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.
It makes a difference when we’ve got the light. And it’s warm with it.
I’m in a three day streak of getting into the sea, straight after the school run. The tide has been in too. Which I love.
I love it when the bay is full to the brim with sea. I don’t have to walk far before I meet the water.
I give thanks when I greet the sea. Because she’s always there for me. Not judging me. Not rejecting me. Just welcoming me.
In the past, the sea has healed me again and again. The first time of any significance was when I miscarried our second child, back in 2009. We moved to the coast soon after as I needed to heal.
And to be healed is not a one time thing. Healing is a life long process. Sometimes I’m locked into my healing journey and sometimes I veer off course and need something or someone to remind me to get back into the practice. The practice of healing.
So with a new month comes a renewal. And this is the time of year to renew. Spring is well and truly with us now. And the blossom may be receding and just pink petals on the wind, or white even. But I’m catching hints of bluebells.
So my list of habits and actions to lean into for a May of Healing includes:
A high protein breakfast.
Making sure I get 8+ hours of sleep each night. Priority!
Getting lost in a few good books.
Walking each day. Getting outside into the light.
Getting into the sea as often as possible, at home and away.
Visual journaling daily.
Getting back into painting for pleasure. To hell with the results.
Increasing my fruit and veg intake.
Increasing my water intake. At least 2litres a day.
Continue on my strength training journey.
Insight timer daily.
Reconnecting with friends and family I haven’t talked to for a while.
Solo dates like to the cinema or a museum. Or a delicious meal out for one!
Acquire some new plant friends.
Create a zine or two.
Plan the summer holidays for Miss Ella and me. And also solo me!
Keep traveling for pleasure and joy instead of work commitments and responsibilities.
From about mid November 2024, I took myself off on a self-directed hibernation. I might have had to do some work in a school in December but mostly from then until today, the end of March, I’ve been resting. I withdrew from the world of responsibilities and work to take some much needed alone time. I went within, into the darkness and stillness. And now as I attempt to resurface and re-engage with the world, with great difficulty I may add, I’m taking this time to reflect on this practice and process of disappearing from the world for months on end.
Firstly, I think everyone should do it. And I don’t like using ‘should’ but here I’m going to make an exception. I know it’s a privilege to take time out of work and from seeking money for a certain period of time, and I recognise that, but wouldn’t it be a better world for everyone and even living thing, if we all could hit that stop button and rest?
For me through this retreat practice, everything is put into perspective. I give myself the time and space to reflect and process all the shit thats happening in this world. And I may not come back with the solutions but I do come back with an expanded capacity for joy and grace instead of just the feelings of overwhelm and defeat.
My time away has been good for the soul because I’ve been able to remember and reclaim my body-soul-spirit connection. I’ve been able to reclaim my connection to self, nature and other people. I’m been able to come home to myself and work out, gently, what is important to myself. What are my values and morals and am I living my life by them. If not then let’s recalibrate and get back on track. And I don’t mean the capitalist make as much money and the least connection and impact kind of track. I mean the track of being the best version of myself so I can show up for others in my family and community as the best version of myself for them.
I’ve taken this time away for me but at the same time, I hope as a role model. As an example to follow. Yes money is always going to be an issue. There is always not going to be enough to go around and to do the things I want to do or live the life I want to live. But at the same time, I can live more frugal. I can spend my money on experiences rather than on material stuff. And I can take the risk and say I’m not going to work or actively seek work for a few months while I rest, while I work on myself, while I {BE}.
Of course, my bank balance is screaming at the lack of money therein. Credit owed might be rising. And I could slip into panic mode and think I’ve got to get work, quick and fill the pot back up. But if I slipped right back into this panic mode and ran around like a chicken with no head, what would have been the point of the rest and withdrawal? All that calm and serenity and centred-ness that I’ve created over the last few months would have been for nothing. Gone in the blink of an eye, just like this time away seems to have passed.
This practice of rest and slowness, is part of my practice forever! There’s no switch that I switch back on to go back into work mode. I’m not a machine or a robot. I’m a living, breathing, feeling human being, even though there are some who have made me believe otherwise. I want and need to make sure that my life reflects my priorities and values and not just plays into the system which has never got my back.
