Collections 2: what we receive
Hi! I'm so glad you're here. This week's note is about a collection of gifts I've received: from people I love, plants, and strangers.
1. A leaf from my maternal grandmother's oak trees, from the week she died in late summer 2019. I wrote about her love of these trees here. She taught me to look at things, and how to be in relationship with the more than human world. I miss her, every day. And I wonder, who are you missing, these days? What gifts have they given you? What reminds you of them?
2. A dried christmas cactus blossom. I love christmas cactuses - my dad has one from my grandma that's almost as old as he is. I love the ways these plants stay quiet for much of the year, and then blossom in the coldest, least hospitable time, for anyone who doesn't live in the desert. They remind me that we can bloom on our own timelines, and stay dormant for as long as we need.
3. A "whimsy" from Keith, a longtime movement worker in PA, who handed these glass acorns to me and my partner after we'd had a long day of deescalation at this beautiful celebration by CASA in Action at the state capitol last November. I love old white dudes who do things like deescalate fascists with infinite patience for 6 hours and then turn around and give you a completely unexpected tiny bit of magic.
4. My dad got a rock tumbler last year and has been mailing me rocks, which if you know me, is a whole love language. My dad taught me to take photos, to look closely at the details in the world, and spent hours of my childhood bent over tidepools and fields, taking close-up film photos of anemones and grasses that we'd study later. I wonder, who taught you to look deeply at things?
Sending you love from the river,
Kali
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Kali Boehle-Silva
Writing, questions, and meaning-making for late-stage capitalism + collapse.
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