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Books I Like: Non-Fiction

This is my all-time favorite book. I return to it again and again and my paperback copy from the 1960s has grown a bit tattered.

Baldwin’s compassion, intelligence, and sheer presence stalk through every word and phrase. This book is a must read for everyone living in the United States, period. It is also an important read for anyone interested in topics of justice, race, sexuality, and passion.

Baldwin is one of the great thinkers of the 20th century. His work stands the test of time, mostly because we have yet to learn the lessons he tried to impart.

This is a lush book about interlocking worlds. It allows the reader to dive into the variegated life of top chef Marcus Samuelsson, experiencing the sights and sounds of Gothenburg, Adis Ababa, and New York City.

It’s an excellent read for creatives. As a writer, I appreciated the descriptions of FOOD, meaning: taste, texture, smell. Also, the sheer focus on the work and joy of CRAFT, shows how all of life’s experiences are necessary to feed our creative pursuits.

A voracious reader since age five, I now read as many different types of books as possible. My return to writing fiction has expanded the breadth of what I read. I now study everything: non-fiction (political theory, philosophy, religion, memoir…), literary fiction, science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, and the occasional thriller. Books I Like will be a monthly take on what I’m reading lately, or books that have stayed with me for years. I’ll review two books in a linked genre or theme each month.

Please don’t send books for review. I have plenty on my stack. 

 

Sexism is Making Me Sick(er)

Sexism is real.

As a gender-nonconforming, female-presenting person living in the US, I know this. I’ve seen it time and time again, particularly when I was younger.

But sometimes, something happens that really connects the brain to direct experience. I saw it this week.


But first, some personal history:

Many years ago, I was in a motorcycle accident. The classic “car made a left turn into me,” one block from my San Francisco flat. The car pinned my leg to my bike, knocking me to the ground. Thank the Gods I didn’t bash my head. Yeah, I wasn’t wearing a helmet.

Because no bones were broken, I was sent home from the hospital with zero treatment, despite the fact that I literally could not walk. After I insisted, they finally consented to give me a cane.

That was round one.

The chronic fatigue symptoms and chronic illness –along with chronic pain that shifted to excruciating pain when my hips slipped further out of alignment– began then. No, I wasn’t eligible for physical therapy. No, they wouldn’t prescribe chiropractic care or bodywork.

Somehow, I struggled through, despite the fact that it ruined my career as a dancer and therefore I couldn’t really pay my bills anymore.

Eventually, when I was working full time in a soup kitchen for room and board, some kind alternative medicine folks helped me, saying that my working for houseless people was enough trade for their services.

I slowly got better. A bodyworker also figured out how to put my hips back into alignment. The chronic pain eased up.

I did pretty well for a number of years, still getting sick more often than most people, still having trouble maintaining my energy levels consistently, but doing pretty well by virtue of increasing my exercise regime.

Eventually, my punishing travel-for-work schedule did me in, dropping me with burn out and exhaustion despite my great diet, great exercise, great meditation practice.

At that point, I started changing my life, getting ready to eventually leave work that I had loved for many years. I just couldn’t do it anymore.

Interregnum, to the Present:

Big life changes slowly made, I’m still tired a lot. Still get a lot of low-grade, annoying illnesses. Still have trouble keeping my energy levels consistent.

I have learned when I can work through it and when I need to actually go back to bed. I’ve taught myself the difference between “tired” and “exhausted,” between “low energy but I can do my work if I just begin” and “in such a brain fog nothing is going to happen, so I’d better either work on something less taxing, or take the afternoon off entirely.”

For years, I would say to my (male) doctor: “I’m tired a lot and get sick way more often than I ought to.”

For years, he ignored my complaints because I was otherwise healthy. “People can get sick six times a year on average,” he would say.

Why I didn’t fire him, I’m still not sure. Perhaps because I’ve never quite trusted Western medicine in the first place, other than for trauma –though they didn’t do so well with that after a car slammed into my motorcycle, did they? Perhaps because I otherwise liked him just fine. Perhaps it was laziness, not wanting to vet other doctors, feeling they were all likely the same.

I relied instead on an herbalist and the things I always had relied upon: food, exercise, meditation.

Finally, because of a move to a different state – in an attempt to lower stress levels, for one thing– and with a promise to myself that my health was now my top priority…I noticed that despite lower stress and less intensive responsibilities, I still wasn’t able to start volunteering like I wanted to. I still planned to show up at actions or events and then just didn’t make it three quarters of the time.

Because I was too tired. Just like I am, writing this, today.

On my first visit, I told my new (female) doctor I was tired and sick too often. Her response? “Let’s run a whole battery of tests.”

Finally. A doctor who listened.

Well, I got the results back. My thyroid output is abnormal. It seems that it doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormone, so my pituitary gland is always trying to send out signals, trying and failing to convince it to produce more.

