I want to tell you how hard it is right now but you know.
If you feel and pay attention to your feelings and do not constantly numb them you know. And you know why I have to move the way I do.
My plan is to write to you here, because I could never write all the individual love letters I want to write to all the people I want to write to. The stories of what has occurred in the last two days, two months, four, six months. The stories of what has occurred in the first 18 of my life. All of what came in between. Those are love stories we write to each other. But also sometimes I want less. How do I say this? Sometimes I want less words and so much more than words. I write words but often I’m let down by them. Often I’m let down by everyone’s. I want the grand fucking gestures, just like you do. I want to live in a life of grand gestures. Of showing up to hard zooms where I know there are always 10-50 people dedicated to never seeing us for anything beyond their worst fears of who we are, but doing so over and over again as a loving act for the 10-50 people who show up alongside each other for each other / for humanity / ignoring whatever the NYTimes or Biden or celebrities are talking about. Only paying attention to the love we co-create, the strength of small pods, local, global, block by block, social media. Showing up at your door, in that zoom, even though my body gets worn down after… But even that I’m used to, I’ve had many a sleepless cigarette-filled sexy evening for much less than showing up besides you in this constant never-ending fight for liberation in our own little corner of the planet.
We can take this, remember this effort is also sometimes something like sexy. Yes I know it’s all mostly completely utterly unfathomably terrible. But right now I have to imagine us when it feels so bleak. What did you wear to (name your activity) when you got dirty looks and silence from (name the persons) that see you as a threat to their version of life? Oh you wore black eyeliner on your top lashes white on the bottom and your version of a power suit finished with a big black chunky boot taking long even strides, making zero eye contact until you happen upon the one truest friend (you know the one, the one who never left, who was always quietly rooting for you) who you actually love and then you let the facade briefly crumble as you pull them in close and not only lock eyes but open the windows of yours so they see everything.
Because now we know how rare it is to find each other we will never take it for granted that we met today. Because we have failed to turn our eyes from over 100 days of brutalities, we are broken, yes, but also, I am acutely aware of how precious you are standing here saying nothing in front of me. We will adore each other wordlessly, silently, briefly holding each other and saying everything our bodies know how to say.
How can I say this: I need more grand gestures from you. When I say grand gestures, I mean gently rest your eye on the spot behind and beyond your current crush, on that part of the room where all the rest of us live. We are the one love that will never leave you, the only love truly that will free you and me and trees and birds, all of us.
If finding each other through the muck of this fucking moment is the ultimate sexy act, wouldn’t it be great if we made it easier to see each other? You know the words to say so that you can be found. I know you know them. They are just there, on the edges of your lips, waiting to be whispered to me on your way to your job, zoom, or protest, or liberation film screening, or friends’ dinner where you eat and cry and laugh at how fucking insane this time is. Those words you’re waiting to say sound like Free Palestine. They sound like I love you and want to be found.
hey reader, it’s me. I’m taking serious this art-work-life thing in a way where I plan to write a few times a month as long as I humanly can. All I really want to do is spend more and better time compiling all the far reaches of my Gemini brain for you week after week. On topics like a how do we get to a free Palestine, poetic and serious musings on love, death, loss, liberation, being an adult child, parenting, and diasporic things of the greater South Asian region and beyond. I would love to be supported financially for this work so I can focus on it, grow it, I would also love to keep having this project be open to all who are moved to be here. As I see what is possible, and if you have the capacity to support the growth of this little newsletter in the corner of the internet with a financial contribution, it would be great if you could let me know now. 🖤
All my very best,
Resham
More:
A short little 5-minute offering from The Art of Endings I did on a podcast: https://bestadvice.show/episodes/the-mortal-mingle-with-resham-mantri-the-art-of-endings
The tears I cried on my mat. My friend Trishia told me about ritual crying and I alternate between this and ritual elaborate multi-step skincare routines as some ways to deal. Both work, neither works, maybe it all works.
Words from Hala Alyan in the Guardian. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/28/gaza-palestine-grief-essay-poetry