somehow it's easier when I'm responsible for everything, which I guess makes me a control freak. No big surprises there.
But meanwhile, stress, you haven't been getting as much attention as you deserve. It'd be one thing if I wasn't paying attention because you weren't around, but you're definitely out in force, and I'm probably building you up in my mind even as I pretend you're not there. And it's not like you can advise me on how to deal with you better, though that sure would be great if you could (while I'm dreaming, I want a pony). My head-in-the-sand habits might make more sense if you were always a bad thing, but you're not, and while I'm acknowledging that, thanks for all the fight-or-flight endorphins. They've come in handy from time to time, even if I suspect they've got something to do with why my body hates me so much sometimes. You're really not to blame here; my response to you is. So I'm going to have to learn to recognize you instead of ignoring you, and deal with you in a more responsible way than pretending you're not there and getting sick later.
Exercise might help. It's good for all kinds of things, and there's far worse ways to burn off those fight-or-flight hormones I thanked you for earlier. I'm thinking of taking a yoga class, maybe even learning to meditate. Writing letters like this one, letters I can't send but need to address, seems to be good for my heart and my head, which I hope will translate into fewer headaches and less physical trouble on the whole.
Can we work together, stress? I hope so. Because making myself mentally and sick for lack of a better way to cope with you is pretty miserable.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 28 January 2005; last updated 1 February 2005
I know I ignore you a lot. It's my coping mechanism or whatever, and it's gotten me through many a tight spot, which would be a good thing if I dealt with you afterwards, but mostly I don't. Which is bad. For one thing, your effects, combined with those of boredom, often leave me crushingly depressed, which is probably a topic for another letter. Lately, however, I've been becoming more aware of the fact that when I tune you out with my mind, my body takes a beating.
Headaches, sometimes even migraines, nausea, upset stomach, diarrhea, and most recently a return to menstrual irregularities the likes of which I hadn't seen in a few months, since before I switched birth control hormones. I just finished a notebook, which meant rereading it, which in turn meant revisiting all my health complaints of the past four and a half months. And with the exception of a particularly wretched bout of stomach flu, just about all the health problems I complained about coincided neatly with the times I had the most to complain about stress wise.
Usually work was the culprit. But whatever. I mostly don't have to work with the guy who it turns out literally makes me sick anymore, and I've started a new job that's much more mellow and self-directed, with coworkers who are at once friendlier and less immediately involved with what I'm doing. Somehow it's easier when I'm responsible for everything, which I guess makes me a control freak. No big surprises there.
But meanwhile, stress, you haven't been getting as much attention as you deserve. It'd be one thing if I wasn't paying attention because you weren't around, but you're definitely out in force, and I'm probably building you up in my mind even as I pretend you're not there. And it's not like you can advise me on how to deal with you better, though that sure would be great if you could (while I'm dreaming, I want a pony). My head-in-the-sand habits might make more sense if you were always a bad thing, but you're not, and while I'm acknowledging that, thanks for all the fight-or-flight endorphins. They've come in handy from time to time, even if I suspect they've got something to do with why my body hates me so much sometimes. You're really not to blame here; my response to you is. So I'm going to have to learn to recognize you instead of ignoring you, and deal with you in a more responsible way than pretending you're not there and getting sick later.
Exercise might help. It's good for all kinds of things, and there's far worse ways to burn off those fight-or-flight hormones I thanked you for earlier. I'm thinking of taking a yoga class, maybe even learning to meditate. Writing letters like this one, letters I can't send but need to address, seems to be good for my heart and my head, which I hope will translate into fewer headaches and less physical trouble on the whole.
Can we work together, stress? I hope so. Because making myself mentally and sick for lack of a better way to cope with you is pretty miserable.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 28 January 2005; last updated 1 February 2005
19 January 2005
3. God
Dear God,
I can't send this letter for obvious reasons, but I probably shouldn't even be writing it at all because frankly, I don't really believe in you. Which is not, as far too many people seem to think, that I think nothing is sacred — more on that in a bit — it's just that I'm sick and tired of people shaping that sacred in their own image, and not even all that well, or maybe too well, I don't know.
Fact is, as far as I'm concerned the universe is just too big and awesome and complex for our puny little human minds to understand, but we don't like to admit it, so we invent order for it, even if it's an order that can't possibly be big or complex enough to be anywhere near the truth and simultaneously something we're capable of understanding. That complexity thing's a bugger for sure and I had more to say about it which I've already forgotten. Maybe I'll remember and add it in later, or maybe I'll just have to write a sequel to this letter, even if Alice Walker already did the "letters to God" thing way better than I'll ever be able to in The Color Purple. For now, I'm done with the part of the letter that addresses the idea of the god I don't believe in, a guy in the sky who's all-powerful, all-seeing, and all-knowing, though it's a little unclear if he's all-caring or even a little caring, and people somehow still keep going to church and fighting wars and making each other's lives miserable over it.
The next part of this letter is addressed to what I do believe is sacred, and when I say what that is it'll be clear why this is a letter I can't send. See, as far as I'm concerned at the end of the day the only truly sacred thing is our human capacity to be good to one another and bring out the best in one another. If you want, you can call that love, and then you can say that God is love if you like to quote the Bible and banter around with really loaded words. There ya go. If anything is sacred to me, if anything gives life meaning or whatever — which is probably fodder for at least another paragraph — it's the fact that despite all the awful things that people do on a daily basis, to each other, provoked and unprovoked, so on and so forth, we also do good to each other, just as reasonably and unreasonably. Who needs an ineffable, inscrutable Lord that moves in mysterious ways when we have each other, friends? Not me.
