"Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection"
Rebecca Solnit
Well...i have to watch. I feel like i need to understand anything that i can about how all this came about. I am a spawn of the 60's. If you told me anywhere along that this could be happening, i would not have believed it. But it is happening. And a vast number of my fellow citizens are thrilled. I want to understand why. What makes them feel so needy of this puppetmaster? What part of them does he represent, vindicate, set free? But it's a fine line...learning and becoming so sad.
So i look for kinds of joy. There are kinds of joy that are so Bright and Sharp they pierce the Heart and fill beyond the brim. There are kinds of joy, more frequent that are soft, quiet, .... just a touch, just for a single second.
this girl. From National Geographic, how long ago?, i don't know, but from a National Geographic article on the children of Darfur. Look at her. her dress.
the chair. the chairmother. the chair, giving comfort in its worn ness. This girl, being photographed and keeping turned away, protecting the sense of safe haven, after walking and walking. See her foot.
a kind of joy for me. not seeming so much so, but for me...she made it. Through whatEver she did. To rest on this chair. There is a very certain kind of joy to me in this photograph. It is with me every day through years. today.
Look it all says. This is humanity.
making marks on cloth. another kind of joy.