June 27 2022 Journal (Patreon)

I spent the past week in my home state of Virginia. Incredibly healing experience; I'm a country girl at heart, and I relished showing my friends Southern dishes and pointing out small Virginia towns that I'd visited once. 

We spent a day in Charlottesville. The city's lovely when you've kicked out all the Nazis. You get trans graffiti and fried pickles and used bookstores. And then you look out the window and realize you're on Heather Heyer Way. The blood never truly washes out of the city.

Amid all this, the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. You don't need me to lecture you on this horror. You know that many of us will die because of this. And you know that we have to fight it, and we will fight it. 

Still, resisting despair is difficult. When I was in seventh grade, I attended a traditionalist Catholic school whose major cause was fighting abortion. One day, the academic dean bundled me into a van (against my family's explicitly stated wishes) with the rest of my class, hauled me down to an abortion provider, and made me and my classmates pray on our knees in the rain.

That dean is winning.

So we need to find some comfort. Maybe it's cooking. I cooked a lot during this trip. Made some aglio e oglio for my friends. I also read a lot of Sam Shepard plays. Shepard is becoming a new favorite. True West is now living in my head rent-free.

I read more this week. I'll try to get you some more recommendations and writing. VALIS and Mirkwood Part 4 are both in the works. Keep creating. Keep fighting. And we'll have something to look forward to.