Rumi.

Dear Matthew,

Before you go to sleep tonight, look above you.  Stars are being born, aging and dying, with a whisper or a bang. In the micro-cosmos within us, particles of energy dance to rhythms which cannot be heard by our human ears. This reflection of the universe, echoing in every living thing, can you see it? Do you recognize within you a child of the cosmos? I’ve been trying to understand my place in this world.

When I was a little kid, my mother would wake me up before she headed off to work, and ask me what I planned to do for my day. The simplest things, to her, were extremely important. And at the end of the day she would ask me what I had accomplished. It was quite annoying, sometimes, but now that those times are a blur, asking myself, “what have I done, what can I do, where am I heading?” is sometimes the only way to save myself. (most of the time, it’s the what have I done, but I’m keeping count and still have lots of chances to get it right).

I want to understand the situations that have forged my life. Am I part of a diaspora? Those visions that I have of my parents covering my ears and closing my eyes as random fireworks invaded the street. Were they real? The monsters I was afraid of had names and last names, and appeared on TV at 6 o’clock every evening, with a reward sign, in case any of us found them. (I always checked under my bed, but he was actually caught on a rooftop, and vanished). What about the women who took care of me? I heard them cry at night in their rooms… they were barefoot and their hands were wrinkled and wise. One day, after returning to school, my family hid me in my room, with all the windows closed, and the entire family played house under the bed. None of us were allowed to stand up for the rest of the night, as they told us stories and laughed nervously. Matthew, I do not recall playing out in the streets, or having friends come over to my house. We were not allowed to pick up the phone, and seldom did we ever go to birthday parties. When we visited relatives, they always sat in the kitchen to whisper adult topics we were not allowed to hear… a friend of them was gone, another one had left, the rest of them could not be found. Although I was overprotected from many of the things around me, I was aware of the world I lived in. How could we ever forget?  War gets in your skin, in the fibers of your eyes and your dreams, and never ever leaves you.

One day we got on a gigantic bird, and flew over the rainbow and almost touched the stars. Then came a new language; a world I haven’t understood completely. I became a woman, and spoke with new manners, and didn’t follow the traditions of my parents, and all of what had once been my reality, began to fade away, to the point where I cannot really remember if it was all an illusion. I know it wasn’t, but I wonder…

More visions. My body changed. One day a young man, a family friend, said he liked the way I saw the world, and how I was the only one he could communicate with. he was in his 30’s. I was 9. His way to thank me for this was to lock the doors, turn off the lights, and touch me. All is darkness afterwards. More visions. I’m walking to school with my girlfriends… men sitting on the sidewalk tend to wait for us. They’re always discussing and giving us names, and asking with such authority for things we wished to never hear. They would follow us sometimes. No one did anything. Running. Always running. Others weren’t so fortunate. There were rummors of children being born to other children, but no one spoke about it. Broken wombs, broken childhoods, broken dreams. Cages of yellow dresses. Silence.  no one fights it, they are afraid, they are numb. they do not believe.

This path of existence I have chosen does not distance itself from the girl I once was, dreaming of becoming a superhero to slap the bad guys and get them to wake up once and for all. That part of me has grown, fed by the stories of many children and women, men and elders who all have arrived to this great ship, not hiding from their past,  simply striving to believe again. There is abuse of power, corruption, hunger, separated families, fear. All sorts of nightmares. was it destiny? was it the universe? was it a god, and in that case, why was he so angry? was it a random stroke of collective bad luck repeating itself over and over through the waters? I no longer ask any of these questions. I am no longer afraid of the answers.We didn’t choose this destiny. We didn’t run away from our land. We were pushed away. We were born here. We were led here. We are here as they are here, and that is all that matters. We are just energy.

I close my eyes tonight and know, that just as these stars, we, too, are being born and aging and dying, with a whisper or a bang, every second that passes. And as we do, material things, such as land and credit and recognition, lose all its value and evaporate. But the universe remains. Its galaxies and atoms, its nights full of lights and secrets. How have we become so blind to them? Where did it all go wrong?

No, I am not poor. I am not one of the less priviledged ones. They are wrong. The fight is greater than the numbing routine they have established to silence their hearts.

Where are you? Will you walk with me? No one asks us to repeat the chain of violence that has been stowed upon us through the centuries. You, as I do, understand that this will only bring us more loss and more suffering. This is not a conspiracy to take over, or an attempt to avenge anything or anyone. We do not forget, so that these stories do not repeat again. But we do not let hate speak through us…

When others do not listen, when fear and anger invade us, we do not spit the venom. We transform it. we sing to the stars, even if we can’t see them, because they are within us. Our reality is greater than the hurt they ever caused you.

