an intimacy with death
a photo of a watercolor and ink painting of an anatomical heart, detailed with gold and overlaid with a sprig of calendula. the artist is my dear friend Kathy Bentley; the painting was a cherished birthday gift.
I became intimate with death through birth; you could say that birth work brought me to death work. I became a steward of death stories, learned every infinitesimal detail of what happens when someone is killed.
These days, when I read the news or scroll a feed on a random Sunday and am confronted with the stomach-drop of yet another death, a queer haven defiled — I find myself back on an ugly carpet in an ugly cubicle, surrounded by filing boxes and plastic binders and piles on piles of paper. Sifting through the snapshots, wondering if their story is here, somewhere — this is a familiar pattern, for me. A death story is only a fragment of a life story, but when one is cut short at the end of a gun, we search for answers and meaning and grief in the other.
I find, too, that I am searching for queer joy, with all its vibrancy and life. I know that queerness gives us language to love more deeply, intensely, exuberantly. Audre says, the erotic is not a question only of what we do, it is a question of how actively and fully we can feel in the doing.
This is the intimacy of death stories, the specific heartbreak of queer stories. May we be present with integrity, with dignity, with the fullness of feeling they demand.
a few medicines:
join me in donating to support the victims of the Club Q shooting.
“fixing & healing are only two of many ways to relate with a wound.”
free therapy for queer folks and gun violence survivors.
grieving takes work. please remember to drink some water, loves.
until next time.