compassion

Starved to death

| Sheree

Telling myself I’m starving, I went into a supermarket. Came out half an hour later weighed down with food and toilettes.

I said ‘starving’ but I’m not really. I had lunch about couple of hours ago. Really I don’t know what it feels like to starve as I’m always a couple of hours, footsteps or miles away from gaining access to an abundance of food. I know I will never have to go without.

Unlike the people in Gaza now.

We are in an historic catastrophe. I use ‘we’ as I stand as a witness to what is happening in Gaza, to Palestinian people now.

61% of Everyone Who’s Starved to Death in Gaza Over the Past 22 Months Died in the Past Three Weeks

This means up until 20th July, 86 people had died of starvation in Gaza since the genocide began in October 2023. In the three weeks since, up until 11th August, that number of people dying of starvation in Gaza has risen to 222.

These are the numbers we know about. No doubt this number is rising daily.

I’ve just read this now. While I’m stuffing my face with food, man-made starvation and famine is happening in Gaza and it’s gotten to the point of being irreversible for the vast majority of people. They are so far gone without nourishment that even if they could access food now, it would make no difference to their bodies and minds and nervous systems. They are starving to death by a US backed Israeli genocide. This is happening on purpose and there are still people who are denying it’s happening or who are justifying it.

I got the information from Zeteo media. Go check it out and witness the devastation of life. I’m trying to figure out the next best thing I can do to change this situation in Gaza. Sharing this information, raising awareness is part of this action.

creative dispatches

| Sheree

sometimes i’m writing. my body is writing and she doesn’t know . she doesn’t know what / how/ where. the body just doesn’t know yet what to say. how to say it.

my body writes what is doesn’t know yet.

what is put down on the page, the words and language doesn’t know either. what is it trying to say?what does it know? what doesn’t it know?

i was going to say that things become clearer in the process. but that’s not true. in the process more questions are raised. not answers. but more curiosity, wonder and play.

here, i’ve cultivated a safe space. a safe container where i can be intimate and vulnerable. i can experiment and play to locate my voice, my knowledge and wisdom.

i embark on another journey with my body writing what she doesn’t know after completing an amazing commission/ gig/ assignment. i’ll share soon. i feel depleted after fullness. i’m tired but also lost.

i know i need to rest before anything else. so i rest for now. i rest in the not knowing.

the orange fish is softer and warmer than you

| Sheree

let me embrace the orange fish. the orange fish compliments my dress.

compliments my wanting lips and heart, much better, much softer than you.

as i hold my heart in haste and protection, let me embrace something that is willing

more open to my grace than you. i thought i made myself clear, i’m not here to

stare into cold glass eyes, twisted thoughts and warps hands and heart.

let the wind blow through my hair and take all promises of you away too.

the rooms may be empty but this orange fish will make me warmer,

continuing to live and learn

| Sheree
Studio Practice Journal, 2023-4

“On the afternoon of May 16, 2020, about a week before George Floyd was killed by the police, twenty-one-year-old Tye Anders was accused by the Midland, Texas, police of running a stop sign. He pulled over in front of his ninety-year-old grandmother’s house.”

Excerpt From
We Refuse
Kellie Carter Jackson

There’s Anders pleading for his life. There’s many policemen with guns drawn pointed at him and there’s bystanders filming it all. One woman who’s filming this is also pleading for the police to not shot Anders saying he’s scared. Hasn’t there been enough killing of unarmed black people, killed just because of the colour of their skin?

Still no guns are lowered and Anders is on the ground clearly empty handed but the situation is just escalating as the police continue to train their guns on his body.

Anders’ ninety-years-old grandmother steps out of her house praying. With cane in hand she walks towards her grandson even though guns are trained in her direction.

There was still panic still bystanders screaming for the police to put their guns up. Some do but still one cop is walking towards Anders with his gun raised. Trying to move and push her out of the way, his grandmother doesn’t believe that her grandson won’t still be shot so she falls onto her grandson, protecting his body with her own body. Not longer after this with the police and crowd pushing and pulsating around her , she loses consciousness.

Anders is arrested for fleeing the police. His grandmother is taken to hospital.

Reading this story this morning made me cry. Not because of the police brutality or the disregard for human life, black life. But because of what the grandmother in the story did. She’s ninety-years-old, frail and only has her prays and body, but used both in protection, in an act of love.

“Her collapse was not a coincidence. Protection is powerful, beautiful, and sacrificial because protection is love. But she should not have needed to put her body between the police and her grandson to protect him.”

Excerpt From
We Refuse
Kellie Carter Jackson.

Protection. She should not have needed to, but she did put her body between the police and grandson to protect him. This act of courage broke my heart this morning. Had me weeping. Maybe it was the last straw that pushed me over the edge into the breakdown. Maybe it was my imagination seeing this playing out.

Maybe I’m just sick and tired of living in a world where white violence is justified and black violence is really self-defence but is never judged that way.

I’ve always been a supporter of care work but even more so now. As care work, along with rest are forms of protection. Through the way I {BE} with myself and others, and the work that I do for self and others, I’m tending daily to the mental, emotional, and physical needs and health of black people, so we are better equipped to survive and thrive within a hostile, brutal, grinning world.