Welcome back Broiler Heads. As the year ends and our planet tilts just enough for our days to have more light, we thought we’d reflect on the passing of time. All of us feel its pull around this time of year. We survey the highs, and the countless lows, that the past year has dealt out. We tack ’em up and decide whether to enter the new year full of aspirational resolutions or punishing dictates to make up for perceived shortcomings. In 2023 let’s do away with penance. We have all lived through endless heartbreaks over these last years. Many of us are just starting to understand all the ways these events have shaped us into people we no longer recognize. Living in the world will do that to you.
You don’t need to run a marathon or go on a cleanse. This year, recommit to yourself. Be quiet; listen to your body. We’ve all been bombarded with so much suffering. Our phones distract us constantly with news alerts, work commitments, friends, family, and an endless wave of scam calls. We aren’t supposed to live like this. We’re all struggling with the scale of our interlocking evolution with technology as it pulls us farther away from the natural world. You’re not crazy. Things are hard. So take the time in these last few slow days of the year to chart how you’ve been changed by all of it. What you’ve wanted in the past and what you need now may no longer be the same. And figuring that out now can make all the difference in the years to come.
In 2023, let’s all resolve to cook more food at home, be less distracted, and to get the fuck outside so we can fall back in love with the world. It’s our best hope of saving it, and ourselves.
We’ll leave you with this poem:
“ON ANOTHER PANEL ABOUT CLIMATE, THEY ASK ME TO SELL THE FUTURE AND ALL I’VE GOT IS A LOVE POEM” by Ayisha Siddiqa:
What if the future is soft and revolution is so kind that there is no end to us in sight.
Whole cities breathe and bad luck is bested by a promise to the leaves.
To withstand your own end is difficult.
The future frolics about, promised to no one, as is her right.
Rage against injustice makes the voice grow harsher yet.
If the future leaves without us, the silence that will follow will be an unspeakable nothing.
What if we convince her to stay?
How rare and beautiful it is that we exist.
What if we stun existence one more time?
When I wake up, get out of bed, my seven year old cousin
with her ruptured belly tags along.
Then follows my grandmother, aunts, my other cousins
and the violent shape of their drinking water.
The earth remembers everything,
our bodies are the color of the earth and we
are nobodies.
Been born from so many apocalypses, what’s one more?
Love is still the only revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire.
But for what it’s worth, I’d do this again.
Gamble on humanity one hundred times over.
Commit to life unto life, as the trees fall and take us with them.
I’d follow love into extinction.
Thanks for joining us here in The Broiler Room this past year. We’ll be taking next week off to practice what we preach and then we’ll be back on our bullshit in the new year.
Until then, enjoy the quiet. We could all use some.
Michelle (and Matt)
Beautiful, happy holidays
Love you both. Happy Yule…if a little belated. And Bright Blessings for the dawning year.