fugitivity

Doing another ultramarathon

| Sheree
Rubus vestitus ( brambles)

I went out walking this evening. After I stuffed my face and got settled down to watch some ultramarathon training videos on YouTube, I thought it would be more benefit to my body to get out and move her.

I tried an ultramarathon last year along the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path. I didn’t complete it because I ran out of time. I was just too slow to complete the 50k / 31 miles within the official timeframe. But I had a grand day out. It was glorious; the weather, the path, the sights and movement. I really enjoyed my day and I wasn’t too fussed about not completing it. I

knew I would try again.

And so it happened. I’d reached out to Into Ultra a couple of years ago for support for getting into ultra. I thought if not just advise then maybe some help financially with the kit and stuff. It hasn’t really happened till now.

They sent around an email offering free places in races coming up this year. And one took my fancy. SheRaces Trail Series Peak District 50K. There’s a 25K also which I know I can complete but it wouldn’t be as much as a challenge as the 50K.

A couple of days ago running coach Hannah Walsh shared a great Instagram post highlighting that just 0.007% of people have run an ultramarathon, and of these 0.0001% are women. That’s a really small number.

25 Jul 2023 . Source

I like the idea of being able to complete an ultramarathon. I’ve completed 4 marathons, the last one being 2022 in Loch Ness.

To be amongst that small percentage of people, never mind women, never mind black women, who have ‘run’ an ultramarathon, is something to aim for.

And of course I’m not going to run it. I will run walk crawl as per usual. But this time, I know what to expect in terms of the pain, the terrain, the challenge, and toll it takes on the body.

I’m in training now. And there’s never enough time to get to my peak. But what is my peak? I’m an aging overweight black woman, but I’ve never felt more like myself and operating on my own terms. So that’s peak for me!

So this is as good a time as ever to give this ultra malarkey another try.

Consistency breeds confidence. This is my mantra. Consistency breeds confidence.

So as long as I get out walking each day build up the time I spend on my feet, I’ll be grand. And whatever else happens, it will be a grand day out!

Saturday 2nd August is the date of the gathering in the Peak District. You’re more than welcome to join me. Cheer me on. Supply the water and midget gems if you want!

The Sinners Series – 004

| Sheree

You know I love the movie, Sinners. I’m onto my fifth watching of it.

One of my favourite songs within the movie is this one Dangerous sung by Hailee Steinfeld. I could rage on for hours about this song; it’s melody and words and underlining beat. But for now, I’m taking the word dangerous and running with it.

Within Sinners, what can be seen as dangerous is the invasion of vampires, a life or death situation. What could also be seen as dangerous is a community of sharecroppers having a safe space to listen to music and dance and eat and drink on their own terms. To be free. This could be seen as dangerous by the white supremacy culture they are living under.

For me what I see as dangerous are the white men who are still running around in their white hoods, calling themselves the brotherhood, the protectors of white women and democracy and who do whatever is takes to keep the black people( they do not use this nice a term for such people) in line even if it means killing them all.

These white men in hoods, the Ku Klux Klan, deal out justice as they see fit, creating terror as the deterrent to black people thinking of stepping out of line. And that could be just breathing.

These white men could meet you on the street one day and be burning down your house the very next day. But you wouldn’t know who they be. You know the enemy is a white man but it could be the smiling face neighbour who hides behind the hood, concealing their identity and cause havoc with no repercussions or justice or revenge on them. To live in this sense of fear is unimaginable.

Today these Federal Officials and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) marshals who are abusing their power, gifted by the Trump administration, to take people, children as well, from their homes, schools, work, off the streets and detain them, saying they are illegal, deport them, torture them for no reason except being seen as an ‘alien’ because they are brown and black are no better than the KKK. They wear the masks. They cover their faces. Conceal their identities and commit the crimes. The brown and black citizens of these communities are not committing any crimes except attempting to survive and thrive, living their lives.

Why cover your faces if you believe in what you are doing? Why conceal your identity if you are doing what is right, following the law? Why hide if you are proud of your actions?

This is dangerous. White men or white baby-men again have been emboldened and empowered to run havoc through our communities in the name of the law. Believing that they are doing what’s right in terms of some warped sense of superiority and the belief that they have a right to do so.

This is dangerous and has to be stopped. How? That is what we have to work out.

Running Scared, No More

| Sheree

Let’s be scared. Let’s demonise people.

This is the message sweeping across countries at the moment, around the world, as we continue to move further to the right in terms of politics and governing people. Suppressing people and voices.

Thinking about my weekend in London at the Defeating Narratives of Division conference hosted by the Ella Baker School of Organising, and coming home to see peaceful protests in L.A. around the over stretching arms of Federal Officials and illegal immigration raids on communities being portrayed as chaos and unruly and needs to be stopped with military force. Trump, man!

What the fuck is happening right now? What false narratives fuelled by fear and intimidation are catching like wildfire and are taking hold? What is happening to democracy and fairness and justice?