As I’ve mentioned before, I writing about fugitivity. And for me part of using fugitivity as a method or practice, is me to take my body out of the systems of production and run. Run away from the rat race, run away from extraction and exploration and stop. Or linger in the time and space of rest and nothingness. Breathe deep and allow my body to come back to life. Allow my joyathon-o-meter to rise by feeding my soul with beauty which is there to see in the every day if only we allow ourselves that time and space to {BE}.
I haven’t just been sitting on my arse and doing nothing during this hibernation, even though a lot of the time was spent on doing nothing, allowing myself to get bored and seeing how it feels and what comes up and seeing what are my go tos to stop feeling all the feels. This has been a period of getting to know myself again, which is difficult if you’re bouncing from one job to another, one project to another, where the aims and intentions are not in my control or even anything I’ve agreed to.
So yes day dreaming did enter the hibernation period. What also featured was reading and writing and walking. And sea swims and travel and alone time with nature. Home cooking, time with family and friends. Music and dancing and artwork and journalling. A lot of visual journalling. Nothing earth shattering but enough. Enough to make me realise that I’ve been running on empty, exhausted really and how harm was caused towards me and how I needed to heal.
Yes if anything, this time has been a time of healing. And this is an on-going process but I feel better equipped now to continue the healing journey.
So April is around the corner and I’ve really not got a lot of work on still. As I made the decision not to actively seek work while in hibernation also. Why take the time away from work commitments and then spend that time searching for work, applying here there and everywhere and getting stressed about finding work for my return? What nonsense is that.
So yes I might officially end my hibernation today, but I know I still have time for me as the work commitments are few and far between. But not stressing about the things I can’t control but will focus on the things I can control. I might start to gear up to putting our feelers for work but not full throttle. Not nice, don’t like. Again, I’m not going to waste this time away on moving out of zero effort into the max. I’m slowly easing out of my bear cave. I’m stretching slowly, reaching for the sky. Scratching my back against a tree trunk, and then I seat back down and admire the cherry blossom coming into bloom. I’m taking the time to thank Mother Earth for being with me and allowing me to rest and to resurface when I’m good and ready. I’m grateful for this time away. And I’m grateful to be able to return in my full glory as me.
I’m practicing how to show up in spaces, alone and with others, in fullness.
I’ve used wholeness before. Striving to get back to that sense of being whole, as we enter as already into this world. And then for the rest of our lives society and culture pull us away from our wholeness. When we realise, usually when much older and not giving a fuck, we spend our time and energy attempting to get back to that wholeness. This is a practice too, but to be whole sounds final and also out of reach.
Fullness. While fullness seems something that can be embraced now. In the present, moment to moment. Fullness for me gives the middle finger to those who have criticised me by saying I’m too much. Too Black. Too fat. Too loud. Too enthusiastic. Too Alive. Too much.
Fullness is me embracing my too-muchness and giving off that ‘don’t care less’ energy.
This piece originally was published over on Medium with Binderful. I’m drawing this piece into the Living Wild Studios archives. Because I can!
Image credit — Donovan Valdivia
“How difficult is it for one body to feel the injustice wheeled at another? Are the tensions, the recognition, the disappointments, and the failures that exploded in the riots too foreign?”
Claudia Rankin
In August 2014, there’s a summer of “hands up, don’t shoot” protests, in Ferguson, Missouri, in response to the unlawful shooting of Michael Brown Jr.. In November, Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson police officer responsible for Brown’s murder isn’t indicted. In December, filled with rage and helplessness, I organise the first ‘Black Lives Matter’ protest in the North of England; a political poetry reading at our city centre library. Together artists and writers, cram into a hot room on the top floor of a building made of glass, and pour out our rage and pain through our writings. Black people’s words. Our ancestors’ words.
I’m criticised by one Black woman, in particular, because I invite white poets to read. They could only read the words of Black people as this event is centring our lives. Black lives. A white people’s presence is not what this Black woman wants. She wants a safe Black only space. I respect and understand her views. We all want a safe space for Black people. But I feel we can achieve so much more when we work together, Black and white, to solve our society’s problems. I know where she’s coming from though; a place of pain and suffering and hatred. As Black people, for so long, we have endured so much hate and violence from the hands of white people. For far too long, we have been excluded from a share in the economic wealth our ancestors paid for with their lives to create. We’re sick and tired of being excluded from the abundantly spread societal table which our ancestors give the skins off their backs to forge. And this hurts.
