This Too Shall Pass

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

The sun will set and this day will end and if it ends in tears that is still an ending. This too shall pass.

You will not be standing on this spot when the stars come out, you will not still be carrying the same things, feeling the same things, reacting to the same things. I cannot promise you things will be better, cannot even promise that they won't be worse, but I can tell you this is not forever. The day will end. This will pass.

Whether you are sleeping in your bed or a jail cell or on a stranger's couch you will sleep tonight, and it will not be in the place where your feet are planted in this moment. And while some of these outcomes are preferable to others they are all different from the moment you are in now. Time will carry us willing or not away from all of this, and all that will remain are the records and our memories. Make good memories for yourself to carry, to lighten the load. You will have more things to carry tomorrow, because this is not where you will end.

We have come together here to do the sacred work, and when we leave we will do other works and we will tend to our wounds and nourish our bodies. We will return to communities that may not understand us or may not be willing to take the same risks we are, or may not even see what we do and the utility of it. We return anyway. This street, this sidewalk may be here in the morning but it will not be the same space it is right now, in this moment of chaos and conflict. This too shall pass.

The sun will rise tomorrow. What we fight will still be here. Count your victories generously and often. You have made it to this space. You have done the things. The soreness in your body, the pain in your voice, these things will not last.

Be in this space. Do what needs doing. And when it is done, let yourself leave.

[chaotic neutral observer]

 
Were this a concert, I would raise a lighter.

[Fujikoma]

As always, good stuff.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

One of the most interesting bits of post-protest processing I've gone through was retracing my steps from the event in January and realizing that the hill in my memory is almost twice as steep as it is in real life.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]