Reaching for the Sun

Vol. 59

IN THIS ISSUE: ESSAY | NOW READ THIS | IN PERSON | FINAL FRAME

Everything is terrible, and everything is wonderful. Allow me to tell you a story:

In the middle of our otherwise urban landscape, there’s a small patch of woods that you’d be forgiven for blinking and missing. I have grown to love it over the years of living nearby, taking walks and observing the seasonal changes. It is polluted and scraggly and cared for and beautiful.

A bike path winds through it where I see people from the neighborhood walking dogs, pushing strollers, running, and riding bikes year-round. The part that’s an officially designated city park is an open field with an old, ill-used softball diamond that also features a lovely, labyrinth walking path. One small strip of native prairie grasses grows alongside it, where bluestem and a few clutches of milkweed, white wild indigo, and various sedges eke out an existence.

Starkweather Creek runs through the western edge and creates a border between our little oasis and a public golf course. A noisy Air National Guard base truncates it to the northeast. Between the latter and the Dane County Regional Airport, there’s a near-constant hum of jet engine hums and screams and the thwap-thwap-thwap of helicopters.

It’s not exactly peaceful or idyllic. Still, every spring, the clutches of oaks, hickories, basswoods, and other trees that make up the very small segment of woods plays host to what feels like an outsized number of migrating songbirds. I first noticed it when, in spring of 2020, I took up birding as a way to cope with the isolation of pandemic lockdown. I walked into our woods with a pair of binoculars and the Merlin bird ID app and stumbled onto a wild variety of visitors: yellow-rumped and blackpoll warblers, hermit thrushes and red-crowned kinglets. Over the years since, this 4-acre oasis in the middle of Madison has become something of a hot spot for birders and even rare (for this area) finds: prairie and hooded warblers, even a yellow-billed cuckoo.

I’ve noticed, too, over the past 5 years, a significant amount of volunteer effort has gone into clearing the woods of problematic species like buckthorn and garlic mustard. Where once it was all you could see growing, there have now been a few years in a row of lovely, open forest, such that some native, ephemeral plants have re-emerged from long-dormant seed beds. I’ve been keeping an eye on a small patch of trillium, clearing off fallen leaves and brush so that they can hopefully continue to thrive and spread. There are just a handful of plants, but there were none before when the ground was covered in garlic mustard so thick that no sun could reach the forest floor. A couple years of hard work by human hands and nature responded with resilience and enthusiasm.

We find mushrooms, too: pheasantback and oyster and even, once, the teeniest tiniest morrell you’ve ever seen. Trails are maintained by volunteers, too, including a surprisingly decent (unofficial) network of mountain bike trails that swoop and roll through one section of woods.

The creek itself is incredibly polluted by PFAS, the cancer-causing forever-chemicals that run off from firefighting foam used at the airport and Air Guard base. I seem to recall a ruling that said the military should pay for cleaning up their mess, but as far as I know, they’ve managed to stall and stonewall any progress on that much-needed process. Instead, we saw permanent, metal signs posted along the creekway, warning people and pets away from wading, drinking, fishing, or any interaction with it at all.

Still, we love Starkweather from a safe distance. We fight for its improvement. We enjoy the admittedly degrading beauty of its winding passage, the wood ducks and muskrats that call it home.

I guess all of this is to say that I find a comforting, grander meaning in my neighborhood’s relationship with its natural landscape. It’s part of a mantra I’ve been repeating to myself just about every day since Trump took office and began his fascist, authoritarian blitzkrieg.

We can–and must–continue to love broken things. We can–and must–dream and work toward what we want, instead of only reacting to what we don’t want. We can–and must–get our hands dirty to care for those things we cherish, and those things will respond to that care with enthusiasm. And, in order not to give in to the (understandable!) feelings of overwhelm and despair that so many of us feel in this moment, sometimes it’s best to zoom IN. Focus on yourself, first and foremost. As the saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup. I recommend engaging with the ideas of pleasure activism, as a place to start. And then, focus on your personal networks–reach out to people, connect, commiserate, share meals, have game nights, make crafts, go dancing, host parties. From there, think about your local communities: What patch of ill-used and neglected woods could use your loving hands? Is there already a neighborhood or friends group that you can plug into and lend support? Who is already doing the work that you can learn from? What small or large things can you offer?

