Good morning, everyone.

I’m not really sure what to say, aside from what one is supposed to, or at least expected to say, which is of course, “happy new year.” Maybe I don’t know what to say because there are no words for this feeling that would actually prefer I say nothing, but would rather have us all who remain, who persist, who made it, to lay down in some soft sand or cool dirt in astonishment. We’d stay down there long enough to watch a shooting star span the sky above, long enough for the dry ground to be saturated with every last holy drop of grief, long enough to be drenched by the slow warmth of a sunrise and then cuddled up again come twilight. We’d stay, as long as was needed, which is maybe 24-hours, or maybe some other quilt of time—you know, time, that squirrel, that slippery beast that ha ha ha we thought we knew something about.

Basically, if you ask me for advice, I’ll tell you to find a soft patch of earth, ideally with some trees or sweet smelling flowers nearby. I’d have you lay down like a starfish. I’d tell you to let your weight down: to soften your skin, and your muscles; to let your belly drop and widen, your spine to unspool, your edges to widen out like pancake batter in a pan. I’d have you stay until you remember your belonging, until you feel the weight of that universal force of attraction—you know, gravity—that exists to remind you that you are beloved.

I mean, I know gravity would exist whether we were here or not. Whether we believe in it or not. It’s kind of like how we belong to each other whether we like it or not.

Soon, it will be time to get off the dirt and be together again. I will carry dirt’s teachings into 2021. I will get my hands dirty, I will squee-jee my heart bright and open; I will question the smallness of my beliefs; I will hold close instead all that has me longing for you, for all of us. Which is so, so much, you know? It could be so beautiful.

I love you and I wish you all my best everything. Would love to hear from you, email me or add a comment below ✨

xxoo
dani

⛓ All the things I read and loved this week:

👉🏽 I’m so grateful for the introduction to Garret Bucks’ work (I link to his writing over on “The White Pages” fairly frequently). He did a quick roundup of The Year in White People (I recommend subscribing to his newsletter, oh white readership of mine!):

My second reason for hesitation is a persistent worry that, if the spring was marked by millions of Americans (including millions of white Americans) doing quiet, helpful things as a collective, the summer of anti-racism was where our more individualistic, competitive sides came out again. The question, too often, wasn’t “what are we building together?” but “how do I make sure that everybody sees me doing the right thing?” It was a summer of social media curation and books ordered partially for their message but partially for how they looked on our feeds. It was an age where the boundaries between “Say Her Name” and “Look At Me Saying Her Name” often felt fuzzy.

🦋 RIP Barry Lopez. So many losses this year.

Evidence of the failure to love is everywhere around us. To contemplate what it is to love today brings us up against reefs of darkness and walls of despair. If we are to manage the havoc—ocean acidification, corporate malfeasance and government corruption, endless war—we have to reimagine what it means to live lives that matter, or we will only continue to push on with the unwarranted hope that things will work out. We need to step into a deeper conversation about enchantment and agape, and to actively explore a greater capacity to love other humans. The old ideas—the crushing immorality of maintaining the nation-state, the life-destroying belief that to care for others is to be weak, and that to be generous is to be foolish—can have no future with us.

🎬 Some lighter fare: “Moonstruck” Knows That the Best Things In Life Aren’t Chosen. This movie is famous in my family and never gets old no matter how many times I’ve seen it, which is a lot. “Nobody in the movie acts reasonably, or even normally. And yet it feels completely true to people as they are: ridiculous and passionate, in search of answers and solutions, and taking what they can get, which is usually better than what they thought they wanted.” 

🍜 My Year in Takeout Orders. I loved this. Poignant and droolworthy, two words I wonder if I’ll ever place together again (Maybe in the spinoff newsletter, “Men + Snacks,” eh, Ted?).

❄️ Another one that is so beautiful it will make your teeth hurt: On the Solstice: Deep Winter Dreams of the Spring to Come

How can life be so tenuous and yet durable in the same moment?…I do not believe that the idea of truth, and truth’s consequences and accountabilities, has been killed stone-dead—only that it has been badly damaged. That in this coming hard winter it will sleep, wounded, beneath the snow, and that the dreams it dreams—the possibilities—will be vibrant, and fantastic. That it—truth—will be back, and when it is, we must and will celebrate it. Deify it.

Thank you so much for being a part of this community. If you like this newsletter, please consider leaving a comment, sending it to a friend or subscribing. Or email me and say hi, I’d love to hear from you.