My symptoms are pretty classic hypothyroid symptoms. Just as my male doctor not listening to me is a pretty classic sexism symptom.

The new doctor wants me to try some medicine for six weeks and then get my blood levels tested again. I’m hoping that it works, and that this information will also help my herbalist to adjust my formulas better.

But if it turns out hypothyroidism isn’t the main culprit? My new doctor is willing to keep trying for other diagnoses until we figure it out.

She actually listened to me, like a doctor is supposed to.

Why did I write this essay?

First of all, because of what I began with: Sexism is real, and its effects have directly impacted my health, well being, and my ability to work.

And we live under interlocking systems which directly increase the deleterious effects of sexism, racism, ableism, ageism…

Think of how much worse things might be for me if I were an immigrant –or Latinx, or Black, or trans, or fat– and female presenting.

Second, because as a self-employed author, I’m covered via the ACA – which, imperfect as it is, is now at risk because of entrenched systems of white supremacy, patriarchy, and plutocracy– and I may now end up needing regular medicine, like so many other people do.

And I’m not sure how long my coverage will last. I just hope that my energy and health will be renewed enough for me to do the work I desire, and hope that work will bring in enough to pay for what I need if worse comes to worst.

It’s either that, or the toppling of empire and the total rebuilding of society based on compassion rather than punishment.

And I’m still holding out for that, with all my heart.

Please do not give me any medical advice. Thank you.


This is reader-funded writing.

I give thanks to all of my Patreon supporters, who donate every month so I can offer two pieces of writing to the general public for free.

I give thanks to brand new patrons and to ongoing supporters Rachel, Kiya, Corinne, Evodjie, Angela, Zann, Daniel, Luna, Christopher, Sarah, Amerwitch, Tamara, Elizabeth, J. Anthony, Sea Serpent, Jen, David, Emilie, Jennifer, Elliot, Ellen, a phoenix, Jersey Meg, Tony, Sean, Sherry, Christopher, Stephanie, Lira, Ariana, Tamara, Karen, Morgaine, Sarah, Rachel, Jenny, Joanna, R.M., Ember, San, Miriam, Leslie, Sharon, Mary Anne, Joanna, Tony, Angela, Constance, Stone, Omorka, Unwoman, Shemandoah, Sarah, Rain, Cid, Alley, Mica, Christine, Vyviane, Katie, Emilie, Louise, Victoria, Greg, Ealasaid, Jennifer, Louise, Rose, Starr, Sinead, Lyssa, Aeptha, Cara, Crystal, Angela, Misha, Eridanus, Cheryl, Lori, Soli, Peter, Angela, Ambariel, Sonia, Jennifer, Ruth, Miranda, Jeremy, Jonah, Michelle, Jenny, Jen, Mir, Ruth, Emilie, Jonathan, Kate, Roger and Nancy.

 

Solidarity Becomes Our Resistance: Thoughts on Confronting Empire


People complied. Now, I wasn’t there, so perhaps some of them questioned what was happening, but as far as I know, every person showed their ID. The “immigrant” was not found.

What if every single person on that airplane said as loudly as possible, right to the agents’ faces, “There is no reason for you to ask for identification. There is nothing that compels me to offer you proof of who I am. In solidarity with any immigrants who may or may not be on this airplane, I refuse to comply.”

Imagine it. All it takes is for one person to take a breath and begin.

We can practice saying these words out loud: “I refuse to comply.”


There’s a lot of talk about “resistance” these days. A lot of complaining about the current state of the US government. People are showing up in solidarity: at airports, at courthouses, on the streets, on the plains of North Dakota. However, even if they were only coordinated hours before, these are all planned protests.

Planned protests are good, and are often necessary civic engagement. I support planned protests, and civil disobedience as well.

But I want to talk about what solidarity looks like on the fly.

I want to talk about what is necessary right now –and has been ignored by some of us for too long– which is for all of us to prepare ourselves to be fucking brave in the fucking moment. To not comply with authority in order to better protect those among us who may be at higher risk.

The systems in place? For many of us, they may feel like minor annoyances. Inconveniences. What they really are is part of a machine that is deadly to many communities.

For years, as a frequent business flier, I refused to use the scanners, wanting to make the TSA’s job harder. I was always polite to individual agents, but I did not want to be pleasant to the machine. Finally, after several years of this, one early morning I just could not bear to be groped anymore. So I walked into the scanner and raised my arms.

Lack of solidarity had finally worn me down. That’s what the machine of empire wants.

The only time in the last three years that I refused the scanner was while traveling with a trans friend. The odds of her getting searched no matter what were high, so in solidarity, I submitted to the groping. Too little, for sure. It was an act of good faith, nothing more.

