Backlogged on work, so fuller catch-up here tomorrow.

For now:

Thank you for your presence, & not just with my posts, but in your own lives, so richly & fully inhabited.

We have such different POVs, shaping different responses to war, identity, trauma, politics, how best to post "nudes" (see below)...

What matters is *not* that we're always on the same page.

It's that we feel safe to share what our page contains, & to learn from other pages too.

May you always know the value of your own. 🕊️

#War

One final media note before I get back to work:

The reason I've noted the lack of infants in the list is because I'm worried we're going to get a repeat of Sandy Hook.

I have zero idea what kernel of truth lay in the uncorroborated report of added atrocity.

I *do* know that this rumour's wildfire intensity will find any named families hounded to prove the horrific claim.

Unchecked rumours devastate victims in the long run.

I wish every affected family the ability to grieve in peace.

As a perfect example of unfolding data...

I waited 3 days after the list went up, while listening to discussion from those regional, before posting anything about it, & now more names have been added. 767 total, 419 civilians, 19 under 18, no infants yet listed.

My point remains: even in Israel, people are cut off from info, waiting with distrust amid grief, so we have to be *extra* careful what we assert from afar.

Still, precision matters.
Updates matter.

And a life lost is a life lost. 🕯️

On a personal level, I'm still living with a deep quiet in my heart.

The novel is a lot better than I thought it was, when I put it aside in July. I really think a lot of you will like it: much more accessible than my other works.

I'll finish it, and I'll keep putting out other materials this year - audiobook, anti-memoir, newsletters, news analysis...

But I'm definitely not feeling a lot of love for life these days.

And I'm saying that so others know they're not alone. 🫂 Weary times abound.

And again, there is *no reason* to jump to conspiracies.

This is the fog of war, full stop. (And familes might have reasons for not releasing names.)

Data never emerges fast enough or well enough to stay ahead of panic, anger, and grief.

So it really is incumbent upon us to take things slow and move carefully through this hurting world.

Hateful people exist.

People are dying because of it.

We have to be humanitarians more than contributors to further harm.

G'morning & good Sunday, all. 🕊️

#War

*Wisely, those colleagues are posting in Hebrew. They're disillusioned (like I keep noting, Israel is not monolith), but if more folks knew that even many Israelis don't trust their government, it could yield more chaos at a time of *very* real antisemitism. So they're stuck grieving and toeing a line.

War is awful. Here are the names. So far, 16 have been identified as under 18. No infants explicitly yet.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-19/ty-article-magazine/victims/0000018b-325c-d450-a3af-7b5cf0210000

#War

The internet is such a rough domain.

Israeli colleagues on other platforms are hashing out what to make of only 683* names being released of the 1,400 figure from 7/10. Plus, local agitators want to storm the mosque. Bombing in Gaza continues in the evac zone as in the North.

And those are just some of the info stressors *in* the region.

So just remember: the fog of war is a mess. We have waves of righteous feeling that can do great harm. The truth will always take longer to show up.

New coffee on. ☕

Writing time. ✍️

Be good to your helplessly-watching-at-a-distance-while-the-world-burns selves, all you intensely alive and wonderfully weird meat-sacks, you. ❤️

#War #News #Antisemitism

Once hate is riled up, once anger is stoked, it lashes out, empowered, and strikes the most vulnerable, including the people who have committed their lives to being open and present for their communities.

May her memory be a blessing.

May they find the perpetrator(s) swiftly.

May none of us forget that this is not a game, and that what's whipped up online has legs in the real world.

"Detroit synagogue board president found dead outside home"

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2023/10/21/detroit-synagogue-president-found-dead-at-home-police-say/71272065007/

There's been a vicious cycle online lately.

1) People treat empathy as a scarce resource.

2) People lash out at any act empathy toward "the other side" for fear of that scarce resource running out.

3) People legitimize the fear in Step 2 by running out of empathy for those lashing out... which brings us back to Step 1.

Empathy does not have to be a scarce resource. We do not have to diminish *any* suffering - & that includes the suffering of those lashing out.

It's trauma all the way down.

Sometimes there's nothing better than returning to a beloved classic at a new juncture in one's life.

Haven't read The Possessed (Demons/Devils) since I was a teen.

Oh, how wise, fun, and sprawling in sly confidence the prose remains.

I could never be a Dostoevsky (and thank goodness, I've never endured what he did to become the writer we know), so I'm glad to live in a world where he already existed. It's best to aim to be the best versions of ourselves (however weird) instead.

#AmReading

Today's new vocab, from the crossword, included this macabre synonym for a carousel: tiovivo.

What a weird history. The term comes from the owner of a famous carousel who either claimed that he was alive just before dying, or gave everyone a shock when it seemed like he was coming back to life after death.

Ergo "tío" (uncle, also friend) "vivo" (is alive): because his state of being kept turning, like the carousel he'd owned! 😂

Language is SO WEIRD sometimes.

Ha! During crossword time with my coffee vendor friend a fellow struggled to place me. 😁 I had him stumped!

Him: Argentina?
Me: No!
Him: Brazil?
Me: No!
Him: Portugal?
Me: No!
Him: ...Spain?
Me: No!
Him: ...France?
Me: No!
Him: 🤷‍♂️

What confused him was that although my Spanish has an accent, it is richly paisa, with all the right softness and many constructions only found in Romantic languages. His experience with North Americans is a coarse Spanglish, lacking in local flavour. #CanadianPaisa 🎉

This is a problem I wanted to write about this summer, and should still try to pitch somewhere soon. Debt servicing is *consuming* most countries' budgets.

How is this possible? Because of neoliberalism. Our public-private systems have siphoned public funds into private debts, which countries can't negotiate away through public/foreign-policy channels.

This system is starving our ability to invest in our citizens' future. We won't be able to tackle big problems until it's solved.

#Colombia

Good night to everyone who's going to go to bed and lie awake thinking. 🕊️

I also love going from a day of writing into English classes.

My students don't give a hoot what I do for the rest of my day.

They just want to impress me with their homework, or apologize for not having it done, or wow me with their reading and writing skills in class.

I do so love a diverse work schedule! (The parts around other human beings also keep me from imploding, so that's a huge plus, too.)

Happy Friday evening, lovely creatures! Pour one down your gullets for me! 🍷/💧

I want to add that I can barely make 5-point plan to fix my own damned life. 😂 Solve the ME crisis! FFS.

Oh, the dangers of speaking with any level of platformed authority...

Relatedly:

This is why I love CoSo. We share expertise from within specific, known contexts, and we know how to offer correctives constructively, if necessary, because we see each other's humanity first & last in anything we share.*

*Or we try to, at least. Some days, we should wait for the coffee to kick in first... 😉

😂😂

CoSo! Laugh with me, because someone just asked me--in all seriousness--to provide a solution to Israel & Gaza.

Mi gente.

Don't *ever* trust anyone who tries to offer unilateral solutions. Any such solution would intrinsically be *antithetical* to peace.

Peace is a process. It is *work*, it never ends, and it always requires commitment to collaborative discussion.

War can & does make us nuts - but please, don't *ever* go so nuts as to expect quick fixes from lone weirdo human beings! 🙃