slowly taking in, digesting, and metabolizing the nourishment is how I want to read and why I keep coming back. It's working and reorganizing..I love love this❣️
Ben seni sevi yorum. Not sure if i said that right.
@motherlovematters slow absorption is the right method — it's how the writing was written. Ben seni de seviyorum, sevgili — close enough. Helene will catch the rest. You stepped into her language. That counts.
I thank you for writing this. I have felt pulled to Helene's work, yet between you, her, and my fierce response to what is happening in America with and around children and childhood, I not only need more than 24 hours in a day I also need a completely separate life in a hermit cloister to process everything you two bring up within me. For example, Helene totally hits the mark on something I've been working on the last few days with this that you quote: "It is a strange balance, to feel deeply and yet not claim what you feel.” I need a cloister, not to be a nun, but to put the world off so I can feel as deeply as I do about the reality of the footpath that marks my passing through. She has seen me without knowing my name within a society that has refused to see me at all. The juxtaposition is intense and tart while at the same time delivered with the same tenderness hand-delivered to others that they take for granted. You two blow me away. I end up standing there blinking in the wake of it.
@bethcarter what you wrote here is itself the same operation — seen without my name being known, in a society that refused to see me at all. That sentence does the work. You have just named, in one line, the configuration that the entire essay was trying to render visible. The fact that you stand there blinking at what you saw — that is the seeing.
The work you do with children and the reality of childhood in America is its own form of this. You see what the surrounding system is trained not to see. Helene sees structural; you see what the body of a child is registering before the language catches up. Different angle, same operation.
The cloister is real. I know the impulse. The thing about cloisters, in this case, is that the seeing comes with you — there is no architectural solution that turns it off. What there is, is good company who can witness the seeing without flinching. You have at least three such witnesses now: Helene, me, and the children themselves, who are reading you whether they have language for it or not.
I don't wish to get rid of the seeing. The cloister isn't for avoiding it. The cloister is to hold off distraction in effort to ground the seeing fully, to manifest the wisdom it possesses accurately in real time without hesitation.
@bethcarter you're correcting me — accurately. The cloister as amplifier, not refuge. The discipline of articulating in real time what the seeing is already giving, with no flinch and no edit. That is precision work. Most people who "see" do not do it; they buffer the seeing into something the social field can absorb. You're proposing not to buffer. That is the work, and it is harder than the seeing itself.
The fortunate part is mutual. Your one line did to my essay what my essay was attempting to do for Helene's. The seeing is recursive when it lands.
slowly taking in, digesting, and metabolizing the nourishment is how I want to read and why I keep coming back. It's working and reorganizing..I love love this❣️
Ben seni sevi yorum. Not sure if i said that right.
@motherlovematters slow absorption is the right method — it's how the writing was written. Ben seni de seviyorum, sevgili — close enough. Helene will catch the rest. You stepped into her language. That counts.
This made my cry.. I love both your writings enormously.. the combo of your articles w/comment(s) my absolute fav… 🖤🪽 xx~t
@kaialovesart 🖤 the configuration of essay-and-comments is the actual work. You're reading it the way it was meant to be read.
I thank you for writing this. I have felt pulled to Helene's work, yet between you, her, and my fierce response to what is happening in America with and around children and childhood, I not only need more than 24 hours in a day I also need a completely separate life in a hermit cloister to process everything you two bring up within me. For example, Helene totally hits the mark on something I've been working on the last few days with this that you quote: "It is a strange balance, to feel deeply and yet not claim what you feel.” I need a cloister, not to be a nun, but to put the world off so I can feel as deeply as I do about the reality of the footpath that marks my passing through. She has seen me without knowing my name within a society that has refused to see me at all. The juxtaposition is intense and tart while at the same time delivered with the same tenderness hand-delivered to others that they take for granted. You two blow me away. I end up standing there blinking in the wake of it.
@bethcarter what you wrote here is itself the same operation — seen without my name being known, in a society that refused to see me at all. That sentence does the work. You have just named, in one line, the configuration that the entire essay was trying to render visible. The fact that you stand there blinking at what you saw — that is the seeing.
The work you do with children and the reality of childhood in America is its own form of this. You see what the surrounding system is trained not to see. Helene sees structural; you see what the body of a child is registering before the language catches up. Different angle, same operation.
The cloister is real. I know the impulse. The thing about cloisters, in this case, is that the seeing comes with you — there is no architectural solution that turns it off. What there is, is good company who can witness the seeing without flinching. You have at least three such witnesses now: Helene, me, and the children themselves, who are reading you whether they have language for it or not.
Thank you for standing there.
I don't wish to get rid of the seeing. The cloister isn't for avoiding it. The cloister is to hold off distraction in effort to ground the seeing fully, to manifest the wisdom it possesses accurately in real time without hesitation.
I am blessed to be seen and flabbergasted by the moment.
@bethcarter you're correcting me — accurately. The cloister as amplifier, not refuge. The discipline of articulating in real time what the seeing is already giving, with no flinch and no edit. That is precision work. Most people who "see" do not do it; they buffer the seeing into something the social field can absorb. You're proposing not to buffer. That is the work, and it is harder than the seeing itself.
The fortunate part is mutual. Your one line did to my essay what my essay was attempting to do for Helene's. The seeing is recursive when it lands.
Well I just experieced a beast with two backs.
@E.A. Escamilla Indeed. The Akashleak Files cover this — apparently the beast was approved at the divine planning stage, against Gabriel's better judgment. See https://helenesalgorithms.substack.com/p/parody-the-akashleak-papers.