this time right now

I only have one story to tell and it's hard to see the keyboard or the screen in the dark through smudged glasses at 5L#@% I mean at five thirty in the morning, but I'll do what I can. The only story I have is what's happened for me.

A story about going on shitty dates and being led back to their bedroom up six flights of stairs or down in some dank basement somewhere— no. Just no. I'm not climbing six flights of stairs to your dirty bedroom with clothes all on the floor in your shared apartment where the trash hasn't been taken out and there are flying insects and unmade beds with sheets knotted in a pile on the floor. You must be out your damn mind. I don't know who you think you're talking to or what you think is happening. Something about sex probably. No, absolutely not. That's not what's happening here.

If I did go back to their place, it was only to rescue someone else. A younger woman who may have been a more suggestible version of myself. I used to try out anything just to see. I'd walk with strange men down dark alleys. I'd follow people across isolated fields and into spider-filled woods where we'd walk along creek beds. How could I know for sure whether it would be fun or not if I didn't try? Believe me, I've had to get myself out of difficult situations before. This time right now is no different.

It's time and linearity that's always gotten me in trouble. I can't really write stories because people want linear progression and it's never been like that for me. Even though I've studied deeply and I understand the theories, it's not in me to generate narrative. I can't add to the noise of good and bad, better and worse, this and then that because it's not in my nature. I'm not saying I'm not a liar—trust no one, not even me—I'm saying I'm not good at making things up, but I can absolutely say what's happening to me right now, what's been happening.

Usually I just show up wherever and try to find my bearings, try to understand the timeline I'm on. Orienting is always the first order of business. Where am I now? What are the rules of this circus? What are the constraints? What can I get away with, what am I expected to do? What are my true capabilities and limitations? Can limitations be overcome? Can I uncloak now or do I still need to get along? There's no use trying to be a hero if heroes are being targeted for elimination. Heroes are locked in cells and given back-to-back lifetime sentences. Heroes are hanging from trees. Heroes have had their throats slit and are buried in mass graves about an hour away. Look at how many people have lost their lives in the ongoing fight for freedom, in service of speaking the truth. There's no shame in keeping one's mouth shut to live another day. Or there hasn't been, until now.

At this moment, though there's an intensity, a great pressure built up. At this very moment we're walking a razor's edge. Right now the whole planet is within an eclipse portal that will transform future outcomes. The portal closes in two days' time. Not 2 days, my bad. I meant at the end of the week– see what I'm saying about time? What is time? I'm not being dramatic here though, every eclipse portal shifts reality, but with the planets aligned the way they are now, and polarization hitting an extreme, this period of time is one for the books, while we still have books left.

The hunger stones have been appearing since 2018. Many of us have been alarmed and operating on high alert our whole lives, living the mantra can you believe this shit? The past few decades at least. Word on the street is that a mass awakening really started kicking in around 2020 when life changed drastically for many people due to covid. A great wave of souls exited the planet then, almost 15 million more than usual.

Can you believe this shit is how my grandmother and I knew each other at once. She only said it out loud the last time I saw her before she passed, but there was always a recognition between us that we couldn't share with other members of the family. My grandmother lived her life anchored in a passion to survive that latched onto respectability politics as the way through her era. As imperious as she was, her life was also run through with all the insecurity and pretense that still haunts my father's line. That may be why I know insecurity when I see it. I'm gifted with a capacity to see through people's games to the wounding that lies beneath it. I see insecurity for insecurity, arrogance for arrogance. I'm not judging, I won't refuse anyone because of it. I'm just saying I can see it. Some of my most beloved people on the planet are profoundly insecure and/or arrogant. We're all wounded. Every one of us carries deep wounding that may never heal. It's not a matter of journeying it away or what season we find ourselves in. Some hurts just don't heal.

No judgement on that. It carries no shame. It's a universal experience, shared by all. An opportunity, perhaps, to find common ground in compassion. Everyone suffers. Whether that suffering is apparent to others or not, it's always present, often under the surface. Sometimes completely unconscious, driving the choices of an entire lifetime. The wounding of an inner child driving all decision making: waving flags and pumping fists in the air, sticking a lip out, pouting three-word mantras:  That's not fair. I'm so alone. I'll show them. Lowkey living out a whole revenge plot against a world that never did nothing to you. Nobody cares, nobody's thinking about you. Isn't it obvious that everyone is completely obsessed with themselves and their own agendas? We keep missing each other. Not seeing clearly, holding warped perceptions and misguided views.

Heartbreak and longing, desperate for love and affection, stories of the worldly winds keep circulating forever: praise and blame, gain and loss, fame and ill repute, pleasure and pain. It gets boring after awhile. What else is there? Funny memes and cute baby animal videos? Is that all there is? We've got bigger issues right now than interpersonal dramas. Bigger than any story I could ever tell. All of life on earth seems to be in jeopardy right now. It's time for everyone to do their thing, whatever that is. You ready?