Resistance ... from bed
Plus: Spiral Time & Neuroqueering Shame Workshops!
In the coming weeks I am offering two of my most popular workshops, Creating in Spiral Time and Neuroqueering Shame in Your Creative Practice. These workshops are about examining Western constructs of time, what I call “compulsory executive function,” the ways shame disables us (especially in our creative lives), and alternative metaphors and paradigms that might serve us better as we seek to live different sorts of lives as a form of resistance … even from bed! See below for more info.
I recently read an article here on Substack arguing that changing one’s lifestyle—growing a garden, learning to sew and mend, preserving food, dropping out of consumer culture—should not be considered resistance. These are practices that poor and working class people have had to do forever just to survive, and if you suddenly choose to adopt these practices as a lifestyle, you’re not resisting anything in any meaningful way. A commenter agreed, going so far as to say that engaging in these practices actually supports capital in not paying labor a living wage, because our subsistence practices make it possible for us to survive on less. I have seen other posts and notes similarly arguing that rest is not resistance, that art is not resistance, that slow living is not resistance—that in the face of fascism, we need to actually DO something, something ACTIVE and BOLD and LOUD, not soft, squishy, feel-good lifestyle stuff.
I have come across these arguments during a stretch of days when I have barely gotten out of bed, except to throw up, and during which have I distracted myself by watching sewing videos on YouTube and dreaming of a moment when I can start sewing again. I’ve recently gotten interested in [re]learning to sew and upcycle clothing because I’ve simultaneously gained a bit of weight and lost a lot of income, and I am neither inclined nor can I afford to buy a whole new wardrobe.
It’s true that I have been particularly ill the past few days (and now it seems poor Joel has the bug as well…) but the truth is that I spend most of my time in bed. Well really, on the couch or on the daybed in my studio—but largely prone. This is partly because I am most physically comfortable reclining (I really really hate sitting in chairs!), but also because for a variety of reasons—illness, allergies, heart failure, fatigue, depression, anxiety, overstimulation, my essential hermetic nature—I just don’t have a lot of energy lately.
I think I have resisted the label “chronically ill” for a long time because I feel like a poser next to people who are *really* suffering, whereas I am just having a string of bad luck with my health—but maybe it’s time for me to accept that I am, in fact, chronically ill. And that most of the resistance I am going to do, I will have to do from bed.
Which brings me back around to these arguments that changing the way we live our lives is not resistance. Perhaps I have taken these arguments a little personally, as I have definitely become one of the people for whom mending and bread baking and creative-menu-planning-with-beans and slowing down and resting is no longer a middle class lifestyle choice, but literally a survival strategy. And sometimes merely surviving feels like all the resistance I can muster.
But when I calm down and stop feeling defensive, I suspect these arguments are not actually directed at me. And I perhaps even share the cynicism at their heart about people who are financially comfortable choosing to take on practices that so many of us have no choice about. These sorts of “lifestyle” resistance can easily become a way of absolving oneself of complacency, and capitalism is always ready to co-opt any form of resistance, commodify it, and sell it back to us.
But I still fundamentally disagree that changing the way we live our lives is not resistance. I think in fact that changing the ways we live must be at the heart of how we resist. It’s not enough to tear things down; we need to also be growing gardens in the rubble. Literal gardens, but also metaphorical ones. Of course we need to build a labor movement, and ultimately tear down the whole rotting system, but we also need to find ways to live that depend less on income from exploitative jobs and more on mutual aid and community, ways to live that allow us not just to survive now, but also model what flourishing might sustainably look like in the long term.
And I think disabled people can be—will be, must be—at the forefront of showing the way. It is so easy to be cynical about recent “converts” to a slower, simpler, more sustainable and community-oriented way of living; it is probably natural to question their sincerity and expect them to drop us as soon as this latest lifestyle “trend” fades—if, for example, the tariffs are lifted, or Democrats take back the House, or the recession doesn’t materialize—but I don’t think we can afford to be cynical. We need to help people change, not mock them for trying.
In his recent essay “We can’t be afraid to live differently,” substacker J.P. Hill writes
It takes profound courage, a deeper courage than I think we understand, to break free of societal norms. Our psychological attachment to the particular structures of the world we inhabit, the pressures of conformity, and the ways that culture and norms are embedded in our physical world can be so strong as to feel unbreakable. Moving away from the contemporary ideas of how life ought to look, how society ought to be structured, can feel physically difficult, viscerally frightening — it can feel like the floor being yanked out from under us.
This is where disabled people, queer and trans people, and poor people are going to be leaders, because we have not really had a choice in the matter—we haven’t “broken free” so much as we have been the freaks, the monsters, the weirdos against whom societal norms are measured.
For those who argue that we must all push ourselves out of our comfort zones and ACT in the face of fascism, I can only respond that “pushing ourselves” is relative, and so is “acting.” Pushing myself used to involve marching in the streets and attending—even leading—organizing meetings. I have felt bad—really bad—lately that I can’t do those things anymore. But from where I lie on my couch typing this, I just have to face the truth that this sort of resistance is no longer in the cards for me. Instead, what I can do is model a different way to live, gather people together, build community, give people a sense of belonging. It’s easiest for me to do that online (in places like DDS), but if I’m really pushing myself, I probably can, and hope to, take some of this resistance outside my literal front door, getting to know my neighbors better—who knows, maybe I can start a mending group at the Crossroads Women’s Center in my neighborhood!
Maybe. Honestly, just the thought of it makes me exhausted, but perhaps I will feel differently after I’ve eaten something more than toast for three days.
In the coming weeks I am offering two of my most popular workshops, Creating in Spiral Time and Neuroqueering Shame in Your Creative Practice. These workshops are about examining Western constructs of time, what I call “compulsory executive function,” the ways that shame disables us, and alternative metaphors and paradigms that might serve us better as we seek to live different sorts of lives as a form of resistance … even from bed!
Neuroqueering Shame in Our Creative Lives, Sunday 18 May at 12:00 pm EDT
Creating in Spiral Time, Sunday 25 May at 12:00 pm EDT.
These workshops will involve both presentation and creative care art-making projects. They can be booked independently of one another for $20 each, or as a pair for 10% off at $36. If you have payment provider issues regarding currency when you try to book, you can either use a PayPal account to pay, or you can visit: Payment Plans, scroll to the bottom of the page, and choose Shame & Spiral Time in GBP (£). This should allow you to book.
The limited number of free tickets have already been booked, but if you cannot afford to pay the full price, please put your name on this waitlist for free/pay-what-you-can tickets.
BRILLIANT! Yes, yes, yes.
"Perhaps I have taken these arguments a little personally..." I feel like the twin accusation of "don't take things so personally" is the accusation of taking things "too seriously," something I long-ago internalized about myself.
Except then I had a therapist and autism assessor push back when she heard those words fall out of my mouth. She told me that, when things like communication *take cognitive effort* because of how your brain is wired, is it not, in fact, that you are taking things too seriously, but simply that your brain does not do these things casually, automatically, or without a great deal of labor. It may look in such a way that opens itself up to that kind of judgment, but it's just a neutral reality of a certain kind of brain's processing style.
Plus I think ALL the time about that scene from You've Got Mail where Meg Ryan's character says, "I mean, whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal."
Marta, thank you, as always, for your thoughts. You mention a shift in body size; if you have specific clothing needs, one of my great joys is thrifting, and I would be honored and delighted to look for pieces to send your way, my treat. If you’re interested, let me know, and we can talk specifics! But of course, no pressure.