so, tell me. (Patreon)

hello loves.

i’m writing this from my kitchen chair. i am, like many people seem to be right now, exhausted and more than a little bit confused about what is playing out in the world right now.

yesterday morning, i played piano at a funeral. a woman i knew on the island took her own life. she was a fan of mine and we didn’t know each other very well, but it hit very close to home.

the fragility of us all.

we gathered. we shoveled earth onto alison’s body.

i posted the above image to my social media yesterday and i gotta say, having read over 2,000 comments that came in through facebook, twitter and instagram, that i’ve never seen or heard anything quite like what is coming in through the lines from my community.

the amount of long-term tiredness, powerlessness and general frustration is just…simply beyond comprehension.

i can’t pretend i do not see it.

so i am here, asking you, once again: how are you?

feel free to answer, regardless of where you are. this was aimed at my community in america, where the majority of my patrons are based, but ignore that bit and just tell me where you are and how you’re really doing.

i’ll read all of the comments tonight and tomorrow.

i have two studio days booked out next week and i am trying to figure out how i can spend the time. knowing what you’re going through is going to give me my direction, be my guide.

whatever you need is what i need.

okay?

i also have to say…im finding it increasingly strange to be posting, again, from new zealand where there is almost no covid and we are more or less going about our “normal” lives.

but nothing feels normal.

quite a few people from new zealand and australia commented - after seeing the shocking state of the zeitgeist-mind in america - that they had no idea that things in america had not gone “back to normal”. that from what they’d gathered from the mainstream news, america was more or less back in the saddle. it doesn’t seem to be the case from what i am hearing from the actual human beings.

i treasure this channel..this ability to drop in and ask and take the collective temperature, not just because i want to know and personally understand, but because there is not a global news channel dedicated to letting the world know how the world is. you do not know, sometimes, how it is with people on the ground, in their everyday lives, in their own kitchen struggles, unless you ask and give the space for an answer ,,, and listen.

there is a heaviness to everything, and a sense of ominousness i’ve never really felt before in the air, in the zeitgeist. i don’t mean that to sound foreboding. i’m just being honest.

reading through those 2,000 comments - almost everybody sounding like they’re at the end of their rope - leaves me wondering. what shall i do? where do we help? how can we listen for what needs to be said, what needs to be done?

me?

i am good, and steady, and getting on with the small movements of mundane life and parenting..but i am feeling fragile as glass. i carry my child through the day, through the world, through this experience, and it all feels so wild, like any moment someone is going to turn and laugh and say: “fooled you!! none of this really happened!! it’s all been an elaborate and theatrical nightmare visited upon you by some alien TV producers for their own amusement!!”

i’ll say much more about the state of my own work and self and life in the althing, which im hoping to post in the next couple of days, but meanwhile….

keep me company.

tell me where you are and how you are.

i am reading.

i am listening.

i am so tired.

i know you probably are too.

i want to remind you that you are enough, you are doing enough, and that i am proud of you for continuing to perservete in the face of an extraordinarily weird and alienating world.

and i love you.

i really do.

i love you so much.

don’t you forget it.

don’t give up.

and as usual, please read one another’s comments with a whole-heart and feel free to respond and talk to one another.

we are all here.

here we are.

the love and the listening is a circle, and you are it, and it is you.

xxx

afp