In March 2017, there’s a ‘Stand Up to Racism’ demonstration in London, Miss Ella, my seven year old daughter, and I dance behind the sound system truck, towards Trafalgar Square. Crowds behind metal barricades line our route, with the Metropolitan Police shepherding us along. We shout, ‘Refugees are welcome here.’ Miss Ella, dressed as her superhero, Black Widow, looks as if she’s just stepped out of a Black Panther’s meeting. With her long brown hair blowing in the wind and her peachy fist punching the air, she’s learning long before I did how to use her voice to bring about change. She carries her homemade banner stating, ‘Black Lives Matter,’ high with pride and courage. Along the way, a white woman with screwed up face screams at us to shut up and go back home to where we come from. Disallowing our protests, devaluing our presence here.
I recognise where she’s coming from; a place of her ignorance and pain and hatred. As white working class, for so long, she’s been fed the lies that Black people and immigrants come over here and take their homes and jobs. For so long, the poverty they’re experiencing is down to these Black illegal criminal and not a capitalist system rigged in favour of a few priviledged people. We’re just as sick and tired of this too. And we know it hurts.
In May 2020, there’s ‘Black Lives Matter’, protests around the world. In response to the recent killings of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, to name just a few, the streets are talking through fire and smoke. Thousands take to the streets, Black and white, to demand justice for all our Black brothers and sisters who have been and continue to be murdered by state sanctioned violence.
I’ve grateful for their voices and bodies. This time, I protest through my words and art. As the Covid-19 pandemic still poses a real threat here in my part of the world. I’m a Black, fat woman carrying yet another target on my back. While protesting, the odds of getting molested and arrested, and not surviving the experience is higher for me than any white person. Just as the odds are greater for me of dying from the Coronavirus than a white person.
Black, Asian, and ethnic minorities in the Western world are dying at a disproportionately higher rate and number than white people during this pandemic. Many explanations for this reality have been voiced with the blame thrown at the feet of Black people. That it is our unhealthy bodies and behaviours which are spreading this disease, conveniently not addressing the inherent racism and systematic inequalities that have operated for over 400 years that has brought about this dis-ease, making our weathered bodies more susceptible to this virus.
‘We rather die on our feet than keep livin’ on our knees,’ taken from the James Brown song, ‘I’m black and I’m proud’, I feel this as we see thousands of Black people (and white people) take to the streets, even though there’s a greater risk to their lives than ever before. But I recognise where’s they’re coming from. We’ve had enough. We’ve endured enough. We’re not prepared to accept Black lives being devalued anymore.
This piece was written back in 2020 and published on Medium. I’ve brought it over here to be part of my writing archive. I also feel that the case needed restating frequently. Did I say daily?
We queue with our shopping basket. This is the norm now. But we don’t complain. It keeps everyone safe. We’re at the front of the queue, for a change. My daughter and I. We’ve only come to the one shop. I let her ride her bike into town. She needs the exercise as she’d be happy in front of her screen all day. I probably would too, as at least she’s inside safe, connecting with her friends, and I get a moment to myself.
Front of the queue, but we hold back as the woman in front of us has just gone into the shop. There’s someone coming out at the same time. The store security guard is standing in the mix too. We allow a gap to form between us; the woman and the entrance and our bodies. Coming across from an adjacent shop, a man and woman stride. Stride into the front of the queue, ready to walk into the shop. I raise my voice just above my normal speaking voice to say to them, There’s a queue. We’re waiting to go into the shop too.
I think I’m smiling but how can they know? How can anyone tell if you’re smiling when you’re wearing face protection? By your eyes. I think by the eyes, you can tell if someone is smiling. It’s a warm, sunny day. I’m wearing sunglasses. Maybe they can’t see my eyes. They can only use my voice as means of communication.
Sorry, they say. We thought the queue was going the other way. They walk to join the queue behind us. I say, in a tone of voice which I think says I understand, No, the lady in front of us has just gone in and we’re waiting back here to giving everyone some space.
In the time it takes for the couple to walk and wait behind us, at the recommended 2 metres, the woman of the couple has already started saying in a loud enough voice for us to hear, Some people are just getting angry about the situation now, and there’s s no need for it. We walk into the shop.
Note: The angry Black woman stereotype portrays a black woman as sassy, ill-mannered, and ill-tempered by nature.
