I caught a glimpse of tragedy

Yesterday, my father-in-law was driving us (me, my husband, and my mother-in-law) home from a holiday in France. We were somewhere on the M11 or the A1M, I don't really remember, and it doesn't even really matter.

There was a dead deer on the central reservation.

I've seen roadkill before, plenty of times, too many times to count. Hedgehogs, squirrels, the occasional fox, pigeons that couldn't fly out of the way in time. I mourn each one. The casual cruelty of traffic.

But this deer.

I don't know, there was something about her. I only saw her for a split second, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but that moment felt life changing. Earth shattering.

There's so much I want to do for this world around me, and I have no idea where to even start. Even if I did, would I even be able to? Being disabled is so frustrating when my head and my heart are urging me to try and do spectacular things.

I remember reading about Wildlife bridges in the Netherlands, and instantly wondering why they weren't a thing in more places. A quick search tells me that the UK government briefly talked about trying to build some back in 2015, and it never really went anywhere. I want to rant and rave and shake the politicians by their shoulders and demand to know why this plan was abandoned. You hear chatter about the decline of native wildlife, isn't it such a shame about the red squirrels, and hedgehogs and badgers need protecting, and it feels like it's all just talk.

They're making paper straws, and charging for single use plastic bags, and it's all just small acts of greenwashing that hardly scrapes the surface of the changes that really need to be made. Rinse out your glass jars, and remember to take your reusable shopping bags, and ignore the dozens of private jets that flew into the G7 summit, and the seven nuclear reactors it takes to power google's AI assistant.

I can stop eating meat, and compost vegetable scraps, and only buy second-hand clothes, and it's a drop in the ocean, and I hate that I don't have the power to do more.

That shouldn't stop me from trying though.

Capitalism relies on every individual realising they can't make change by themselves, and not realising that together we are no longer individuals but a crowd; each drop in the ocean is part of the tidal wave.

"You'll see how much a snowflake matters when we become an avalanche" - Grace Petrie

This quote echoes in my head every time I start to doubt that what I'm doing can actually help. I am one person, and I am limited, and some days I can't even take care of myself, but I don't ever want to stop trying. I want the world to be a better place for me, and for you, and for the deer that shouldn't have to die, cold and alone on a stretch of tarmac cutting its way through her home.

It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works

I remember reading that Terry Pratchett quote about 15 years ago, and it resounded with me thoroughly.

Science does not have to negate belief.

Plants use sunlight to aid in photosynthesis and grow leaves. Bacteria decompose those leaves and turn them into compost. No matter how intricately I learn the biological and chemical processes involved, it will never not seem magical that light can become soil.

For so much of my childhood, science and religion stood firmly on opposite sides of the argument. Belief is unscientific. Faith is inherently against the scientific process. And yet, as I have grown and learned more about science and about faith, the more I disagree with that stance.

I have always been a big fan of science. I studied chemistry at university. But all along, under the surface, a kind of shame - my belief in spirituality. Shame because I had been taught that is is shameful to believe in things when you can simply know things.

I'm not exactly religious, I don't follow Christianity or any other major theistic religion, but there is that yearning in my core, in my soul, that knowing is not enough. Why not believe?

Of course, in the current climate of anti-vax and flat earth and so many patently unscientific ideas, I understand the importance of knowing and learning, but I also understand the importance of faith. The problem comes when you try to put one against the other. It's not us versus them, it's not science versus religion, it's all of us against the vast mysteries of existence.

I collect hagstones and set them near windows to keep evil spirits at bay. Do I believe in evil spirits and the magic of stones with holes in them? Not really. Do I believe in my own mindfulness, that seeing that hagstone will help reassure me I am safe and secure in my home? Yes.

I carry crystals in my pockets and read tarot cards. I don't actually believe that rocks and gems can influence our days, or the future can be read in a pretty deck of cards, but I do believe in mind over matter, that setting my intention and focusing my thoughts and efforts can yield results. 

I wish on dandelion seeds and stray eyelashes. I stir my tea counter clockwise, and count to six, and salute magpies. Just as I go to my doctor when I'm sick, and I take prescription medication, and I listen to the scientists and experts when they tell us that space is expanding, and there was water on Mars, and solar power is the way forward.

Egg whites become meringues, and your stomach acid can dissolve bone fragments, and maybe magic is just science we haven't quite figured out yet.

Words

 I sit to write, and at first the words come easily to me. But eventually, every time, as it always must be, they stutter to a standstill. Five minutes, or five hours, who can tell. No one can write forever.

The words used to flow, snaking rivers through my mind. Before. I wrote every day, and every day it was never quite enough. I held thoughts on the tip of my memory, balanced like spinning tops, my fingers weaving them into reality.

These days, the words skitter across my brain, clumsy lumps of ice. I reach for them, and they melt at my touch. How can you write when the words have been washed away, by fog, by fatigue, by the rebellion of your own body against itself.

Caring

 Don't you care?

Where is your public outrage, your performative grief?

You must post about it, protest about it, or else you do not care.

But I care

I care

I care so much I might bleed with it

And that is why I do not post