Obviously, it doesn’t have to be a literal patch of woods that you choose to support (though I encourage it!). We live in a society that has long neglected, if not outright attacked, many of its natural and human communities. What happens when we choose to keep on loving those places, those people? How much does it add up to something big and systemic if more people choose to engage positively with their local, small spaces? What growth can we cultivate with our own two hands?

There are seeds everywhere, just waiting for sunlight.

Now read this.

“Trump Is On the Wrong Side of History By Design” [GIFT LINK: Jamelle Bouie for the New York Times]

Trump’s war on D.E.I. is a war on the civil rights era itself, an attempt to turn back the clock on equal rights. Working under the guise of fairness and meritocracy, Trump and his allies want to restore a world where the first and most important qualification for any job of note was whether you were white and male, where merit is a product of your identity and not of your ability.

“We’re dealing with actual Nazis” [Marisa Kabas at The Handbasket]

Whatever comes to mind when you think of a Nazi, that is for whom this country is currently being run. And the powers that be aren’t shy about it.

“Wokeness is not to blame for Trump” [Rebecca Traister for NY Mag]

How a misdiagnosis of the 2024 election has calcified into self-defeating conventional wisdom.

“A Message to Persons Unknown” [Margaret Killjoy at Birds Before the Storm]

…a social movement can’t be built on a subculture, nor even a counterculture. It can’t be built on a single culture or aesthetic. A revolution cannot be one thing for one group of people. It’s got to be woven together with many strands.

It’s not that anarchism and political movements can’t be subcultural, it’s that they must be multicultural. You don’t become multicultural by abandoning culture but by embracing the diversity of cultures. We ought to embrace the radical potential of every subculture we can find.

In person.

I get up to things sometimes. Here are some of those things, for your calendars, if you’re interested:

• HOT FLASH: Early Dance Party - Every first Friday of the month from 7-9:45 p.m. at the Cardinal Bar in Madison. Free/21+. Me and a co-DJ play dance jams from the ‘70s thru the ‘00s. Always a great time!
• Saturday, March 22: HOT FLASH/DYKE DIVE cross-over, 7 p.m. to midnight at the Bur Oak in Madison. $5 for the first 100 people in the door, $10 after that. Me and Sarah Akawa!
• Thursday, April 1: Drumming with LINE for our first Madison gig of the year. Details TBA!
• Monday, June 2: Hosting a reading and Q&A with my friend Alex Hanna upon the release of her new (and excellent) book, “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Build the Future We Want” at A Room of One’s Own in Madison. 6 p.m.

A few of my favorite things.

Some recommendations:

WIRED has been doing top-notch and deeply needed reporting work about DOGE’s rampage through our federal government. Subscriptions are dirt cheap. Support their essential reporting work!

Vibe Check is my go-to podcast for cultural commentary and analysis, queer humor, recommendations, and thoughtful practice. The community on their Patreon is also vibrant and fun!

A long-overdue read of Ursula K. LeGuin’s book, “The Dispossessed,” has me thinking about anarchist organizing principles, human nature, and the utility of good sci-fi in helping us imagine possible futures. A great read.

Currently listening to “Our Calling,” the new collaborative album between cora virtuoso Ballaké Sissoko and singer Piers Faccini. If you need something deeply calming and restorative to listen to, this is it.

Final frame.

Last Saturday, my roller derby league had our final games of the home season. In the wake of all the evil anti-trans crud coming from the White House and elsewhere, the entire league rallied around making a statement in support of our own members and all trans people/athletes everywhere. When I say my lil’ trans/non-binary heart grew ten sizes that day, I mean it. This is me with three of my fellow trans and non-binary teammates, showing off the shirts the league made (in like 48 hours) for everyone to wear at the game. You can read our full statement as a league here, and watch an interview with our Executive Director about it here. We take care of us! xoxo

‘Til next time.

Stay hydrated, take a nap, reach out, and free Palestine and Sudan.