Books that save us

Thank you for sharing my joys yesterday. I didn't think I could be happier, but your comments amplified that happiness, even in a time of national sorrow as a result of more white supremacist violence. 

Margie and I are now talking on Thursdays. I tag our talks #MondaysWithMargie because it’s a series. Margie is currently re-reading In Suspect Terrain (1984), by John MacPhee. She has read it before, several times. She sees her notes, her underlinings in different pens. “I don’t know how many times I’ve read it, but it gives me such pleasure. It reminds me of the truth of time. Human beings are just an eyelash. I love remembering that. If your view of time is tectonic plates and ice ages, you’re humbled. You have faith that something will outlast human beings and all our damage. Something will start again, beyond us. That is a great comfort.”

For me today it’s a book I had forgotten ordering: Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (2020), by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. It arrived in the mail, a book of prose poetry, of meditations, a book of science about marine animals, a book about justice and survival, ending capitalism and breathing. I am astonished to see that such a book exists, and that I had the good sense to order it, and here it is. Here’s a sample:

Once upon a time there was a giant sea mammal, who weighed up to twenty-three tons, swimming in the Bering Sea. In 1741, a German naturalist “discovered” Hydrodamalis gigas swimming large and luxe…. Within twenty-seven years, the entire species was extinct, killed on thousands of European voyages for fur and sealskin…. She had blubber and was hunted for it. They say she couldn’t sing. The only sound was her breathing, but she could hear for miles and miles and miles. What a loss for listening. How can we honor it, the archive of your breathing?

…Oh you rough mermaid, what are you teaching us about breath? Oh massive vegetarian, what do we do now that our listening is that much smaller? …What can I do to honor you now that it is too late?

I would honor you with the roughness of my skin, the thickness of my boundaries, the warmth of my own fat. I would honor you with my quiet and my breathing, my listening further and further out and in. I would honor you with the slowness of my movement, contemplative and graceful….

You get the idea. I could open to any page and read to you. My advice is to buy this book. Then read it. As I am going to do right now. Thank you for understanding why the comments need to go off for a while.

The image is four of Liz Harris’s “oil drops” sitting on my window ledge. It poured rain all day today and I spent time on the stationary bike but did not go out.