I too am scared. I’ve been told by some to have fear and anxiety and start panicking in order to take action. Time is running out. Passing on this narrative of fear is making us on the so-called left no better than those on the right whose fuel is fear.

We have to be pushing back against these fears. Not disallowing them but acknowledging them and choosing to fuel our movement with love and solidarity and joy. We can come together as we have the power and spread a message of love and welcome and togetherness and there is no way that message can be twisted or used against us.

It is plain to see that communities who stand together, even if from different cultures and races and heritages, are powerful and those who are crooked and authoritarian are scared of this. Scared of us taking back our power and saying no, enough!

I’ll be writing more on this in the weeks to come. But for now I just had to mark this moment of disgust at what is happening around the world but how there is much to be celebrating and reinforcing and elevating. Stories of love and solidarity and people taking back their agency and power. Thinking of Burkina Faso here and other African nations who are standing up and saying enough is enough.

But all in good time, and for me ‘good’ time is slow time. Taking the time to bring about lasting change on our own terms.

More to follow.

Feral Words POdcast

| Sheree

Ohhh I love coming on here and sharing goodness. 

I had the pleasure of talking to Eleanor Cheetham from The Wildheart Papers on their podcast Feral Words last week.

It was so good to have a deep dive into my practice, my work around fugitivity and refusing to perpetuate white supremacy culture. And it was all welcome at Feral Words. Nothing off limits and it was so liberating to try and make sense of all the concepts and ideas and feelings that are circulating within and without of me at the moment in time. A very disturbing time. 

Writing as Resistance, Reclamation and Ritual, is the episode.

I’d like to thanks Eleanor for again holding space for me and my creations with care, grace and joy.

Here’s the link for the podcast . Please take a minute when you get a minute or two. 

And also check out The Wildheart Papers here on Substack too.

The Sinners Series – 002

| Sheree

I’d seen the trailers. And forgot. It was already out a week or so when I realised and I only had a small window of time before I was off on my travels again.

So on the spur of the moment. I booked my ticket, walked and bussed there. A late night showing. I’d be coming home in the dark.

I should say, I have a love /hate relationship with horror movies. I get scared easily. I’m very impressionable. And images especially horrific ones haunt me afterwards. But I also enjoy being scared. In a weird twisted way. It’s an adrenaline rush.

This film has vampires. And I was travelling home alone. Considering walking ( I didn’t my after all).

The cinema wasn’t really full. I settled in and right from the beginning of Sinners directed my Ryan Coogler, I knew I was going to be in for a treat. The cinematic colours and quality of the film, shot in IMAX and 70mm film, pulled me into the world created.

Set on 1932 in the Mississippi Delta, during Jim Crow, a musical supernatural action film was a beauty to behold. Michael B Jordan playing a double role as the twins Smoke and Stake, I was gripped.

Of course I jumped and screamed all at the right parts but I also got lost in the characters and their relationships and the horror of it all. The death, grief, pain and joy.

If you haven’t seen Sinners, please go see it. Best movie for this year, best movie by far for a long time. This is a movie I have no qualms about haunting me.

My bedtime lover(s)

| Sheree

A book is much more faithful than a lover I think.

A book can open you up to so many different experiences at the same time as reaffirming everything you’ve been feeling and thinking and struggling with.

I’m not sure a lover can do all that for me. But many more than one lover could?

Hence spending copious amounts of time in bed with books.

Reclaiming the Black Body: Nourishing the Home Within by Alisha McCullough is one of my current reads.

I used to be of the persuasion to read one book at a time. Devote all my time, focus and attention to one book in order to reap the glory/ knowledge/ whatever!

But these past few years, as I’ve become thirsty for stimulation and attempting to find like-minded people/ theories/ lovers, I’m moved into reading multiple books simultaneously, also known as “syntopical reading”.

And these books are not on the same topic either. They range from poetry around grief, non-fiction on gardening, personal essays around deep time, romantic and crime novels and short stories about myths and history. The list goes on!

I’m so enjoying this eclectic and multiple reading practice as it’s keeping me engaged, creating unique and original connections and it’s keeping me feeling loved.

By me.

So one of my current squeezes is Reclaiming the Black Body and I’m devouring it in small digestible bites because it is speaking to my soul.

This book is calling to attention the deep-seated, long-time, disproportionate amount of trauma, violence, marginalisation, discrimination, and adverse childhood experiences of Black women and femmes, and confounded by misognoir and racism, how we have learned to cope with it all through increased imbalanced eating behaviours.

Usually called “eating disorders” but even using that language implies that the individual is to blame and implying that some of us are just not equipped to nourish our bodies and do not know how to look after ourselves.

‘Disorder’ implies stigma and comes from the Western health ‘care’ system which from time has excluded and harmed Black people.

So this book is a balm for the wounds of silent struggles Black women and femmes have been going through around eating imbalances including myself. And is a vindication that we’re not fucked up and broken and just beasts, being less than human but that we are doing our best with the tools that we have to strive and thrive within a system that is hell-bent, historically and now, to demonise the Black body.

I will continue to cosy up with this book and others in bed, night and day, as reading is hitting the spot!