🌿Discover what you have to give 🌿
I can’t listen to political news and also breathe at the same time, so a month ago I switched to listening exclusively to audiobooks. I scrolled through what books were immediately available from the library and chose Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, whose cover promised to be about “indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants.” It turned out to be about so much more. Kimmerer, who is a botanist, a nature-lover, and a member of the Potawatomi Nation, looks at our current landscape of environmental destruction tells a different story; she explores how we can build positive relationships between humans and plants. Inspired by her soothing, confident voice and deeply rooted attention to the world, I started taking more note of trees in my neighborhood, learning to recognize cedar and maple and aspen.
Everything has been in flux. Not only is the country in the midst of immense change, but I feel like I’m at a point of change—cracked open and ready to learn about new ways to be. In my early 20s, I was so clear-eyed about what I believed: We just needed to vote better people into power. Now I feel that our political system, founded on protecting the right to own humans as property, is rotten to its core. We all live in the crumbling branches of a big, wild, hungry tree that has grown from a rotten seed. What do we do about that?
At one point in Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer takes her class out to a marsh to harvest cattails. I’ve always thought of cattails as unpleasant weeds that look like hot dogs, but Kimmerer shows the class how the unique grass can be used for shelter, fire, food, clothing—everything a person needs. A student asks her what people can do for the cattails in return. After having taken all these things, how do we give back? Kimmerer writes, “That is the work: To discover what we have to give.” That line went through me like lightning. All year, I've hunkered down trying to figure out what to do. Instead I should ask myself: What do I have to give? I have a lot to give. I can listen, I can write, I can draw, I can document, I can witness, I can be honest, I can be generous, I can forgive, I can understand. I can make you cookies, I can buy you dinner, I can mail you a letter, I can give you a ride, I can cheer you on. I can show up early, I can help clean up, I can be the first person dancing, to make everyone else feel more comfortable. I can be absurd, I can be angry, I can be arrested. I still don't know what to do. But just like the plants around us, I have many ways to give. It’s my work to discover all those ways.
Stuff I Made
Home Stuck Home - The New Yorker published this comic I drew updating those “life, laugh, love” signs for 2020. I printed up the comic as postcards and you can buy them if you want to share some despair and support the USPS.
Vegetable Butchery posters - I printed up these risograph posters that show the technical terms for all parts of the vegetable.
Capitalism is a Trap poster - I had a vision of this slogan on a beachy gradient. I love making a dream a reality.
Art direction and editing - Most of my work this month has been behind the scenes. I wrapped up a bunch of interviews for the upcoming book Greetings from the Wasteland, which went to press this month, and edited a couple comics in The Nib’s Pandemic issue. I also art directed some really astounding illustrations by artist Molly Mendoza for Reveal. The illustration above is for an episode of Reveal about white supremacist mob violence in an election in 1898. I always come to illustrators with *really easy assignments.* 😂
Stuff I Love
The Future is TK - TK is journalist jargon for “unknown.” It’s the note you put in articles when there’s something you still don’t know, but you’ll definitely find out later. This sweatshirt from Gender Reveal just really sums up the next week.
Polish protesters - After the Polish courts ruled that it’s legal to restrict abortion access even more severely, literally millions of people turned out to protest. The protesters’ symbol is a red lightning bolt, referencing how women will go on strike. A choice line from Politico coverage: “The main motto of the protests is a vulgar ‘fuck off.’” (Photo by Radek Pietruszka)
Chile’s new constitution - Finally some good news, people!! In a huge, historic moment, last week Chileans voted overwhelmingly to throw out their current constitution, which was written by the government of dictator Pinochet, and write a new one. It has been very cool to follow the massive protests in Chile over the last year and see this long-desired result actually happen. (Photo by Diego Correa)
Mmuseumm collection book - Honestly, I love any book that just collects images of objects. For a long time, this book called 1000 Extraordinary Objects was my bathroom-reading book. I bought the book documenting objects from 2020’s collection of the Mmuseumm, a funny little museum in New York that’s squeezed into a room about the size of a closet.
Comics for Choice - I greatly admire this anthology about reproductive rights edited by Hazel Newlevant and now you can get a PDF version of the book by making a donation of any size to the National Network for Abortion Funds.
Comics by Alex Krokus - I don’t know Alex or anything about him, but his comics really capture what I’m feeling.
Japanese mascots - I definitely recommend taking a break from Twitter over the next week. Your brain will be a lot happier. But maybe make an exception to just scroll through this joyful account documenting the wide world of Japanese mascots!
Ingenious zine-storage methods - Zinester Malaka Gharib posted about putting all her zines in plastic baseball card sleeves. Brilliant! I tried the method and it’s a great way to store the 400-or-so zines I previously had just lying around in piles.
Ordering take-out - My wholesome cooking has really taken a nosedive over the past month. At the end of the day, sometimes I just *can't* make dinner. My new favorite thing to order is the Secret Garden sushi bowl from food cart Rollin' Fresh.
What I'm Reading
The Times I Knew I Was Gay - In this very sweet graphic memoir, artist Eleanor Crewes shares snippets from her complicated path to accepting that she is, in fact, gay. I like that it’s not a straight-forward story with one “coming out moment,” but a series of deepening realizations.
Mutual Aid - A compact primer by radical lawyer Dean Spade about building community support for justice. I can already think of, like, three friends I want to gift this to!
The Overstory - This much-heralded book by Richard Powers that intertwines the lives of multiple characters with the lives of trees is equal parts beautiful and problematic. There are some gorgeous moments… and then, in other chapters, descriptions of a character who uses a wheelchair that are ableist and jarringly bad. At first I thought maybe it was intentionally cringe-inducing because the author was using the outdated language of an earlier era to illustrate a societal perspective, but the deeper I get into the book, the more the language feels unintentionally out-of-touch and gross. So... yeah, I can't really recommend it.
Something to Do
See a long voting line? Send in a free pizza!
There are tremendously long lines to vote in many places around the U.S. Pizza to the polls takes donations to send free pizza to people waiting in line to vote. Help make someone’s wait a little bit easier by sending them a pizza.
I'll send out another update soon. In the meantime, you can follow me on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support my work on Patreon and receive wonderful things in the mail. The archive of past newsletters is right here.
P.S. look at this creature