Now look at the path you’re on, and pick up any stone. Let it be your talisman.

Tune it to the rhythm of your heart.

I will dance with you.

Jen.

Dear Matthew,

I once read this phrase by a Guatemalan poet, Humberto Ak’Abal: “No, distance does not exist. Far away are only those who by being close to you, harm you”. It is yours too. My measure of time and space has become just like that phrase. From the beginning of my reconstruction to whom I have become today, no matter how under construction or how slow the process has been… the one thing that remains is that marveling measure of distance, which can only be explained by invisible strings, connections of hope and stardust mixed in with plenty of fighting in our surreal present, the path where we each walk, so different from one another.

If you could see me now, what would you ask me? where would our scars divide us? How far are we now from each other, after the world has ended and rebirthed so many times, again and again?

Confusion has taken over. Within the flesh and through the streets. Mistrust, hunger, corruption, hoaxes, lies, deceit. These words are in the dictionary of our children, of our women and men, and in the eyes full of fear of everyone around us. My house has fallen. No heat and no water were OK, no money and no food were OK, no sun and no alcohol were OK, but ceiling and walls have plumetted because these were not material. I had a friend, you see, a warrior. Fought by his side till the time came for him to part. I’m blinded by anger; waves of monstrous deception, as if I had been tricked by the great puppeteer… I’m dissappointed to no end… when I get a hold of myself, I see me finding new rules and inventing machines to bring back time, because I’m selfish and care not much about anything, except returning home. But there’s no such thing. I must ask… was there ever?

Talk to me. Find me. can you see me? I’m in the middle of a babel that does not breath dreams. I’m surrounded by asphalt, authorities keep telling us we’re not welcome here. I’ve been volunteering at a non-profit org to feel useful while the thunderstorm goes away. Just doing the basics, using colors and words, mirrors and memories to keep the ghosts away. The children I work with are the greatest warriors I have met in years. Each day, they share with me stories of ravaged childhoods, separated families, discriminated brothers, overworked parents. Each day, they split their food with the smaller ones, and go out to the world, less and less afraid of standing up for themselves. Now I know it is them teaching me to keep going, not the other way around. I was a fool for years.

Forgive me if I sound defeated. It is not that my light has vanished. I’m a firefly and soon you’ll see me fighting by your side. I have not lost my belief in humanity, my hands still stretch out to give out and thread, and I’m hungrier than ever for a friend, a challenge, a reason. If I scream my voice will not be drowned by the numbing sounds of burden, law, oppression. The many who have been lost along the way, remain with us, and with their strength we continue. And so, among the stench of darkness, death and vigilance, the cynical laughter of the reckless ones keeps on asking: Will you let them silence you? My answer is no. I will not submit. I am not alone.

Two new walls stand right in front of me. See how in a previous letter you told me you were giving up your passport? hiding it under a bus, and trying to be rid of a title? Well, it is my time to put it around my neck, for that’s the only way to open doors and join you and the rest of them. I cannot stay here as a guardian for too long. The paperwork is tiring and burocracy makes me want to rip my lungs out and eat them, but I need them so I just wait patiently for my number to ring.

The second wall is internal. Just like your cancer story, but without the happy ending. Upon my return to this land, I had to run to a hospital, since apparently I was having an internal hemorrage inside my head (yum, who would’ve thought I would run from a description like this), and so I had the needles sticking in, and drops and machines, and doctors and pokers and plenty of days of just white lights. After it all, no answer, plenty of headaches (even worse than before), and a bill that fits into the loophole of not-insured-so-you’re-fucked deal, and here I am. Half an eye and a pile of rude phonecalls. My credit wasn’t worthy of a lollypop loan anyway… Since I’m stuck in this land for a while, I’ll just have to keep piling them up until I know I can get on a plane or a boat without having my head explode or the doors close after me forever if I want to come back. I’m not one of the priviledged ones. it fills me with pride.

What else can I tell you? What else is there to say? Distance and time do not exist. They don’t separate us. For this reason, by closing my eye I can be right beside you if you are to miss me… you’ll fall asleep with my crazed lullabies. (I will be the greatest cyclops of our time if necessary), and I will rise.

Teletransportation. Is it an option yet?

Yours always,

Jen.

6 – Why the fuck not?

