LAST CALL - *i’m online for next few hrs*. poll: please share your current situation (Patreon)
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hello loves.
**EDIT NUMBER TWO: hi loves. i am working on a new post to discuss all this, but i just wanted to let you know that i am reading every last comment here (and there’s a lot). as i read, i’m heart-ing comment so you know i’ve at least read it even if i haven’t answered. i’ll be reading for about the next 24 hours and then i’ll start a new conversation on a new thread. if you haven’t inputted your situation or commented yet...please do, and please don’t be shy about reading others’ comments and sending support and i-see-you. we are all in this together.
i know the patreon tools are clunky and frustrating. i have spent at least 2 hours just scrolling and refreshing and trying to load comments and i want to throw my machines out the window. it is what it is and hopefully eh new community forum, launching ASAP, will be our salvation. new post soon. there’s a lot to take in and breathe out. i love you all.**
even if you don't read the rest of this post - can you please answer this poll so i can get a good grasp on WHAT IS HAPPENING: where you are, and how many of my patrons are also in lockdown.
given the vast majority of you are in the states, europe, australia, new zealand, etc, i'm imagining almost all of us are locked down.
once you've answered the poll question....please weigh in down in the comments and let me know the details.
-where you are? city? country?
-how long you've been in lockdown? what are the rules? are they working?
-how many people/pets/family you're with....?
-and, if you have it in you, what everything is feeling like right now.
i want to know.
.........
greetings from havelock north, new zealand / aotearoa.....it’s day 13 of full quarantine here. people in this country are not allowed to leave their homes (or whatever home they are staying in for quarantine) other than for essentials or exercise in the neighborhood. the government is taking things super seriously. it’s comforting. jacidna ardern, the prime minister, makes me weep weird tears of joy with her sensitivity and sensibleness. i look at the news about america and hang my head in shame. i cried at the news from brooklyn last night.
ok
first. i love you.
i‘m especially worried right now about my community in new york city. it’s bad, it’s bad, it’s bad.
i know.
second: i want you to know that we all decided at team AFP that we werent going to "thing" anything else for march. you may have noticed.
everybody is financially scared and everything is on pause and i had enough money to carry my staff without putting out a second thing. we'll put out a State of All Things for april and that will keep the lights on....and i am working on a larger plan to figure out how i should be an artist right now, or what would be good to Add to the World. i'll be asking for your help.
we are working on getting a new community forum up. any day now. hopefully this week.
also hoping to plan webcasts - many of them. give me a sec while i steady.
.........
third: the long part.
i am ... still finding my feet.
thank you all for the comments on my concussion posts...i’m feeling 100% better and i have been going back and read all of the comments on the posts. so many moms, and doctors, and athletes and martial artists ... and all of your beautiful commiserations and advices. thank you.
a few of you who advised mint tea will be happy to know we have a patch of mint at the house and i’ve been making regular mint teas with honey. but just so you don’t start thinking i’m one of those painfully well-behaved people, i have also been bingeing on chocolate, pasta and drinking wine. i think i have gained 5 pounds in quarantine so far.
i'm trying to slow down.
it is hard to slow down when the winds are whipping outside and people are calling for help.
we cook all our meals. there's lots of dishes. there's lots of laundry. there's lots of just...dealing.
xanthea and i are doing yoga every morning. neil and ash almost always sleep in. we drink lemon water and i teach a basic vinyasa flow and we do a tiny meditation. i have forgotten that i’m a pretty good yoga teacher, it’s been a while. she’s a great student. we need each other. the practice is helping me. the practice itself and the teaching.
i'm so tired. and confused.
i'm still finding my feet, and my heart, and my head. finding some kind of plan of attack. realizing that the "attack" is already happening. from the outside. the attack is not mine to plan. realizing that slow and steady right now is the only way. stop. wait. learn. let it go. again and again, let it go.
this can’t be forced.
neil and i are both so used to bending the reality of the world into a thing that we want, a thing we can control, there's always an escape hatch, an escape route, a path to the door where we can flail our busy hands and avoid the mundane.
we aren't used to being this domestic. i bet a lot of people aren't.
in a way, it's almost luxurious to have to play house. we can afford to. i feel like i'm a tourist in someone else's catastrophe....like i've been sent to an apocalypse theme park, with a five-star package.
neil and i have had to adjust to a new normal over the past week which has meant a kind of ping-pong of the soul, wait, no, more like a tennis-match of the soul, wait, no, more like a game of bombardment.
did you ever play bombardment in gym class? in new england, at least, we had a game in P.E./gym class called bombardment. i've heard it's also sometimes called "dodgeball", or "dodgeball bombardment".