And so yeah. Dear goodness which I sincerely hope is inherent in all us humans — please don't stop. Please don't go away. Please, continue to give me signs that you exist, because stupid little things like that are ultimately what give me hope that maybe the human race won't destroy itself and maybe it actually shouldn't destroy itself. Please, let me continue to find that God-nature or Buddha-nature, or love, or whatever, in real people. And maybe let me continue to hope that we can all begin or continue to find that goodness and love in each other, instead of projecting all our hopes and dreams and fears into an imaginary friend in the sky. Let me continue to dream that people are capable of being good and loving without priests who tell them to impose their beliefs on each other, and that someday maybe we can all at least act as though there's magic and sacredness in all of us, and there's no need to complicate things with a not-so-shared hallucination of holiness separate from this physical world we inhabit. If you ask me, not that anyone did, that idea of a god that I don't believe in is at once too simple to explain the universe and overcomplicates human affairs all at once.
I don't know how to end this letter. I don't want to go back to addressing the idea of the god I don't believe in, much as I'd like to ask protection from Its followers. Nor do I want to address specific gods I don't believe in, or the religions that claim to follow them, because this letter is probably offensive enough without getting personal. The one idea I keep coming back to is a sentence I've seen attributed to the radical Catholic priest Daniel Berrigan, one of those people whose story makes me think that maybe organized religion isn't always all bad, but I digress. "Deliver us unto each other," he prayed, and that I think is a hope worth praying and dreaming for. Imagine freedom from the guy in the sky, the great cosmic daddy who tells us how to behave or else, and instead living with the knowledge that all we've got is each other. Is it a bleak way of looking at the universe, this thought that we're the only god we've got? I think maybe it explains a lot that's wrong with the world: We humans kinda suck at being God. The good news is that we're all that's stopping us from getting better.
I guess that means it's go time.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 22 November 2004, posted 19 January 2005, last updated 6 June 2014.
I can't send this letter for obvious reasons, but I probably shouldn't even be writing it at all because frankly, I don't really believe in you. Which is not, as far too many people seem to think, that I think nothing is sacred — more on that in a bit — it's just that I'm sick and tired of people shaping that sacred in their own image, and not even all that well, or maybe too well, I don't know.
Fact is, as far as I'm concerned the universe is just too big and awesome and complex for our puny little human minds to understand, but we don't like to admit it, so we invent order for it, even if it's an order that can't possibly be big or complex enough to be anywhere near the truth and simultaneously something we're capable of understanding. That complexity thing's a bugger for sure and I had more to say about it which I've already forgotten. Maybe I'll remember and add it in later, or maybe I'll just have to write a sequel to this letter, even if Alice Walker already did the "letters to God" thing way better than I'll ever be able to in The Color Purple. For now, I'm done with the part of the letter that addresses the idea of the god I don't believe in, a guy in the sky who's all-powerful, all-seeing, and all-knowing, though it's a little unclear if he's all-caring or even a little caring, and people somehow still keep going to church and fighting wars and making each other's lives miserable over it.
The next part of this letter is addressed to what I do believe is sacred, and when I say what that is it'll be clear why this is a letter I can't send. See, as far as I'm concerned at the end of the day the only truly sacred thing is our human capacity to be good to one another and bring out the best in one another. If you want, you can call that love, and then you can say that God is love if you like to quote the Bible and banter around with really loaded words. There ya go. If anything is sacred to me, if anything gives life meaning or whatever — which is probably fodder for at least another paragraph — it's the fact that despite all the awful things that people do on a daily basis, to each other, provoked and unprovoked, so on and so forth, we also do good to each other, just as reasonably and unreasonably. Who needs an ineffable, inscrutable Lord that moves in mysterious ways when we have each other, friends? Not me.
And so yeah. Dear goodness which I sincerely hope is inherent in all us humans — please don't stop. Please don't go away. Please, continue to give me signs that you exist, because stupid little things like that are ultimately what give me hope that maybe the human race won't destroy itself and maybe it actually shouldn't destroy itself. Please, let me continue to find that God-nature or Buddha-nature, or love, or whatever, in real people. And maybe let me continue to hope that we can all begin or continue to find that goodness and love in each other, instead of projecting all our hopes and dreams and fears into an imaginary friend in the sky. Let me continue to dream that people are capable of being good and loving without priests who tell them to impose their beliefs on each other, and that someday maybe we can all at least act as though there's magic and sacredness in all of us, and there's no need to complicate things with a not-so-shared hallucination of holiness separate from this physical world we inhabit. If you ask me, not that anyone did, that idea of a god that I don't believe in is at once too simple to explain the universe and overcomplicates human affairs all at once.
I don't know how to end this letter. I don't want to go back to addressing the idea of the god I don't believe in, much as I'd like to ask protection from Its followers. Nor do I want to address specific gods I don't believe in, or the religions that claim to follow them, because this letter is probably offensive enough without getting personal. The one idea I keep coming back to is a sentence I've seen attributed to the radical Catholic priest Daniel Berrigan, one of those people whose story makes me think that maybe organized religion isn't always all bad, but I digress. "Deliver us unto each other," he prayed, and that I think is a hope worth praying and dreaming for. Imagine freedom from the guy in the sky, the great cosmic daddy who tells us how to behave or else, and instead living with the knowledge that all we've got is each other. Is it a bleak way of looking at the universe, this thought that we're the only god we've got? I think maybe it explains a lot that's wrong with the world: We humans kinda suck at being God. The good news is that we're all that's stopping us from getting better.
I guess that means it's go time.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 22 November 2004, posted 19 January 2005, last updated 6 June 2014.
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