The image he painted stays with me; the way we look to eddies and find similar shapes, bits of trees navigating the ever change of the river. We find each other - the ones who don’t look away, who inhabit the underneath.
I moved to my new village 11 days ago. In that time, I’ve revisited beaches and mountains from last summer, laughing at the absurdity that I’ve landed back here in Munster half a year later. I waged war on the tiles and cobwebs, pouring love into Tearmann an Choill Bheag. As always, I’ve sprinkled my loathing and fears of empire into the conversations that have found me. I’ve shared many coffees, pastries, teas, with people who have battled colonialism and violence their entire lives, only to be seen and embraced fully within minutes. I’ve revisited new and old friends in Cork City, with a rolled ankle in toe, attending the Irish “Food Oscars” with a cane. I’ve been welcomed into the sea by seals at Cadogan’s Strand, rejoicing with a stranger on land at their sweetness. I’ve passed the hilarity of the neighboring sheep to friends across the airwaves back home. I even had the honor of welcoming a sandpainting from one of my former homes, gorgeously crafted by a dear friend, into this new home.
As I name all of that, I can’t help myself but grin. I’ve revisited writings from last summer and fall, hardly recognizing the terror of being torn from Ireland. On the other side, I also wrote about the fear of being scattered away from the many beloveds who have and continue to hold me stateside. In this moment, my belly and chest swell with the fullness that is having committed to this new life, bursting with possibility, without any clear sense of how or where or when I’d find the moment I’m in now. Is there still uncertainty? Of course. I wonder if or when it will feel safe to return to the soil of my birth. I’m waiting for the moment that all my contracts researching violence against Indigenous peoples will be terminated due to Trump & his gaggle of bigots’ forever dream of eliminating all that is beautiful and real. There are questions, important ones - what will happen when the remaining 10 months of my visa dry up?
There’s a both/and, even in this moment of elation. As I’ve navigated these last 2 months back on Irish soil, I’ve run into old aches that still call for attention. My tendency to put hurts into boxes in attempts to shelve them, they fail even on the Emerald Isle. Exposing myself most days to the survival stories of Native children, women, peoples, they’ve brought my familiar symptoms of life with cPTSD into the bubble. I was formerly telling myself the story that my mental health was cured by Irish seas and fields. With a loving invitation from one of my dearest friends in the Bay Area, I’ve returned, begrudgingly, to therapy. With more grief than I expected, I’ve revisited spiritual practices that opened the flood of pain that kept me from prayer all these years. There are moments when I do wrestle with my oldest, most protective beliefs that I will never be safe, that it’s always been and will be my fault.
As I root into all that’s true, I feel my feet on the chilly morning floor. I bought a cozy rug I’ve placed beneath the desk so my feet don’t deaden in the cold. I woke, as I often do, to a tiny slug on the bathroom wall. Just like James taught me, I gently collected them on a tissue and transported them back into the rainy morning welcoming us on the porch. As I drop into the life I’m finding here, I’m marveling at all I’m learning, everyone and every moment at my back, the way the land and my ancestors have guided me to this moment. I feel it. The blessing of return at a time when so many are under attack - it’s not lost on me.
I’ve long waited for there to be words to speak about the horrors happening on the other side of the Atlantic, the ways their waves are striking all around the earth. The way guilt and fear course through me intermittently - my heart aches for the friends and communities I love who are under the spector of ICE, authoritarianism, violence. So much of my adult life has been oriented toward challenging the belly of the beast that is US empire. Much of what made my decision to leave came down to the acceptance that we cannot reign in a monster that thirsts only for capital, flesh, resources. As I write that, there’s still a whisper that maybe I’m giving up, making excuses for having made a decision that insulates me from the horrors.
Living in my ancestral homelands means that the rose colored glasses are starting to fracture. Just like in the US, it wasn’t until the 90’s that it became possible across the country for a marital partner to be held accountable for rape. The same goes for access to divorce, and the legal ending of criminalizing homosexuality. Gender based violence runs rampant, and the ways fractions of the Emerald Isle and the US celebrate rapists has been on full display even in the last couple of weeks. Looking at you, Conor McGregor and 47. Colonialism, it links us, for better or for worse. As I continue finding my steps toward a world in which land, water, and all beings are dignified and protected in the way we collectively dream, I won’t look away.
Inside all of this, I’m grateful. For each of you who doesn’t look away, for the way I cherish sunshine in a way I never have before. The ways my body carries me to sacred places, my mind arriving after we’ve landed somewhere. As I begin rebuilding my practice of prayer, I pray for each of us, including the gaggle of bigots. May we all soften toward ourselves and each other. May we find ways to let love in so we can move differently. May we change course, so that we all can live, rejoice, and be inside the world - together.
