Edge Dwellers
Edge Dwellers
I think as long as we remember how to mourn, we’ll be alright.
| CW: Buffalo shooting |
The hummingbirds have fledged, after jostling for space in their tiny cup of a nest for too many weeks. The ducklings too, ten of them, seem to have disappeared from the park where my husband and I rescued two from a drain pipe. I’m not sure where they went with their not-yet-wings. Everything is green and growing and suddenly the lawn has got too long. I’d love to keep it going until we’re surrounded by a thicket of grasses and blackberry and dandelions as tall as our house. Weave a little path through the greenery to our car like small unseen mammals in the brush.
Last week on the first sunny day in awhile, I went to a nearby park for a vigil for the Black victims of the Buffalo shooter. It had not occurred to me to bring flowers, but as I sat on the brick and watched person after person walk to the middle of the gazebo with bouquets, candles, single blooms and lay them on the concrete, I wished I had thought to bring something to leave behind. Instead I sat. I sat with everyone else, with my thoughts and shame, with the sputtering candle flames that never went out. Periodically new people walked up, and after waiting to see if anyone would beckon them forward, they slowly approached the center and left their offering. It was incredibly powerful to sit, to give time and companionship with strangers. There was no music, and no one spoke. We simply sat — it seemed nothing else could adequately fill the silence.
Eventually I rose and walked through the nearby rose garden on the verge of blooms. It has been a wet, cold spring in Portland and the roses are late. I sat on a bench in the sun and read a passage from my book about slowing down. When I got home, my husband expressed remorse that the vigil had been canceled. I hadn’t checked social media before leaving the house, and apparently a post went up shortly before I left rescheduling for another day. Music had been planned, an open mic, words. I’m sure it will be powerful, in its own way. But the silent vigil shared with others who came expecting something else will stay with me for a long time.
I think as long as we remember how to mourn, we’ll be alright.
What I’m Reading
Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. A book that captures interspecies joy and sorrow and draws many metaphors between Black life and resistance and the lives of seals, whales, dolphins and otters so frequently misinterpreted by Western scientists. The prose is delightfully non academic, even funny at times, sentimental. Gumbs doesn’t hide the fact that this is a book that got its start as posts on social media, and she leans into that communal voice to great effect. A book that made me want to write and reflect in equal measure.
Publishing Opportunities
Hugo House in Seattle is hiring an Education Program Director (full time $60-70k) and a Community Support & Volunteer Manager (part time $20-24/hr).
The Independent Book Publishers Association is hiring a contract-based remote Creative Director. $3,900/month for 45-60 hours/month.
Study Hall is hiring a remote Newsletter Editor. $60k, full time at 30 hours/week.
smoke and mold is open on a rolling basis for translation submissions to ACROSS / WITH / THROUGH: Trans Writers in Translation, to be published 2023. Pays $100.
The Massachusetts Review is open for submissions in all genres by disabled and/or D/deaf artists for an issue edited by Khairani Barokka, Cyree Jarelle Johnson, and Michael Snediker. Deadline June 1.
The Community of Literary Magazines & Presses is keeping an up-to-date database of submissions opportunities on their site.