i read a very helpful perspective on trauma--it said that basically, if you're dealing with trauma, you can think of ur brain as 'inflamed.' not that it's truly 'inflamed' cuz i think that might be encephalitis? lol. but as in energetically inflamed.

and what this means is that just like if u have inflamed stomach and you keep eating foods that inflame it, you stay inflamed, or if you have inflamed butt and you keep wiping it with harsh toilet paper, u just get re-inflamed, even if you put lotion on in between.

i guess it'd be what doctors might call ptsd, but it's more helpful for me to understand it as 'energetically inflamed.'

when i think of my brain/spirit as energetically inflamed, i think about this year of COVID and me hyper reacting to news that michigan covid numbers are spiraling out of control.

the initial covid news scared the shit out of me, the fight over food in those first weeks terrified me, causing the first inflammation period-and then friends and community members started dying and then the protests and the denial and attack and my brain/spirit--

got especially sensitive in the spot that deals with crisis/stress/trauma, not to mention historical stress/trauma--and now, if you mention COVID numbers in michigan to me, i'm just.

so ive talked on here about stepping back from a ton of the stuff i usually tweet about. i even put COVID and all related words on mute and i while i still see an occasional story here and there, it's far less than it used to be.

and that has helped a ton. i've also been skipping all but a single daily check in on CNN. and rerouting my time towards monty don's gardeners world and mary berry shows.

and for both of these, it's been esp helpful that it's spring again and i can watch a show and get into my backyard and apply things from the shows to my back yard.

i've done things i've never done before--i've pruned the fuck out of trees growing along my fence--in the process i found a rose bush that sprung up some how that we never knew was there, and now i'm using cuttings from the bush to hopefully start new bushes-

i've properly started plants i've always been too intimidated to start before, like corn!!, and we're even considering ways to deal w our front lawn that gets no sun, and doesn't even grow grass.

and i tell you these things bcz in the framework of 'energetically inflamed'-not watching news and putting keywords on mute helped in the sense that it stopped my brain from feeling like its the wet inflamed butt crack being rubbed incessantly by dry cheap toilet paper.

but the thing that has really helped like it's getting under the inflammation and healing the wound below has been gardening. watching a monty don episode (which he appears to shoot by the week through the season)-

and then heading out to chop down some over growth or get my hands into some dirt--i spend an hour outside and come back inside feeling revived. like i took a cool bath in lavender water.

i've made friends with a neighbor while i'm outside, we talk over the fence and in between our yapping dogs--tonight she said she'd been worried about me as she hadn't seen me in a few days, and it felt so nice to be looked after.

on days i haven't been able to get outside, i work on getting plants potted, and that has been lovely to see these babies growing. it is what i need, that reminder. things still grow, new life still happens, even in the worst of times.

it doesn't surprise me that gardening is helping so much. i've read a ton of war books, and people that survive war have a way of turning to gardening to help. i also recently read an article abt an AIDS activist that wound up dying from AIDS spent his time in the garden-

planting things for people he loved and that had died, getting his hands in the dirt, watching things grow, loving. gardening is queer love and that makes me nearly cry every time i think of it.

so i share this queer love with you. if you need some help not just stopping the constant re-inflammation, but getting underneath the wound and cleansing, stitching, healing it--

any aspect of gardening you can invite into your life--growing things in pots, starting a box in your backyard, joining a community garden, even just watching gardening shows (which is all i could do for a good long while)--

do it if you can. it is a thing that helps when ur spirit hurts the worst. it really does.

i send to you all the queer gardening love to you. may you and i and all of us know peace.