I've been busy...

By Annie Howard — Nov 2, 2023

Life is simply a lot right now. There's always something about this time of year that feels heightened: deadlines fast approach, people start to gear up for holiday travel, and the changing weather reminds us that the seeds we'd planted earlier in the year now tend towards death and decay, before the still silence of winter darkness settles down all around. In all of my adult years, I honestly am not sure I've felt one to be quite this frantic, as I juggle too many competing life events at once to truly settle into the sense of bittersweet mourning that I normally value in this moment.

But there has been plenty to mourn. To witness the Palestinian people living in Gaza face an active genocide by the Israeli military, and to see their deaths cheered on around the world, has been a source of constant heartbreak and sadness this month. Only in fleeting moments have I been able to truly feel the full weight of this situation, even as the horror of the Israeli military bears down upon Gaza, day after day. To try to make sense of how others have come to see the Palestinian genocide for what it was, and to understand how Israeli propaganda could blind those who otherwise oriented themselves towards justice, I recently read Israel-Palestine and the Queer International by Sarah Schulman. These words have stayed with me, as I think about how much work it will take to get those with power and privilege to meaningfully see the harm that they've caused:

To be a person, one has to be able to face and deal with problems. This requires having an intact self and seeing that other people are real. It requires facing and understanding the sources of one's discomforts, being accountable to not project anxieties onto the people who did not cause them. It requires knowing the difference between a trigger and an attack. It means taking responsibility to clearly explain how you feel and then being interactive enough to listen how the other person feels. As one and the other trade information, each of them should be transformed, even slightly, by the knowledge accrued by listening. It means recognizing that there are two equal parties in the relationship and that they both have have feelings, experiences, and rights.

In my own life, there is a lot to celebrate in this moment. Elise and I officially got married on Halloween, and we're going to be celebrating this new chapter in our lives with family and friends this weekend (on this momentous occasion, more soon). In my work life, I've been exceedingly busy, and I'll note in brief the major projects that have come out in recent weeks below. Still, each of these events has been suffused with a feeling of dreadful uncertainty, knowing how much is going wrong right now.

These feelings hit closer to home too, as I see the city of Chicago struggle to handle the ongoing influx of migrants to the city. These challenges exceed the abilities of our city government, yet as someone who has dozens, even hundreds, of new neighbors living in tents outside the police precinct on Halsted and 32nd, it's hard to feel like there's enough time to be as welcoming, as engaged, as I'd like. These guilty feelings help nobody. All the same, I know I am not alone in feeling them, and hope that all of us who still hope that a better world is possible will find the balance necessary to make whatever impact, however small it may feel, in the corners of our world where we are able.

It is immensely challenging to be a whole person today. To see how many people are struggling is a painful process. To hold enough room for one's own joys and sadness feels needlessly self-indulgent while living in full awareness of the world's ills: and yet, here we are. Wherever and however you might need to strike that delicate balance, I hope you may find it. We all must find a way, but that never makes it any easier. Thanks for reading along as I sort these things out for myself in real time.

And now, a few recent projects, in brief:

I have a radio show! "City Dreams" is now airing on Lumpen Radio, and for my first show, I chatted with Bobby Ramirez and Sully Davis about Chicago music, independent arts spaces, and bringing new voices into older spaces.
For The Baffler, I wrote about my favorite filmmaker, John Waters, how Hollywood has come around on the outsider filmmaker, and two movies, Multiple Maniacs (1970) and Cecil B. Demented (2000) that index Baltimore's changing fate.
For Chicago Reader, I have a silly little personal essay about my love of rats, how they helped me understand myself as a trans woman, and how we might move about the city with less fear and more pleasure.
Finally, for Hell World, I have a piece about growing up in Colorado Springs, how the Club Q shooting reshaped my relationship to the city, and how a dog that moos is the first way I learned about what it meant to be gay.

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