i love you

just got back from montreal. i didn't have the money to go. but i never usually do. 

it felt good to travel alone again. i mean, i wasn't entirely alone. my pals and i rented a car together. but, they all had their own plans. and i had to justify the trip with some sort of article for the paper. 

i attended a conference on police brutality, which i enjoyed immensely. it reminded my sometimes unjustifiably disenchanted heart that the struggle continues. the struggles bleed into each other. and this quiet... just means i can't see it anymore. the reasons for caring at all. for mobilizing. when i feel too privileged to wave a flag about anything. 

i got suspended from welfare again. i submitted my income form well on time, but they lost it it seems. and now my rent will bounce (again) and i will incur the cost. and i'll look like all the stereotypes of someone poor and dealing with mental health issues. and really, i don't need their help in that regard. 

but why do i do that? feel shame? get overcome with fear? slink past my landlord's house, situated too close for my liking.

because i believe it too. i believe that crazy and poor are things i need to distance myself from in order to assure myself i am ...who i want to be. but like my prof molly once said to me in her kitchen, as my heart bled all over her table while we sipped our gin: 'you're not a fuck up, jes. you're just struggling. life is struggle'

and ain't it true. 

nate sent me an email today entitled 'i love you'. all it said was:

"The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community even if their intentions are ever so honest. But the person who loves those around them will create community."

i guess thats what i'm starting to understand. the intelligence i am crafting with the academic mentors around me means very little in terms of any sort of utopic climax. the opportunity is always present to experience community. the politics are important but the love is the institutional memory. 

maybe that's what stephen was getting at with our discussion of Richard III today. the role of the men in the play and that of the women. the women were constantly mourning. and losing. and flailing. and enduring. sure it ended with the gorey death of a king. but that was for entertainment. the real conclusion was this hunger for power could slaughter and force submission to innocence and life but never exist without the tenderness of the womb. 

and its a great metaphor. we can harden ourselves. like richard, this self-loathing hunchback with bloodlust and a beautiful tongue. but we require love. and it kills us.