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after acceptance (part 1)

The people understood what they had to do. They were scared -- at first, and sometimes later -- but they understood.

The people understood it was time do less and in doing less, the people came to understand what they already knew: the meaning of "essential." As time passed, fewer and fewer things became essential. That is, essential meant less. Quickly and slowly the people learned what was needed.

What was needed was also less. Less movement, less consumption, less touch. What was needed was also more. More stillness, more coordination, more love.

It was necessary, especially, to exist in less places. For a few, the adjustment was effortless. For more, it was difficult. The people wanted to see one another and hold hands. The people were scared -- at first, and sometimes later -- and they wanted to hold one another close, feel healthy heart beats against their own healthy heart beats, look deep into rested eyes, know in the ways that only physical bodies can know that their loves were ok and, therefore, that they were ok, too.

Quickly and slowly the people let go. There were those who did not live with their lovers or had no lovers to live with. Those who had no children at home and no familiars to curl up at the end of the bed and warm their feet. Those who needed time to accept goodbye to touch. Those with no balconies or windows that opened, no backyards and roommates who smoke indoors. Those without homes, those who lived in harmful places or relationships. Those with no where to go. For some, it took time. For some it was impossible. Quickly and slowly the people came home.

The people forgot -- briefly, and sometimes later -- that uncertainty does not mean failure, uncertainty means: you don't have the whole answer because you don't have the whole problem. Uncertainty means listen. In listening the people found silence and in the silence they heard the voices of those who would help.

Embracing their collective isolation, the people became creative. Embracing their collective isolation they found new ways to laugh, dance, organize, recover, date, plan, fuck, grow, grieve, work, feel, know. Those who had found ways to give. Those who needed found ways to ask. Those who neither had nor needed found ways to offer they did not realize they could. The people came to understand what they already knew: the freedom of interdependence.

---
thanks to adrienne maree brown for the phrase "quarantine fiction" and the seed ig: @adriennemareebrown

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