feeling this song today, as i watch the rain fall. my birthday’s coming. i’ve never felt so sad and dismal about my birthday. i guess there’s a new time for everything.
Lots has been happening here in Mpls around CeCe McDonald’s trial starting tomorrow (April 30). Check out the following for more info on how to help support CeCe:
The phenomenal Katie Burgess and Rai’vyn talking it up on Democracy now:
This fantastic article linking CeCe’s case to the racism pervasive in the criminal justice system and the transphobia rampant in society that endangers all trans people:
my friend and fellow artist annah anti-palindrome asked a group of friends and collaborators to make work inspired by her songs as a 30th birthday present for her. a totally beautiful idea. i’m still working on my piece–slowly but surely.
she’s started an online gallery to collect the work. it’s gorgeous.
leap day has always felt appealing. a gift of time when often it feels as if time is being stolen. same with the day when day light savings time ends in the fall. we get that extra hour, a special moment i relished as a child, but often didn’t know quite how to commemorate such a special thing as time. usually i celebrated with sleep, as a good taurus should.
reading this article in the guardian recently opened me up to a new secret time. according to the article, sleeping 8 hours in a row at night has not always been our habit. long ago, we were accustomed to sleeping in two 4 hour stretches with a short period awake in between, about 1 to 2 hours. this magical time was in the middle of the night. all was dark, quiet, and hidden.
During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps.
And these hours weren’t entirely solitary – people often chatted to bed-fellows or had sex.
Oh, the secret time. A solitary moment or even a shared moment, but something about it feels so freeing. Suddenly, there are these 2 hours where I can do whatever I want, in the middle of when most are asleep, and it’s like a leap day every night.
I haven’t successfully woken all the way up for this interim period yet. But I don’t always sleep straight through the night either. There is a sense of magic in waking up and realizing this is my moment and if I went to bed early enough (not a problem these days), then if I am awake for a while, it’s ok. I won’t be totally useless tomorrow. It might even be helpful. And I can lie in bed and think about this time being taken back, and I am filled with hope. Which usually puts me right back to sleep, erasing the anxiety that sometimes haunts my nights. I’m hooked.
