what i’m reading

This week I read Katherine May‘s memoir Wintering: The power of rest and retreat in difficult times. I was inspired to pick this book up after hearing a lovely podcast interview where she and host Krista Tippett discuss the cycle of seasons—and in particular, winter—as a metaphor that helps us to deal with grief, illness, and death. In the book, May suggests,

“Everybody winters at one time or another; some winter over and over. Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider.”

The beauty of the book is that it offers community to those who are “wintering,” an assurance that they are not alone in their grief. But what’s more, she invites us to shift our perspective, from winter as a sign of death, to winter as an opening for profound insight; a light in the darkness.

She knows that this goes against our contemporary instincts, where we are flooded with artificial light and electronic devices, to resist darkness. May comments,

“There is not enough night left for us. We have lost our true instincts for darkness, and its invitation to spend some time in the proximity of our dreams. Our personal winters are so often accompanied by insomnia, but perhaps we are still drawn toward that unique space of intimacy and contemplation, darkness and silence, without really knowing what we’re seeking.”

The book is an invitation to respond differently to winter. May urges, “Over and again, we find that winter offers us liminal spaces to inhabit. Yet still we refuse them. The work of the cold season is to learn to welcome them.”

what I’m thinking about

One of the more interesting parts of the book to me is her struggle with her desire for spirituality. She describes her muffled and unconscious prayers as a cause of embarrassment; they are prayers she cannot rationally justify, to a god that she cannot bring herself to believe in. And yet, and yet, she’s drawn to the ritual and ceremony of religion, which has the same cyclical nature as the seasons. She quotes Jay Griffiths, who says,

“Rituals are the doorways of the psyche, between the sacred and the profane, between purity and dirt, beauty and ugliness, and an opening out of the ordinary into the extraordinary.”

This got me thinking about the rituals that are a part of what brings us together:

The texts from the lobby, the candles, the music, the shower upon entry, the kissing, the caresses, the soft talking, the gentle movements that grow with intensity, the arousal, the pleasure, the pillow talk.

I’m reflecting on the ways we demarcate our time together, shifting from the ordinary to the extraordinary. A time and space away from the everyday, a retreat from it (a winter?), that allows for “that unique space of intimacy and contemplation, darkness and silence.”

what I’m excited for

For those of you in Pittsburgh looking for a way to support your local sex work community, June 2nd is International Whore’s Day. International Whore’s Day began 46 years ago after hundreds of sex workers stormed churches in Lyon, France, in protest against horrid working conditions. The local chapter of The Sex Worker Outreach Project (SWOP)  will be hosting an event at local north shore record store and venue The Government Center.

Local sex workers and activists, myself included, will be reading from their own work and from texts written by sex workers. This will be an educational and powerful event that you don’t want to miss!

Details:

Thursday, June 2, 2022, 6:30-8:30pm

The Government Center

715 East Street

Pittsburgh, PA 15212

availability & booking

While I am not taking sessions this week or next (I have COVID!), I will be working again starting June 1st. I apologize for the appointments I had to move.

I will be in Buffalo the first weekend of June, and NYC the next! I’ll be in Pittsburgh otherwise.

Feel free to reach out to set up appointments for June.