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#75 - keeping the heart open

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#75 - keeping the heart open

Even during the struggle.

Hima Batavia
Oct 21, 2022
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#75 - keeping the heart open

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THANK YOU, LOVE YOU.


I started the day off by responding to Writerly prompts - thinking that a few 6-word stories might get my engine started.

Writing has been a struggle since I took time off in the summer…announced I was back…and then disappeared again. These are moments in creative practice that can really send you into the throws of self-flagellation. If you are neurodivergent, you are used to asynchronous cycles, but it doesn’t make it any less difficult or confronting in a normy world. I’ve tried to write about my reflections on co-living, censorship, freedom of speech, degrowth and rites of passage, but they are all fragmented thoughts with no through-line, like washed-up debris along the beach.

I’m having a hard time making sense of anything. Presenting rationale thought feels foolish. Admonishing the gross decisions of the elite feels worn. And analyzing the austere and violent actions of right-leaning and conservative government forces all around the world feels like a ‘hell loop’. Maybe I am just grouchy. I do have my period.

C says that this time of the year is harder than the winter because everything around us is dying. Death is in the air, mulch is on our shoes, and our coats are not warm enough for the grief.

We often think of seasonal cycles based on a 365-day solar year, but these atmospheric phases map onto so many units of time - from the semesters of a growing embryo to monthly menstrual cycles, the phases of coming to age, the news cycle, the configuration of planetary movements and the eras and ages of human existence.

In Hinduism, for instance, the history of humanity is divided into four yugas or eras that last 432,000 years (what??) and then each yuga is divided into four more cycles that vary in length, and each of those cycles is divided into a main cycle, and flanked by shorter dusk and dawn cycles. It is cosmically deep and generally difficult to wrap your head around the enormity of time it covers.

This means, at any given time, we are negotiating different and sometimes conflicting seasons and cycles between the bodies we breathe into and the universe we exist in, impacting our general orientation. When retrograde meets your period, which meets darker days, you’re in for a trip. It really is a surprise to me that we are as collectively productive as we are.

I realized that writing has been a struggle because I feel pretty numb. My heart has a paperweight on it. And when I breathe, it is like weight-lifting my cardiovascular system. For a while, I just figured I was really calm. Numbness can be tricky like that because if you don’t stop to tune in, you can miss the memo that nothing is moving, even if life continues in motion; there are still meetings, we go for photo-worthy hikes, plans for Diwali and Halloween are brimming, and they are all wonderful, even if muted. Once you do tune in, it can be pretty odd and terrifying that our heart, the beat and rhythm of life, can close.

I’m not really sure *what* the numbness is.

Maybe it is staring at pictures of young Iranian women who have been killed in brutal retaliation, and how headlines, tweets and IG squares are so necessary to mobilize, and so abstracted from the unbearable seconds each day must take on to lose a daughter, a friend, a sister, in this way. Observing suffering up close and far away is disembodied in the wrong ways.

Maybe it is the way we joke about how absurd inflation is while buying a matcha latte for $7.00 (!), making a sly pass about the shit-show that is Britain while staying awake a little longer in the evening worrying how instability will look next week, next year, next decade and forging misty plans to grasp control.

We stand in the kitchen and discuss how no one knows what or who to trust anymore and it feels like reality is slipping through our fingers. Friends are moving through the sludge of break-ups, and heartache, and there is a loss for good words that are sure and hopeful, and little space to just sit with one another inside of the hole.

But even this feels like skimming the surface.

How do we keep our hearts open during these times - these cycles washed over by personal and collective death, destruction and transformation? How might we feel connected during phases of profound hopelessness or overwhelm?

My sadness has always felt like a burden and a vibe killer. You can probably feel the way I wear it, but I rarely talk about it. It is a lot for me to hold, let alone anyone else in our full and over-scheduled lives. Writing helps. Laughing until it cracks open into ugly tears really really helps. Digging my toes into the soil helps. Timelessness helps. S tells me to reframe it as ‘sadness has arrived’ instead of ‘I am sad,’ and that feels like something new to try. Lately, I can see my sadness as a throughway to compassion, but only if I allow it to move and transmute. Otherwise, it turns into rock.

I know the sadness is not all mine and that in some ways it is an invitation, a call, a responsibility. I know that we are all better with our hearts open, even if it is excruciating, exposing. I know the revolution can’t happen any other way.

Over the summer, I told C I was ‘literally dying’ to go to BC. I needed trees: old growth, ancient, 800 years standing and steady trees. A few weeks later, C was asked to go to BC for work (!) which is pretty uncommon for him these days, and we decided to turn it into a longer trip (this is how your gal manifests). We spent 10 days driving across Vancouver Island. I turned my phone off for 9 days. And I hugged the trees until I merged with them, allowed them to take my weight, feel their fullness and denseness, honour their surrender to the elements, the ever-changing conditions, and their public declaration of their need for interdependence.

Something began to thaw.

It will take time.

I will keep trying to write.

