Notes On: (Fe)Male Fantasies, The Paradox of Choice (Fig Trees) and Lit Girl Fall
'The horrors persist, but so do we'
Dear Noters,
It feels like we’re living in the apocalypse. The world is burning, quite literally. The far right is rising like a monster, rearing its head, bellowing to be heard. Girls murdered at dance class. Families cowering behind windows. White men swaggering. Terrorists threatening to kill thousands of hope-filled hearts.
To quote Kamala Harris, ‘we exist in the context of all in which we live.’ And this, right now,  is the context in which we live: murder, racism, fires billowing on high streets. This is the context in which we make our breakfast, listen to music. This is the context in which we share Instagram stories or read short stories or light candles or buy ourselves flowers. And this is partly why it feels apocalyptic: not only because it feels like the world is burning, and not only because we’re witness to it – but because the world continues to spin.
Not only do we hear stories of horror, each day, as we listen to the news on our commute, see the kind of photographs that make us cry in bathroom stalls on lunch breaks; but when we put our phones down, when we look up, still the sky is blue. Still, the birds flit. Still, movies are made and playlists are curated and croissants are baked and our lives continue, in all their multitudes, because what other choice is there?
Because this, too, is our context: protestors forming human shields against racist fascists. Chanting words into summer air: Refugees are welcome here. In Vienna, crowds singing ‘Long Live’ in the streets. Our voices resound: we will not be silenced. We are full of anger, and the kind of hope that swells, tide-like.
In a burning world, we rise like a singular wave, united.
The more I write this little publication, the more I realise how its underlying theme is finding a way to live, in our context. Feeling our way through, hands clasped in hope: noticing it all – the heartbreak and the terror and the atrocity, the sheer unfairness of it all – whilst also seeking the beauty. The moments that flicker. When hate is loud, love must be louder. That’s what they said, the protestors, as they stood against racism, and fascism, and hatred.
So let’s be loud, noters. Let’s sing and stamp and bellow and clap and scream from windows in cities all over this beautiful broken world. Because we bloody well can.
(Fe)Male Fantasies: When the context overwhelms you
When I asked what you’d like me to write about, Jade posted this searing quote from Margaret Atwood in the group chat:
It’s a famous quote, for good reason, because it highlights the pervasiveness of the patriarchy. It is inescapable. You did not just fall out of a coconut tree. You exist in all the context that came before you. And this, of course, is terrifying.
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