Frivolity and small joys
Making stuff amid the madness
Last Saturday, I was folding a batch of zines I’d made for the end of Hawkwatch season while Kwame was detangling Christmas lights and plotting out the design for our Lighted Boat Parade entry. We were both completely absorbed. At one point, we both looked up from what we were doing and laughed. Projects, musical or otherwise, are our jam, and our respective, somewhat frivolous schemes were giving us a shot of much needed joy.
Like so many, I’ve had to do a bit of regrouping after November 5, managing my intake of news and social media so I don’t get subsumed in noise and my own feelings of alarm. Dread does not make for a good night's sleep. So doubling down on making stuff, organizing musicians, decorating with lights, and getting outside (cognizant that I am so very very fortunate to choose this route) is my solution at present.
Few things are more satisfying than fanning a creative spark into a flame toward turning an idea into reality. Handling the flame once you get it going — not torching the bright idea into a crisp, or burning yourself or someone else, or letting something fizzle prematurely — is the real test, but the actual catch of a spark, when you start cooking on something? Much of my time is spent chasing that feeling.
“Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine act of insurrection.” - Rebecca Solnit
One of the clickbait headlines of the past few months involved harshing on the Harris/Walz campaign for its evident and palpable joyousness. “Joy is not a strategy” the pundits griped.
If it wasn’t clear enough already, the election cycle illustrated how our fears are constantly played, mostly likely because joy — taking pleasure in some aspect of living — is the antidote to the politics of division.
Another writer who came to my attention is Astra Taylor for her words on solidarity, which after those on hope and joy, feels like the next frontier. Taylor and co-author Leah Hunt-Hendrix wrote an entire book on the subject, which in their definition is “not unity or sameness or oneness. It’s about connection across differences.”
I wrote earlier about how one of my favorite volunteer organizations, GGRO, in an echo of the political climate, had been rocked by leadership shakeups. The upset left the community sad and confused for much of the migration season. But ultimately, it galvanized everyone to keep organizing and advocating for birds and nature and the integrity of the organization all the more.
By December 1 the bulk of the season’s migrating raptors had flown through the headlands. A lot of questions about the organization’s future were still up in the air. Nonetheless, a call had gone out to all volunteers to gather together on the hill for potluck and a last search of the skies. Which of course, prompted me to make something to commemorate the experience.
Were we being too frivolous? I wondered aloud as Kwame and I futzed with our respective projects. Then I thought about the recent media backlash to joy, and underneath that, how my own internalized oppression about the value of creativity still rises up on the regular. Good thing I was having too much fun.
On Sunday, the weather was more than cooperative and it turned into a beautiful day inside and out: the bridge gleaming, sailboats all over the water and the Farallon Islands vivid on the horizon. Nearly 80 people assembled on the platform a hundred feet down from the very top of the hill where the daily team was doing its counting. Several volunteers arrived early and decorated some of the railings with lights and decorative streamers. Three fold-up tables, soup, bread, dolmas and fruit, hot chocolate, cookies, candy, muffins and a small stack of ‘zines. My niece came up with her young family which made my heart swell all the more. A few last-of-the-season raptors even flew by.
“Solidarity is the only thing that can save us. If you look back at history, solidarity has propelled essentially all social progress that we now celebrate or take for granted. And it is what we need to move forward.” — Astra Taylor
Given the weird season, it was a bittersweet celebration. More importantly, I thought when I left, it was affirmation, acknowledgement of the work of the people who had built the community over decades, as well as the connections made and strengthened over the past few months in the face of divisions. It was a more-than-welcome example of solidarity.