But what if hundreds of thousands of people in the airport said, “No. This is ridiculous. Why are we all under suspicion? We refuse to play your game anymore”? What if one million refused? Three million? What would happen then?

The machine would be given pause.

It would either falter and grind to a halt, or it would turn the crank harder, increasing the threat from inconvenience to actual blatant oppression.

And more of us would see the machine then, for what it really is.

We might see the same oppression that more marginalized people –Black Americans, Mexican Americans, disabled Americans, Native Americans, poor Americans, trans Americans, immigrant Americans– have been telling us for years they have been living, struggling, and far too often, dying under.

The machines so many of us think are there to keep us safe? They aren’t.

They are there to prove their control over us all, to offer some of us perqs and privileges –private property protection is an attractive goad to compliance– and to remind those whom they torture that no one will stand up for them. Ever. That solidarity is a whim at best, and at worst, it is a lie.

Last week, an off duty white police officer assaulted a thirteen year old boy. When the boy’s friends finally tried to intervene, the white man pulled a gun. In the video footage, among the sea of young brown people, it is clear that at least one other white adult male was there, witnessing the scene. He did nothing to help the young teens.

Solidarity requires standing up to people who claim authoritarian control of every kind, most often when it is being used against people who may not look or sound like us. Remember: it is bullying, even when it smiles.

Solidarity requires those of us with any kind of social privilege to stand up for those with less social privilege.

On a train once, there was a friendly, developmentally disabled Black man, singing. At one stop, police came on board and asked him to step off the car. “Why?” I loudly said, “He wasn’t doing anything!” Other people chimed in, too, saying similar things.

The police tried to wave us off, and calm us down, meanwhile insisting the man exit the train. I finally stood up, saying loudly to the police, “He wasn’t doing anything wrong!”

Some other passengers stood up, too. Backup. The thing we always hope will happen, but which doesn’t always.

Meanwhile, the man, clearly frightened, was frantically giving a phone number to another person, so she could call his mother and tell her why he wasn’t going to show up. She would worry if he was late. All of us kept repeating, “He didn’t do anything wrong! Leave him alone!”

If the police took this person off the train, they were taking me, too, and maybe some others, and I positioned my body so that this was made clear.

The police finally backed off and left. The doors closed. The train continued on its way.

Solidarity saved that man from who knows what fate.

I’ve heard the personal stories of people falsely accused, dragged from trains, slammed onto platforms, beaten in jails. One man, at least, was saved from that treatment on that one day. He was able to visit his mother instead.

That is what solidarity looks like: a group of random people deciding to say “enough!” to authoritarianism.

A group of random people momentarily suspending their own need for comfort or safety in order to help someone in need. All it took was one person to start it, and for others to feel brave enough to follow through.

If our idea of resistance does not include these common, very tangible, acts of solidarity, I’m not sure what exactly we are resisting.

We are most likely resisting an idea behind computer screens, from the comfort of our homes.

There is a long history of solidarity via direct action. We can take inspiration from the many stories of people who’d had enough.

Let’s learn from the past to build the future. Let’s use our voices, our bodies, and our minds. Let’s show up for those who’ve been shouting without enough back up for far too long.

Let’s resist this shit for real.

Author’s note: I mostly write this for the many middle class, able bodied, white people who may be new to the idea of active resistance. Everyone else? I see you. I know you’ve been resisting in a lot of ways, large and small, for a very, very, long time. Thank you.

This is part of a series of recent essays on Resistance and Empire:


This is reader-funded writing.

I give thanks to all of my Patreon supporters, who donate every month so I can offer two pieces of writing to the general public for free.

I give thanks to brand new patrons and to ongoing supporters Kiya, Corinne, Evodjie, Angela, Zann, Daniel, Luna, Christopher, Sarah, Amerwitch, Tamara, Elizabeth, J. Anthony, Sea Serpent, Jen, David, Emilie, Jennifer, Elliot, Ellen, a phoenix, Jersey Meg, Tony, Sean, Sherry, Christopher, Stephanie, Lira, Ariana, Tamara, Karen, Morgaine, Sarah, Rachel, Jenny, Joanna, R.M., Ember, San, Miriam, Leslie, Sharon, Mary Anne, Joanna, Tony, Angela, Constance, Stone, Omorka, Unwoman, Shemandoah, Sarah, Rain, Cid, Alley, Mica, Christine, Vyviane, Katie, Emilie, Louise, Victoria, Greg, Ealasaid, Jennifer, Louise, Rose, Starr, Sinead, Lyssa, Aeptha, Cara, Crystal, Angela, Misha, Eridanus, Cheryl, Lori, Soli, Peter, Angela, Ambariel, Sonia, Jennifer, Ruth, Miranda, Jeremy, Jonah, Michelle, Jenny, Jen, Mir, Ruth, Emilie, Jonathan, Kate, Roger and Nancy.

 
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