Spacious Solidarity Blog: Day 76

Day 76

In the early morning hours I dream of two old white men who are in charge of a big vat of vegetable soup and have asked me to look after it for them. In order to ensure that everyone who wants soup can get some I decide to thin it out and blend it.

But before I can blend it the two men have gone and put the soup in a huge bathtub and it’s slowly going down the drain. I try to warn them that no one will get any soup if they let it all go down the drain but they aren’t listening.

I wake up with a sinking feeling of intense loss.

I spend the morning reading more news stories from the States and feeling into the contraction in my heart-centre. My partner comes into the bedroom to see how I’m doing and tells me they are also feeling quite stirred up by what’s happening.

We decide to distract ourselves with lockdown haircuts. My partner wants a repeat of Day 41 but I tentatively warn them that was probably beginner’s luck and I may be a one hit wonder.

They’re quite relaxed about it and reassure me that they think I’ll do a good job again. They also recently bought some texturizing scissors and are keen to give them a go.

So we set up the bathroom in the same way as last time. Plastic recycling bags covering my desk chair, an extension cord for the clippers, and a plastic bag over my partner’s body, with holes cut out for their head and arms.

I get going and actually end up doing a better job than last time. I’m actually quite pleased with myself. And the texturizing scissors are super fun to use. You just grab chunks of hair and chop right through them and the hair thins out. There doesn’t seem any way to get it wrong.

We swap and they use the clippers to trim the back of my head and all around my ears and then the texturizing scissors to thin out the top.

After haircuts we head to Springfield Park for a picnic and a laze about. There’s a heatwave on and the sky is as blue as ever. We find a quiet spot in the southwest corner of the park under a big oak tree and spend the rest of the afternoon there.

As I stare up into the deep blue sky I allow my mind to wander. A song’s been quietly playing away in the background and now I sing it to myself. It was in one of the episodes of Little Fires Everywhere.

I recognised it right away from back in the day living in San Francisco. It’s from one of my favorite local bands, Spearhead. It’s a play on the old children’s song.

There’s a hole in my bucket

Dear Liza, dear Liza

There’s a hole in my bucket

Dear Liza, a hole

Michael Franti, lead singer of Spearhead, wrote a version about the dilemma of whether or not to give loose change to a homeless person outside a shop.

When he finally decides to give the man his change he realizes there’s a hole in his pocket and he’s lost the change. He also remembers why he had gone to the shop in the first place, to buy a spool of thread to fix the hole in his pocket.

As the song floats through my mind I’m struck by the image of a leaky bucket and remember a black and white drawing someone had posted on Facebook of the Boston Tea Party. It was a reminder to those criticizing the destruction of property during the ongoing protests against police brutality.

Remember, destroying property has been a celebrated form of protest since the birth of our nation. In fact, it was a defining moment.

The drawing showed people throwing barrels of tea over the sides of ships and into the Boston Harbor. The protest was against a newly imposed tax by the British government on the colonialists who resented being taxed without representation.

When I saw that drawing it made me think of the name Cooper, which I had googled after the incident in Central Park. I had been interested in the history of the name, it being such a strange coincidence that the white woman and the Black birdwatcher she called the cops on shared it.

Cooper, like so many names, comes from a craft and that craft is making things from wood, specifically vessels like barrels and buckets. Many plantations in the USA had enslaved people who worked as coopers.

Chances are that either Chris Cooper’s ancestors were coopers or that his ancestors were enslaved by a family named Cooper.

So it could be that a cooper in England, possibly the white woman’s ancestor, made the barrel that the tea thrown over the side of the ships during the Boston Tea Party was stored in.

But since slavery had already been an institution in the colonies for 144 years by the time the revolution started, it could also be that that barrel had been made by an ancestor of Chris Cooper’s, carrying tea back and forth from China over many years.

One ancestor would have been properly paid for his work, the other would not have been paid at all.

It could also be that Chris Cooper’s ancestors were enslaved by the white woman’s ancestors.

We head back home to draw a bath, eat some dinner, and watch a film.

Larry Kramer, the American playwright and AIDS activist, died this week so we decide to watch the 2014 film The Normal Heart, based on his play of the same name.

It’s a painful portrayal of the early days of the AIDS epidemic in New York City. Young men are dying left and right and no one with power or influence gives a shit. It reminds me of my favorite feminist mantra, the personal is political.

The characters fight like hell to get anyone to listen, to care about an epidemic that is burning through the gay community like a house on fire. The response from the politicians is a stark contrast to our current pandemic, yet there are some interesting parallels.

Back then AIDS was only affecting hidden, marginalized, and deeply hated members of society, gay men, intravenous drug users and sex workers. By the end of the 80’s AIDS was the top killer of young gay men and young Black women in New York City.

Now we’re facing a disease that spreads much faster and easier than HIV, but also disproportionately affects the old, vulnerable and economically disadvantaged. As that has become clearer, our governments have been pushing to ease social distancing.

I can’t help but think, based on what happen with HIV, that there is no trusting the powers that be when it comes to public health.

In fact, looking around at the world we live in, I don’t trust them period.

Time for a new world order.