Well, yesterday sure happened, huh?
I took the day off of life and spent the time farming through two entire seasons in Stardew Valley. I didn’t bother showering. I brushed my teeth, but that’s about the extent of things. I avoided the Internet almost entirely. I chopped wood, I carried water, I adopted a stray cat named Juno and a small flock of chickens named Nugget, Soup, and Pie. My real cats spent the day sleeping on my lap.
“But! But! You’re supposed to stand witness and not look away and and and!!!”
Fuck that shit. Me burning myself to ashes on Day One won’t help a damned thing except the hateful assholes who want us all dead. I spent my day carefully replenishing my metaphorical silverware drawer because let’s be clear, I’m going to need every spoon, fork, knife, and chopstick I can get my hands on.
Look. I am a disabled queer woman living on a very tiny monthly stipend (the last, finite, dregs of my late father’s retirement fund) in a state with a very high cost of living. I do not qualify for financial assistance. I can’t work a “normal” job anymore due to several health conditions, including Long Covid. My partner and I are not married. He’s been out of work for over a year and I just had to close my art business because it was no longer paying for itself, let alone paying me. We’re down to the last few pennies and pocket lint, and I already had to crowdfund a car repair. The mortgage is due in a couple of weeks and the only thing stopping me from selling plasma to pay the bill is the previously mentioned medical problems.
I am fucking terrified.
So no, I will not be spending any more time than I absolutely have to “witnessing” jack(booted) shit. It accomplishes nothing useful. I will look away from the horror marathon and run my little beach farm (and meadow farm, and mountain farm, and….) as often as I can. I will take my camera out on field trips to the woods and the water and the wild and look for little brown birbs and bright red and yellow mushroom rings. When it’s not subzero wind chills, I will wander and look for whimsy and weird little mysteries, and if I can’t find them, well, I guess I’ll have no choice but to make them. I will make the charms to call the willow-wrens, and play nursery rhymes in the mist, and take the residents of Auntie Yaga’s Home For Wayward Monsters on field trips. I will become a bird oracle and the Oracle of Roads and I will tell strange fortunes at the rest stops and crossroads.
I will be the whimsy and the weird that I want to see in the world.
I will do this because re-enchantment is resistance and dear, sweet fishies, we’re all gonna need it.
(Relatedly, if you want to leave a coin for your mostly friendly wordwitch to help keep a roof over my cats’ heads, the hat’s on the table over here.)
Tricksters Road 