One Thing About Growing Up In The Bible Belt And Very Poor Is That Both 1. Childhood Mortality And 2.

One thing about growing up in the Bible Belt and very poor is that both 1. Childhood mortality and 2. The threat of Hell were very real and traumatic fears to my ancestors, so I was trained to say this classic prayer nightly: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul will keep. For if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul will take.”

I’m still religious, but don’t subscribe to the fear-mongering-for-followers, especially telling *children* that God is like a scary Santa that sets you on fire if you’re naughty. Anyway. I realized today that that prayer was, in part, probably supposed to make me a little frightened, especially of the ideas of death and hell. However, a second thing about growing up super poor in the Bible Belt (aka, the land of “hillbillies neither want nor deserve public assistance”) was that 1. I knew very early that childhood mortality may very well Get Me, but 2. I honestly hoped it would. I always took comfort in that prayer. It was a relief, a plea, that God might take me away any night, and I’d be in a better place forever.

I’ve always had pretty severe mental health issues, and considered the onset of my suicidal tendencies to be ~7y/o, but today, I realized there’s never been a time I was just a happy kid. I’ve been romanticizing the daydream that all of my suffering would end One Day Soon since I was old enough to speak and remember that prayer.

It makes me kind of sad that even though my disabled, single mother fought for our lives and did everything she could for me, even taught me a prayer to 1. protect my life and 2. Protect my soul if my life was too much to ask… and yet all my days I’ve been wishing, *praying* away the life she was so afraid to lose.

My mom used to tell me that when I was only four, I used to cry and say, “I just miss the good old days.” I can only assume those Good Old Days were a time between birth and 4 when her arms still had the ability to carry me, my chronic nightmares hadn’t started, and meals were guaranteed. I have no memory now of such a time. I hope I didn’t hurt her too much by showing my misery.

I don’t know why I’m saying any of this. I guess it was just a stark realization and I need to shout it into the void.

Why did this make me want to cry (Good way)

I don't mean it in a creepy way I promise, but I feel a kinship with China, Japan and Korea i wish more people from my region shared, because...we have sister ecosystems!

It's actually amazing, there are so many plant genera that are not closely related to anything else and just have a couple living species: One (or two) from mid latitude Southeast Asia, and one from the Southeastern USA.

For example, the two living lotus species (sacred lotus and American lotus), the two living tulip tree/ Liriodendron species, the Chinese and American sweetgums (Liquidambar spp.) the Chinese and American trumpet vines (Campsis spp.) the Chinese, Japanese and American wisteria (Wisteria spp), the Chinese, Taiwan and American sassafras (Sassafras spp.) I KNOW i'm forgetting many of them because there are so many. Twins!!!!

And there's so many iconic plant groups shared in common between East Asia and SE USA. Like dogwoods, magnolias, rhododendrons, we even have our own bamboo!!!

I think a lot of how strangely familiar each ecosystem would feel to someone visiting from the other one.

And I bet there's a lot of ecological knowledge and insights we could share with each other...

Sister ecosystems...

fireflies honestly make me cry a little. out of gratitude and wonder. thank goodness we live in a world with bioluminescence. thank goodness we live in a world where it can fly.

fireflies lighting up a rural Pennsylvania field at dusk

decolonizepalestine.com is an easy to navigate website run by two palestinians which breaks down common myths about palestine and provides a reading list organized by a wide variety of categories ranging from history and culture to media and censorship. it’s a good starting point to use if you want to learn more about the modern day situation in palestine and understand the truth behind myths that have been perpetuated about israel’s occupation of palestine.