May, 2023

Thoughts on authority, and finding the moments in-between moments to breathe in hope.

Walking from my parked car in Hollywood to a black box theater on Fringe Row, the warm and spacious atmosphere breathed me in as much as I breathed in it. The perfect weather of Los Angeles in June 2022 felt like an atmospheric extension of my heart that day. Warm, open, active. I could feel the space in and around me that it was trying to fill.

I was performing with a poetry troupe, and after well over a year of being barred and banned from theaters, or at best, put through humiliating hoops set on fire with the gas of the socio-political dogma of the time to get in, I was conceding my boycott-heavy ways to be a part of this immersive theater experience we had won a scholarship to put on.

I still felt at odds with most everything about it. I wasn’t even allowed into the social bar where other theater-makers would gather for awards and discussions. Not even masked and tested and social-distanced and self-isolated with protocols to boost my immune system out the wazoo would they meet me halfway.

I kept my peers at a distance, knowing they preferred distance and isolation for the sense of safety. We had been meeting bi-weekly on Zoom for six months and only rehearsed outdoors, where most everyone stayed masked. I cared for them, but the ripples of their fear kept me at bay.

But, in-between all of this fear, in small moments, in-between the stress and the struggle, I’d find the space where all of that would feel briefly at ease. Like when I walked from my parked car to the theater. The weight in my gut I’d become so familiar with, the tinge of anxiety that now always covered my skin, would, too, house a spark, a little hope, keeping my resilience ignited and my soul just a little bit alive.

The Hollywood Fringe Festival was back, and the theaters had regulations on regulations. The audience had to be checked at the door for their vax cards and tests, let in in small groups, and were mandated to wear masks for the duration of the show. A show about connecting and rebelling and the importance of humanity working together to live loud and boldly…

The irony seemed missed by most.

Regardless, the message mattered very much to all of us. It was the one time I’d put my standards aside and perform in such an environment. Constricting others, I felt a part of the problem. Even if it was just for these few nights of poetry. A few nights we worked for months to create.

It was meant to keep people safe. No, no. It was meant to help some people feel safe.

For the show, my character was a minion of the cult leader “Blue Light.” Her name was Tweet, and she and her companion, Hashtag, ran the show. The minions excitedly helped the audience assimilate and join the cast of androids on display. At least, they did until the Muse intervened. At that point, technology crumpled, Blue Light’s power wavered, and the whole cast broke free from the confines of screen technology to share their authentic selves.

To round out the series of revealing poems, I shared mine with both body and soul. I’ll attach it here; thank you for taking the time to sit with it. It is a piece that says more about me than I’d know how to ever otherwise say.

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At the end of April, the FDA quietly banned the original covid vaccines.

Yesterday, the World Health Organization declared an end to the global Covid health emergency it instituted in January 2020.

Next week, the US plans to terminate its own Covid emergency. May 11th. That date was decided months ago by the Biden administration. May 11th… It’s National Technology Day; National Eat What You Want Day, National Twilight Zone Day, World Ego Awareness Day, National Nurse’s Week… a bizarre lot of grossly relevant days for the day to decide that the Covid emergency is over.

How poetic.

Have you been adhering to the structure set forth by this state of emergency, and will you be until May 11th? How has your relationship with authority changed during this time? Has it at all?

I sure take it more seriously. If someone doesn’t want me there, I do not fight to be there. In the past, perhaps I felt rules to be frivolous, and I’d damn well do what I wanted.

Example: Under 18 and want to see an R-rated movie? Sneak in!

Now, I see rules and adherence to them (actual, pseudo, or otherwise) as a statement of who you are and what you stand for. And I take them much more seriously than ever before.

Example: Under 18 and want to see an R-rated movie? Don’t. Find a film made by people who don’t subscribe to that malarky, rigged rating system anyway. It’s an unjust and irrelevant structure that controls and influences the public beyond measure. (If you haven’t seen “This Film is Not Yet Rated,” which exposes the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)'s for the controlling and oppressive drivel that it is, I recommend it!)

Sigh* I digress…

This has been a hard newsletter to write. It brings up difficult sensations and memories to contend with.

No matter who you are or where you’ve been, we’ve all been affected by these years of tragedy constructed by globally authoritarian dictatorships that used a manufactured health crisis to manipulate the masses.

It ain’t been easy on one soul here. It has affected everything and everyone. And a lot of people are doing okay, finding a way. But maybe some aren’t. And maybe for some, it toggles from okay to less okay. I am rooting for all of you. I love all of you. I am sorry for your loss and hope so dearly that this Summer, you find joy and you find leisure.

A hui ho,

Julia