In this life of constant running it is difficult to take time to reflect and give serious attention to the road ahead. most of the time I am caught somewhere between the hand and the mouth, always trying to fall forward.
With all the rushing and chaos taking up my attention it is hard to follow the news with any regularity. So one day I get online and hear about disputed election and then a few days later i re-enter the social stream only to discover that there is a fire in Cairo.  It is exciting to see these unexpected events unfold, but my experience tells me that it requires some serious consideration before we declare that humanity is on the mend.
As I said, there is little or no time to properly monitor the news stories and research the facts. What there is, is plenty of time for speculation. And this leads to some questionable, yet entertaining ideas. For example, when Obama became king I was travelling around Europe and constantly questioned about what I thought that meant for the planet. So I used my powers of deduction (or imagination depending on your politics) to predict that Obama would be assassinated in an attempt to spark a class war in the guise of a race war-like the Mansons tried to do. Then the armies could use their post 911 training to move into poor neighborhoods and wipe out the troublesome populations. I was only partly wrong. Insteqd of the king it was the hope that died and instead of Blackwater (XE as they like to be called now) the invasion was numerical trickery. It is actually worse than I predicted in the sense that the effective use of propoganda has divided the populations even further and every eye on the prize is a desperate, hungry eye.
Ever since I made the dreadful mistake of hoping the fall of the towers would serve as a catalyst to unite the oppressed and do away with all these centuries of slavery and exploitation my interpretation of events has followed a darker path. I know there were many of us shaken to our core that morning. Of course none of us took delight in the destruction of human beings, there was still a hope that the event could be transformed. Instead, armies were sent in to destroy some of the poorest people on the planet. I felt stupid and angry for being so surprised so I had to compensate for my crippling belief in the power of human kindness. I learned to expect the worst.
Zizek claims that it is the American sense of guilt that fills our heads with fantasies of destruction. According to him we are so confused by all the misinformation and manipulation of our desires that the only way we can imagine relief is by completely clearing the landscape and starting over. This, he explains, is why we love horror movies and disaster scenarios. So be it.
I do not think it is too outlandish to expect a scenario of class war on the streets of America as well as around the world. I think it is obvious that it has been going on since before we were born and it would be crazy to deny it. As long as there is no poverty with dignity there will be this war. If I could imagine an end I would do it. Instead I can only see the means to an infinite number of possible ends. The mind boggles and in that comfortable state of confusion I face each moment with an optimistic attitude of, “well you can’t fuck THIS up.”
Day by day the task at hand, whatever it may be, consumes all of the energy there is. The struggle to survive is THEE FIGHTING and we are all caught up in it. It would be so easy if only there were some omnipotent being measuring and maintaining a balanced order to every human action. That is the very thing I was told at an impressionable age. If only there were exact measurements that could be be read for every single particle in the universe so that we could collectively employ the scientific method to determine the course of human kind then we could all be occupied by the necessary tasks of living in a mutualist relationship with world around us. It seems that people are more inclined to decry the burden of enlightenment rather than find joy in the opportunity to grow stronger and carry a heavier load. And I can not hold out hope that we will all come together in a moment of clarity, hold hands and take our steps together into a brighter future. No, we all just get wasted.
So where do we go from here? If all the “movements” of human history have been co-opted and perverted then how can anyone believe in anything anymore?
The only answer is, “fuck if I know.”
Chomsky is a clever guy who has done great work to expose the invisible hands that run the machine. It is his advice that we the people organize ourselves into the gazillion various movements it takes to address the problems facing humanity. I want to believe this idea, but I see repeatedly how things get fucked up. The internet gives people a false sense of accomplishment in that many people feel that simply sharing information and being aware is enough to bring down an empire. So while the blog world might be blowing up with wikileaks documents and videos of open market violence it is only reporting of events; safe and from a distance and long after the fact.
Here’s a riddle:
How many flash mobs does it take to bring down a helicopter?
Here’s another one:
What do the Anti-Fascist youth groups do with the world after they eliminate all the fascists?
Unfortunately the answer to both is, “they don’t.”
Bernadine Dohrn of Chicago’s Weathermen(Weather Underground) once spoke at the University of Chicago about the importance of institutionalizing these movements. This seems to be a large jump from her Days of Rage techniques undertaken by the Weathermen. And obviously it is the result of years of thoughtful contemplation after the huge failure of their angry, youthful approach.
But I have seen what kind of weight the academic world throws around the cage, and ain’t nobody making a movie about what Bernadine Dohrn is doing now. Who would buy it?
The point I am getting at is that information and good intentions will only get you so far in this world. We spend our intellectual time and energy staring at systems and trying to expose their flaws so that some magickal “other” can come in and clean it up. We spend our physical time and energy shaking our fists in the air and working just enough to afford a little protection from the gazillion things we can’t seem to handle. We spend our bargaining chips on whatever creature comforts we can indulge in like school, art, music, alchoholism, politics, science, sports or whatever our little obsession may be. We all have a jones and we indulge it when we can. We earned it. No doubt.
So here we are now, trying to connect and organize while holding on to our sanity and instituionalize our ideas and pay off the cops and shape the future. In order to better go boldly forward I would like to make a prediction of some possible scenarios we will have to face.
In the last year some interesting developments occurred. There was the discovery of millions of red-dwarf stars that are old enough to earth like planets in their orbit that have existed as long as our own little planet. The chances of discovering intelligent life out there gets exponentially greater as a result. A new life form based on arsenic as opposed to carbon was discovered in a poison lake in California. An entirely alien life form grown up in the United States. (So much for sealing off the borders.) I predict that the world order that has developed will continue to unravel and these drug wars and terror wars will not sustain their believability amongst the masses. In a desperate attempt to uphold their dominance, the powers that be will try a new “towers” approach. The stage is set for giant death rays from space to come and wipe out entire populations while alien life forms emerge from the oceans to spread diseases we cant overcome. Christians and Muslims can all stand together to battle the new enemies and marshall law will be the only way to “secure” what “freedoms” our home planet can afford. So many prophecies to be fulfilled and so little time, things are getting desperate.We better get busy.

