Early Spring lake news

+ calls for support

People are on the streets in Indonesia and the government is cracking down hard. They need our support! There’s more info and a link at the end of this newsletter.

After a couple months of weather that was almost constantly below freezing, sometimes even a couple degrees below zero (-19C), and then a quick thaw, a couple days that were downright balmy, then back down near freezing for a while, and then mild, and now rainy… I imagine if I were a turtle at our little lake, living beneath that ice and then feeling the sun and the influx of warm rainwater, I’d get pretty dizzy.

That definitely seemed to be the case when I took a breath—I’d been singing a Nora Brown song I like to the geese—looked down, and there was this turtle I’d gotten to know, at the surface of the water, upside down, calmly flailing his limbs.

We met on the equinox, just off Poppy Point. I was worried he was dead at first, he was just floating there bobbing. He didn’t dive down when I loomed up above him, he didn’t react when I started talking to him. I confess I even—very gently—booped him on the head. Nothing. Maybe after such a long freeze, it was just too much for him.

Midland Painted Turtle, image by Abbey Blake

(Did you know that turtles can breathe through their butts??! This is a gross simplification, but “cloacal respiration” basically involves having something like gills in your butt! That’s how they survive the winter in a lake that gets completely frozen over and they can’t surface for weeks or months at a time!)

Then I noticed his one little flipper claw grasping a submerged root sticking out of the spit of land that juts into the lake. He was holding himself in place, his eyes closed, his nose just above the water, breathing. Once I saw that he was anchored, flexing that claw, with intention, I knew he was alive, taking a bit of a risk to access some oxygen in a more abundant form, and absorb a temperature a little warmer than frigid.

Turtles aren’t endothermic like we are, which means they have a superpower—besides breathing with their butts—that allows them to just lower their metabolisms and let their bodies cool way down. Imagine trying to operate on just a tenth of your usual energy levels, not just for your muscles but also for your brain. And then imagine wild temperature swings bringing you in and out of that zone over the course of a week.

The next day he was still there. Well, he had moved an inch, and his eyes were open to slits. He lazily moved a leg but didn’t seem so concerned about my presence. That evening, the day after the equinox, the temperatures were going down below freezing again, and I was worried about him, so I hiked back to the lake at sunset. Yep, he was still there. He had moved a good five inches this time, to a more sheltered spot below a cluster of roots, but a good part of his shell still stuck out. And I’m not sure how easily turtles freeze, and also the weather forecast is rarely spot on. So, as gently as I could I pushed him down a little so he was completely submerged. He waited a few minutes and then lazily swam a little deeper.

I don’t see him for a while, which is maybe worrying, maybe comforting. A week later, a group of 8 young geese react to me with extra interest, so I think maybe it’s the gaggle of new goslings I helped babysit a few times last summer. I sing one of the songs those goslings particularly like, and these geese swim towards me, honk, look at me, listen, and just hang out nearby. So it’s probably them!

Anyway, mid song I look down, and this goofy fuckin turtle is upside down, not panicking but also maybe not able to right himself and I’m wondering what’s wrong with him and did he hear the song and decide to surface, because he hadn’t been there when I arrived. Anyway, I help him flip over and he swims to the root cluster, holds on for a bit, looks at me, eventually submerges.

Anyway, the goose reunion was nice, and I hope that turtle is just a klutz and not sick. Knock on wood, there were a couple dead geese at the end of winter, probably avian flu, but nothing else for now, so hopefully it won’t get as bad as it did 3 years ago.

Life is still rough. Working through a lot of difficult things that have been weighing on me for years. I spent a couple months—actually since last fall when I had my half-year recertification or whatever—demonstrating to the Medicaid office that I’m still making well below the income limit and still have cancer. I got two weeks without any threatening, demanding, contradictory paperwork, and just the other day I got a notice that they’re going to start sending me paper work for the yearly recertification.

I’m still looking for a job, no luck yet, so the donations I get here are a lifeline. Thank you for that. I’ve been writing a bunch of articles, short stories too, sending them out as submissions, sending out pitches, mostly getting rejections, or just silence. This evening, last day of March, I got a promising response from a magazine so I’m crossing my fingers, hoping that pans out.

It’s rough though. Demoralizing.

I’m grateful for this platform because I can work really hard and publish something polished, or I can put out notes and thoughts, or an absolute maniacal rant, or a missive about a turtle, and it will find some appreciation.

I feel such an urgent need to help us find ways to talk about what is wrong, what is deadly and stifling about this society, what are more effective ways to fight it, but it’s depressing how siloed, how self-segregating publishing is, now more than ever. It’s soul-crushing to see a future we can’t avert, and it’s exhausting how the worst takes get the biggest platforms, how absolute fabrications get treated as commonsense.

I think we’re demonstrably right, broadly speaking, about many of our most fundamental assertions – about capitalism, about colonialism, about ecology, about trusting state reforms. I’ve never seen the proponents of this society’s institutions actually engage with our arguments, they just ignore us or silence us, knowing that they’re the ones with the megaphones, and it’s infuriating.

And I’ve always felt a calling to tell stories, to imagine worlds, but the state of fiction publishing these days is especially grim, the monopolies, the hoops, the formalistic demands. And it’s heartbreaking when I can only find time for this writing on my “free time,” the concept of free time is heartbreaking, and that I don’t even have much of it when I’m unemployed.

So, yeah, sometimes we find ourselves on our backs, flailing halfheartedly. I don’t have any real conclusions here. It’s good to be attuned to the land, the people around us. It’s good to feel the feelings, even when it’s bad. It’s good to try, and it’s also good to collapse sometimes.

And it’s good to be present however we can, when the iron is glowing hot, when people are in the streets, facing repression and not backing down.

That’s the situation in Indonesia right now, where full military dictatorship is a present possibility. That was the situation in Egypt just over a decade ago, and Syria and Myanmar. International solidarity made a big difference at certain moments in those struggles. It made the biggest difference in certain lives. It wasn’t enough to change the ultimate course of things. But all those rivers are still running. All those chances for connection, for support, for solidarity are still there, and in Indonesia it’s urgent. This is something we need to get better at, and there’s no better time than now.

Support the anarchist combatants in Indonesia who are fighting against state repression, capitalism, and all forms of authoritarianism! After the passage of the TNI (Indonesian National Army) law and the planned passage of the POLRI (Indonesian National Police) law, a wave of large demonstrations erupted in various cities, facing brutality from the authorities and mass arrests. The state further solidified its grip by militarizing civilian spaces, silencing resistance with violence and criminalization. In the midst of this situation, international solidarity becomes crucial. The funds collected will be used for urgent needs such as survival equipment, logistics costs, evacuation costs, as well as the needs of costs at the safe house. Any contribution, no matter how small, is a real step towards strengthening the resistance and ensuring that the fire of freedom is not extinguished. Solidarity knows no bounds—show your support now!

Sending a little on PayPal will go a long way. Use the email in the poster above.

Also… Bank of America, Caterpillar, Coca Cola, Citibank, Gatorade, Nike, and Walmart all have major investments in Indonesia. Here’s a longer list. Funny, I think some of them may be major supporters of Israel’s genocide, too…

Check out this new video, “Red Road to the West Bank” featuring Gord Hill. It’s about the links between Palestinian colonization and colonization in turtle Island.

Watch it, spread it, support it!

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