Walking back home, Ella walking with her bike, I approach what happened outside the shop, asking Ella if she heard what the woman said about people getting angry.
She was referring to me. I explained. She saw me as an angry Black woman. Do you think I was angry because you’ve seen me angry?
My daughter knows me. She knows I wasn’t angry and says so.
When you live in a society where you’re powerless, perceived as worthless and inferior, those who have power, believing themselves to be superior, spend their time telling others how they handle the situation isn’t right. They tell you that how you speak or act or response isn’t appropriate. You are wrong. They gaslight you, forcing you to doubt yourself; your actions and capabilities. You are at fault, always. You are wrong. You are silenced.
Back home, I talk to my husband, who’s a white man. I think if he’d been with us, the woman behind us, wouldn’t have uttered the angry line. He disagrees. She sounds like a woman who would have gotten annoyed if anyone had checked her behaviour, he said.
He has the right to think and say that. And maybe he’s right. Who knows? But to accept this explanation, I’d have to disallow what I feel about the situation. I’d have to make allowances once again for someone else’s behaviour, reaction and treatment of me. I’ve spent a lifetime of making allowances for other people’s treatment of me. How can I be sure that when they treat me unfairly, or discriminate against me that this isn’t how they treat everyone else? I don’t know. All I have is the way they make me feel. My lived experience as a Black woman.
All I know is that when I’m walking down the street and someone is coming towards me, it’s me who walks into the road to maintain social distancing. It’s me who walks into the gutter to keep us both safe. Would they do the same? I don’t know. I can’t take the risk to wait and find out either.
I’ve been socialised, fed the stereotype of the angry Black woman for so long, I police myself. I play my part. I don’t raise my voice. I don’t protest or question. It’s part of my make-up to check myself so I appear in society as passive and non-confrontational and unseen.
I’ve been up today since about 8am. It’s just after 10am now and I’ve had this track, Love Dimension by Beautiful Chorus on Insight Timer on repeat. It’s only 2 minutes long so I’m not going to work out the math for how many times it’s been on repeat. But let’s just say a lot.
I’ve got it running on and on in the background as I go about my morning routine. I’m feeling the need to have this reminder coming at me on repeat entering my bones, my blood, my heart and soul subliminally.
Oooooooooooooooooooo
Welcome, welcome, to the love dimension. To the love dimension. Ooooooooo
Welcome, welcome, to the love dimension. To the love dimension.
It’s Monday y’all and that can only mean Level 3 Counselling Skills today. Yeah Love Dimension is on repeat. Like a mantra. Like an incantation. Like a protective shield of steel.
End / beginning of another week. Depending on if you see Sunday as the end of the week or the beginning of the next.
For me it’s and/both. Sundays are usually change over day at our house as Ella goes between my home and her dad’s. Sometimes we do things on a Sunday or sometimes we don’t.
We just take it easy.
But usually on a Sunday I reflect on the week gone and plan for the week ahead. It’s a ritual of getting my head in the game. Not the outside societal, capitalist game. No, my own game. The Sheree Mack Game, which runs counter to the White Supremacy Culture game of go go go produce produce produce and strive for perfection at the same time as avoiding conflict and being grateful for the crumbs from their table. Yeah counter to that game as I refuse to be part of this system, where my labour is being bought and sold to support the actors, that are white people.
I’ve been hibernating for months now and I’m still tired. Go figure. Maybe my exhaustion is more than a year in a dumb ass job but runs much deeper. A generational exhaustion that I just can’t shift which has to be recognised but will take a lifetime to ease.
Ease. Yes that would be welcome.
There are moments when I grasp these ease and feel it spread across my back, untightening bunched up muscles. Making my spine fluid rather than ridged. These times I can feel my heart and soul float and I’m relaxed into whatever I’m being. But these are just moments. The aim is to extend these moments into longer moments, into days and months.
I’m working on being so but it is a practice. So when I say Sundays are reflecting/ planning days. I don’t mean around a to-do-list of jobs that need to be completed in order to bring in the tainted coin. I mean, where did I experience ease this week and where can I factor in/ plan for more ease next week. Where did I experience joy and pleasure and how can that be replicated moving forward.
Yeah in the Sheree Mack Game, all the rules and tasks are different to the societal external game. At more ease and I know I’m winning x
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