On grasshoppers

...and getting to the other side, wherever that is.

No audio track today. Back at the keys in the next week or two.

A grasshopper jumped into the campfire last night as we watched. It was a shocking and sacrificial move, and we tried to save it but it was too late. Moments earlier, the creature had gently landed on our mesh-covered LED lantern, tip toeing the surface like an astronaut pacing a tiny new planet. Why it chose immolation next, we didn’t know. Later on, I thought maybe it was disoriented by the flames, perceiving the campfire as another brighter and more appealing lantern.

There is so much going on at once. I can’t write about all the dimensions of my current inner sanctum work life because it’s too sensitive. In the past few weeks this has left me feeling stifled, because the most complex situations are often the ones that need processing and I’m finding the writing good for processing. I’m thinking of the ways my team and I make decisions and move forward within a hostile environment, the tricky movement dynamics, the emergent threats. I want to write about all of it because it’s so interesting! But, the priority for the moment is privacy and security. I’ll write it down for myself in the interim, and by the time I’ve fully formed my thoughts maybe it’ll feel okay to hit publish.

In the meantime, a friend reminded me that maybe it’s possible to write about the feelings around the situation itself, without describing the situation: meaning the careful self-editing and the rationalizing of conflict and the moments of frustration and what it’s all for, amidst deep polarization and upheaval. Maybe examining the meta level will help me process, and maybe it will be interesting too.

I can still write about many things, including the wider lens of healthcare and policy as I work on edgy reproductive care within it. I can write about some of the wildest times that have already taken place: from the pandemic panic ushering in telehealth abortion, to the fall of Roe and the undoing of what our mother’s generation thought was a done deal, followed by activist networks springing up, social media filling up with resources, then providers mailing pills over state lines - not just occasionally, but now reaching tens of thousands of people per month. Or the recent chaos at the CDC with RFK Jr. and his clown car of new “experts.” Not to make it all about politics, but in this particular plane of my life everything is.

I can also write about my battle with the rats in our backyard, their love of fruit and newspaper and even lemons, and how it’s testing my values of nonviolence and compassion. Or my current thoughts on gender and especially men and boys, as a person who is not a man but married to one and sister to two. As a person who is a big fan of men and watching with deep concern for how it’s all going for them.

I want to write about a recent a-ha moment on mentorship, how I’m finally feeling ready to be a mentor in some form and pass on some of what I’ve learned and now that I feel that way, opportunities are beginning to present. I can share on being childfree by choice, how long I’ve known this was my path, how spiritually grounded this decision feels and how this experience informs my activism efforts to ensure body autonomy is not just a medical need but a spiritual and moral right. I can continue unpacking my anti-trafficking years and the scandal and chaos surrounding the activist I worked for, taken down in an unbalanced press crisis and a series of headlines and accusations that more than a decade later, freed from the fear of losing my own reputation, I can examine more deeply and critically.

Another grasshopper appeared the next day, after arriving back home. This time it landed on my neck in the backyard. I startled and brushed it off, and I could see down in the grass that I had left it with an injured leg. When you look up the meaning of grasshoppers you will find a few very different answers: good luck, abundance, wealth, transformation (Eastern thought). Judgment, fear, inferiority (these are all Christian bible interpretations). I’ll have to decide what it means to me to receive grasshopper energy, only for it to be ill-fated and temporary. It also doesn’t have to mean anything.

I can, and will, keep writing. Thank you for trusting me with a parking spot in your inbox. I promise I’ll only park if I have somewhere to go.

More soon.