After Felix tracks down the Cuckoo, the gang gets back together to come up with a plan to defeat the thing. I was really struck by the last paragraph on page 268:
“It came to Shelby then just how insane this was, just how little sense it made for five broke queers straggling one by one out of their twenties—and one rich bitch, same—to drop everything and race to Reno fucking Nevada on the say-so of their disturbed foster sibling who lived in his car . . . and for what? A story that had been true, once, until a thousand, thousand tellings and retellings rendered it a soup of resentment and grief and hormones. A thing that had seemed like the end of the world until life in its wake kept unfolding with its relentless, monotonous procession of bills and work and dates and oil changes, until years of dodging truant officers and landlords and the dead-eyed drones from California’s child and family services department left it lumped alongside the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the subprime mortgage crisis and the opioid epidemic and penal slavery and every other miserable thing you had to ram into the back of your mind to get out of bed in the morning and push yourself through another day emptying grease traps. Who were they to think they could take this thing on, much less beat it?”
It’s really easy to feel fatalistic about *gestures broadly* everything going on right now. Much like the Cuckoo, the “big bad” we’re fighting has a limitless number of faces, shapes, and means of attacking the most vulnerable among us. I also like how Shelby made the connection that the mundanity of existing under capitalism not only keeps people from fighting back but also makes it hard to process trauma in any real and lasting way. What do you do when you feel fatalism creeping in? Are there people that you look up to or reach out to that help you stay in the fight? Do you have any experiences where, despite difficulty, you showed up for those in your community? Or have there been times where your community has shown up for you? What motivates you to take on the Cuckoo?
I volunteer. Rescuing food, getting it to folx who need it, helping to run a free monthly community dinner, to bring people together without the stigma of need. I help facilitate the CSA at a local (women run) community farm. These things help, tons. Big picture? My life is a shambles. Husband dead, daughter broken, family estranged, rent about to skyrocket. But this morning I had fresh (leftover) bread from the bakery with not perfect strawberries that we'd rescued over the weekend, that I cooked them down into something resembling jam. I read a book--my rotation is on trashy romance right now--wrote a little and found three things to be grateful for before starting my day. Even when everything is bad, and I've seen my share of bad both personally and globally, there is always something to be grateful for. Three things, I tell myself. Don't overthink it. Coffee always counts.
We have to show up for others. We have to remain optimistic and take on the Cuckoo on a daily basis. Otherwise, what's the point of living? A boss of mine once said "It takes great courage to be an optimist." I try to be courageous every day. Sometimes it's hard; sometimes I need to reach out to my peeps to help me. But we have to do it.
I try to come back to a combination of the two quotes pasted below.
“It can be overwhelming to witness/experience/take in all the injustices of the moment; the good news is that they’re all connected. So if your little corner of work involves pulling at one of the threads, you’re helping to unravel the whole damn cloth.” (Ursula Wolfe-Rocca)
“Think for yourself… Don’t depend on our leaders to do what needs to be done, because whenever the government has done anything to bring about change, it’s done so only because it’s been pushed and prodded by social movements, by ordinary people organizing… Traditional history creates passivity… It makes you think that all you have to do is go to polls every four years and elect somebody who’s going to do the trick for you. We want people to understand that, no, that’s not gonna happen. Democracy doesn’t come from the top, it comes from the bottom. Democracy isn’t what governments do, it’s what people do.” (Howard Zinn)
We have a responsibility to ourselves and to each other. As humanity we share in pain, grief, despair, love, laughter, joy, confusion, compassion, and the myriad of other emotions that are exacerbated by taking on the cuckoo in any capacity. What is to be human if not to love? To care? We need each other. To see joy in a world of so much despair no matter how small is enough to want to live fully. To take every step in love so that one day we may all see true freedom.
While I despise hyperbolic statements, such as, “the war on . . .” I find it both terrifying and indisputable that we continually fail to protect our most vulnerable populations. I am moved by the plight of young people and those helping to solve their growing mental health crisis. I refuse to use violent metaphors, such as fight, combat, etc. mostly because I believe it’s exactly that type of insidious oversight that allows us to overlook and obfuscate the problems. We’ve forgotten our young and we silo our elderly. Connection to both traditionally anchors humanity to a sustainable and mutually fulfilling future. There is no us without them.
I volunteer. Rescuing food, getting it to folx who need it, helping to run a free monthly community dinner, to bring people together without the stigma of need. I help facilitate the CSA at a local (women run) community farm. These things help, tons. Big picture? My life is a shambles. Husband dead, daughter broken, family estranged, rent about to skyrocket. But this morning I had fresh (leftover) bread from the bakery with not perfect strawberries that we'd rescued over the weekend, that I cooked them down into something resembling jam. I read a book--my rotation is on trashy romance right now--wrote a little and found three things to be grateful for before starting my day. Even when everything is bad, and I've seen my share of bad both personally and globally, there is always something to be grateful for. Three things, I tell myself. Don't overthink it. Coffee always counts.
We have to show up for others. We have to remain optimistic and take on the Cuckoo on a daily basis. Otherwise, what's the point of living? A boss of mine once said "It takes great courage to be an optimist." I try to be courageous every day. Sometimes it's hard; sometimes I need to reach out to my peeps to help me. But we have to do it.
I try to come back to a combination of the two quotes pasted below.
“It can be overwhelming to witness/experience/take in all the injustices of the moment; the good news is that they’re all connected. So if your little corner of work involves pulling at one of the threads, you’re helping to unravel the whole damn cloth.” (Ursula Wolfe-Rocca)
“Think for yourself… Don’t depend on our leaders to do what needs to be done, because whenever the government has done anything to bring about change, it’s done so only because it’s been pushed and prodded by social movements, by ordinary people organizing… Traditional history creates passivity… It makes you think that all you have to do is go to polls every four years and elect somebody who’s going to do the trick for you. We want people to understand that, no, that’s not gonna happen. Democracy doesn’t come from the top, it comes from the bottom. Democracy isn’t what governments do, it’s what people do.” (Howard Zinn)
Excellent quotes. Thank you for sharing.
We have a responsibility to ourselves and to each other. As humanity we share in pain, grief, despair, love, laughter, joy, confusion, compassion, and the myriad of other emotions that are exacerbated by taking on the cuckoo in any capacity. What is to be human if not to love? To care? We need each other. To see joy in a world of so much despair no matter how small is enough to want to live fully. To take every step in love so that one day we may all see true freedom.
While I despise hyperbolic statements, such as, “the war on . . .” I find it both terrifying and indisputable that we continually fail to protect our most vulnerable populations. I am moved by the plight of young people and those helping to solve their growing mental health crisis. I refuse to use violent metaphors, such as fight, combat, etc. mostly because I believe it’s exactly that type of insidious oversight that allows us to overlook and obfuscate the problems. We’ve forgotten our young and we silo our elderly. Connection to both traditionally anchors humanity to a sustainable and mutually fulfilling future. There is no us without them.
I just want to say what beautiful writing this is 🥰