Much love,

Hima


#ThisWeekinTweets

Twitter avatar for @neginsairafi
Negin Sairafi (she/her) @neginsairafi
Wrote and recorded a piece for Iran. Please take a moment to listen/read. Seeds For Revolution open.substack.com/pub/neginsaira… @AlinejadMasih @NazaninBoniadi @ranarahimpour
open.substack.comSeeds For RevolutionWomen, Life, and Iran’s Path to Freedom
10:12 PM ∙ Oct 13, 2022
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S. Bear Bergman @sbearbergman
When people ask me what I mean about wanting mutual aid a lot more than I want more self-care, this is (part of) what I mean:
Screenshot of a Tumblr post by QueerSpacePunk reading: 
i want to be asked to come over and help put my friend's kids to bed as casually as they might text their spouse and ask them to pick up milk on the way home
i want to stop and pick up milk for another friend because i know their spouse hates the grocery store
i want to buy fruit that i dont like because it's on special and i know people who do
i want to pass lemons over the fence and to take my neighbours bins out when the forget
i want group chats instead of rideshare apps, calls in the middle of the night because someone's at the hospital, lonely or hungry or both
iwant to do the dishes in other people's houses, extra servings wrapped in tinfoil and tea towels so it's still warm when you drop it off, a basket of other people's mending by my couch
i want to be surrounded by reminders that ‘imposing' on each other is what we were born to do
12:56 PM ∙ Oct 16, 2022
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Josh Gondelman @joshgondelman
Honestly, someone should take advantage of this chaos and colonize England.
2:52 PM ∙ Oct 20, 2022
183,483Likes17,721Retweets
Twitter avatar for @JAYVERSACE
︎J @JAYVERSACE
death etiquette is so important in times like this and should be spoke about FREQUENTLY. grief is so neglected because ppl think that it lasts like a week and then they’re back to normal. nah, that shit is excruciating and painful asf and can sit w people for YEARS
8:51 AM ∙ Sep 30, 2022
87,055Likes18,846Retweets
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arabelle sicardi 英梅 @arabellesicardi
i want more "run errands with me" friends. no i do not want to spend $85 on a dinner to catch up. but i will go to costco and an estate sale with you and then some tacos
8:39 PM ∙ Sep 30, 2022
230,226Likes29,356Retweets
Twitter avatar for @himabatavia
Hima Batavia @himabatavia
As one country rises in revolution, another falls deeper toward a society ruled by autocratic leadership, defined by censorship, religious propaganda, and a violent intolerance for plurality. When the Hindu Right Came for Bollywood newyorker.com/magazine/2022/… via @NewYorker
newyorker.comWhen the Hindu Right Came for BollywoodThe industry used to honor India’s secular ideals—but, since the rise of Narendra Modi, it’s been flooded with stock Hindu heroes and Muslim villains.
5:21 AM ∙ Oct 14, 2022
4Likes1Retweet
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Shit Facilitators Say @ShitFacilitator
Please share your name, pronouns, and one thing that brings you joy as we face climate disaster.
7:32 PM ∙ Sep 30, 2022
4,875Likes613Retweets
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Vanessa Kisuule @Vanessa_Kisuule
No guys this cost of living ting is so real cos what is Naomi Campbell doing in an H&M advert
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TINA SNOW @theestallion
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Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom
Why are we all so damn busy? - a thread -
1:33 PM ∙ Oct 1, 2022
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Lauren Chanel @MichelleHux
hanging with your parents as an adult is so funny bc it’s like “mmmm that’s why i’m like this”
7:23 PM ∙ Oct 1, 2022
189,897Likes24,021Retweets
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max〽️ @Maxthepapi
There's literally nothing better than when you're full on laughing with someone and you both keep adding things that make it funnier and you can barely breathe.
5:23 PM ∙ Oct 6, 2022
199,058Likes30,379Retweets
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Dwight Rhinosoros @rhinosoros
We talk a lot about the militarization of police and not enough about the militarization of sales bros.
4:37 PM ∙ Oct 12, 2022
39,163Likes3,574Retweets
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Darlene Whitehead @Darlene66555533
"GPS tracking on six wolf packs shows how much they avoid and respect each other's territory."
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5:45 AM ∙ Oct 12, 2022
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Darlene Whitehead @Darlene66555533
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Jimmy Pop @jimmypop
I've been enjoying this Russian politician's hair this afternoon.
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5:05 PM ∙ Oct 12, 2022
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Sydney Battle @SydneyBattle
i need at least 3 beverages in my proximity at all times. they can all be cold but not all of them can be hot. if there are more than 3 then at least one of them has to be hot. this is the secret to my success, hope it helps
2:40 AM ∙ Oct 13, 2022
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Oded Rechavi 🦉 @OdedRechavi
How your email finds me
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4:20 AM ∙ Oct 13, 2022
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Imandeep Kaur @ImmyKaur
We need dreamers, storytellers, artists, designers, gardeners, the bakers, carers, elders, youngers, ecologists, makers, doers, thinkers, farmers, quiet, loud, slowness, speed, long term, short term, imagination, pragmatism, we need it all at the table, when we think economics.
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3:04 PM ∙ Oct 13, 2022
213Likes52Retweets
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Shiv Ramdas Traing To Rite Buk @nameshiv
How to know quality of Indian food while phoning in order: "Hi this is xyz restaurant"= stick to tandoori "Helloooo"= expand to rice and paneer dishes "WHAT IS IT??"= empty your ATM and order everything
5:27 PM ∙ Oct 20, 2022
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Twitter avatar for @Theholisticpsyc
Dr. Nicole LePera @Theholisticpsyc
Behind healthy relationships are: difficult conversations, breakdown of egos, and a commitment to love as mutual evolution.
5:48 PM ∙ Oct 21, 2022
11,505Likes2,125Retweets

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#75 - keeping the heart open

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