5 – Always on the run

Here we are in December and it finds us in Denmark. Paris was a trial of incredible difficulty on all fronts. The legal issues have both expanded beyond my grasp and at the same time I have just let them go without difficulty. The real problem is that the United States has me as a member and that may give me a great deal of shame but it also affords me a lack of scrutiny. This lack of scrutiny is often confused with freedom and liberty.

As I was trying to figure out what to do about being in Europe longer than my visa would allow I discovered that my pink skin(although i am darker than you) makes me invisible to the eyes of most servants of the “law” that I come in contact with. I mean, they see me, but they are not trained to fear me. An example of this is when I went to the police and customs people in France to see what they thought about my illegal status. They didn’t care. In fact, they changed my status from “illegal” to “irregular” with the magic of language. So suddenly, I was free from the burden of giving a fuck about following the law. Some of these representatives spoke to me in a whispered voice to give me advice on how not to worry about what the law says. How nice for me, but there is a huge community in Paris of people without papers. A lot of these people come from Africa and Eastern Europe. Thee Law takes a very different approach to them, and as a result these folks have a different view about how important it is to have national identity than I do. Hostility breeds submission because don’t nobody want to get any more hassle in this life.

We attended a demonstration with the Sans Papier(without papers) group and then went to a community meeting to hear their concerns. These folks would greatly benefit from having national identity because then the police wouldn’t fuck with them so much, the shit work they can get would pay them a better but still not liveable wage and they would be allowed to pay for the social services that the state claims to offer. For these people, I want them to get their papers or whatever it takes so that they can take it easier. For myself, I want to be recognized as a legitimate human being over and above any nation state and I declare that all these borders don’t exist – these armies are unjust – these money systems are a scam – these industrial complexes serve only to enslave man and are therefore criminal – and on and on and on. At the same time, I don’t want life to get any more difficult than it already is for me either.
In Paris, we were homeless and it was cold. We wanted to be warm so we asked for the kindness of strangers. And we took it. Then we left for Denmark to take the kindness of friends and try to pull our shit together a little bit.
To get here we took a bus ride for 20 hours. En route we crossed the German border and as I anticipated trouble at the German border I deliberately packed my passport with my luggage underneath the bus. As the cops came on board they were arresting(or detaining depending on which side of the gun you are on) people without passports. Funny enough, they were mostly from Africa. As the police were growing more and more hostile with teh two guys in front of me for not getting off the bus fast enough I began to worry about my little plan. Then the cops turned to me and asked for my passport. I explained that it was in my luggage under the bus but I showed him my Transnational ID and Texas drivers license. The Transnational ID did not impress him but as he saw I was from the U.S. and pink he just said, “as long as you have it with you it’s ok.” and he walked on down the aisle.
And now I am in Denmark, What a fucked up world.
Always on the run,
Mathew