anyway....bombardment used to be my favorite gym game.
i hated baseball and i hated football, but i loved bombardment. loved the shit out of it.
in bombardment, the whole gym class is divided into two teams. the gym had a center line going down the middle of the giant hall (red, if memory serves), and that was the line that neither team could cross. the gym teacher would take a huge bag of foam balls and loose them among the children. the object of the game was to grab a ball, any ball, and hit an opponent on the other team - anywhere on the body. if you got hit you were out.
i still remember being really good at bombardment (i was clever enough to realize that the winning strategy was the lay way low off the front lines until the game was down to the excitement part, with almost no teammates left)...and i remember the thrill and disappoinment of being hit with 10 nerf balls at one go.
i feel like we are all being hit with 10 balls at one time. i don't even know what is hitting me right now, or who is throwing it,
but i know i'm out.
neil would have hated this game. neil hated all physical sports but i bet the idea of a sport where people literally throw things at you would cause him to curl up into a fetal ball. nightmare shit.
we are in paradise nightmare. we're on a HILL IN A HOUSE IN NEW ZEALAND. i mean. we are. we are in paradise quarantine. QuarantineLand. Quarantino.
i came up with a good one the other day.
all the babies born during this lockdown can be called Quarantino Bambinos.
don't laugh too hard at my dad jokes.
new house, new country, new government, newly confused 4-year old, new world, new visa situation, new ... everything.
even though we have xanthea here to help, which is a kind of godsend of the highest order, neil and i both only got about two hours each today to get "everything" done. it's 8:45 now, ash is finally in bed, and instead of watching the EnZed news, or talking with the grownups, or reading a book, i come to you, because this is what i've missed.
our house back in new york is filled with people and we need to manage all of that from afar, our families are scattered all over the world in various timezones and states of lockdown and isolation, and we are coming to understand that this is no "magical productivity time" in which we can make art, deal with backlog, or, honestly, get fuck all done.
i am still reeling from the magnitude of what is happening in the “real world” and what is happening in my personal little bubble.
i look at the news and all of the artists banding together and i want to make make make and help help help and broadcast and connect but i feel like i am still affixing my own oxygen mask.
and i'm just starting to realize how little time i am going to have to "make art" or even be a communicator and a writer while this shit is on. my head is ballooning with ideas ever day.
teach yoga classes online!
lead a daily mewdiation on instragram!
do webcasts with your hairdresser friends and teach people how to cut hair!
START A BOOK CLUB! read a book a week! zoom the discussions!
cover a cat stevens song!
cover a whole cat stevens ALBUM!
make videos in the yard of EVERY CAT STEVENS SONG EVER.
LEARN TO PAINT!
WRITE A NOVEL!
WRITE A PLAY IN THE VEIN OF BECKETT OR ALBEE AND CREATE PLAYDOUGH CHARACTERS AND FILM THE PLAY, DOING EVERY VOICE AND PUPETEERING THE PLAYDOUGH!!!
.............
I DIDN'T HAVE TIME TODAY TO READ AND ANSWER MY TEXT MESSAGES.
i really didn't.
there are unanswered text messages from four days ago. i know they're there.
i do not know why i can't accept how slow this is going to have to go.
it's like having an injury. you just cannot....cannot.
it's like bombardment.
that is really hard for me. it's hard for neil too, and i watch him struggle.
we are good at all these things we can't do.
i'm good at the internet, i'm good at streaming, i'm good at writing, i'm good at art, at online parties, at bringing people together in a crisis....i feel like this is the final exam for everything i've learned in my twenty-year career of being a performer and an internet innovator.
and instead - i am looking at my scared and lonely four-year old and thinking:
you need me more than usual.
.......
so be it.
so it is.
...........
i‘m gonna sign off so you can talk.
comment, talk to me, tell me what's going on, and i'll be back soon.
tell me everything.
i love you all.
and here are a few pictures from the last few days....
ash climbing a tree in the local graveyard ... one of the nicest places to walk near our house (it’s a 3 mile walk there and back...)
during concussion recovery i picked some stinging nettles from the yard and made a damn good nettle soup ...
neil and i have been gardening a lot. we managed to grab some seedling the day before the lockdown - let’s not even start with my emotions about this family of entwined carrots i pulled up
xanthea helped ash build an amazing fort
we are so lucky to have a yard
some of my friends in new york have literally 400 sq foot apartments with no open space available.
look
a
neighbor
and the sky
i am so grateful for everything we have right now
i am so scared for so many of my friends
i am so filled with conflicting emotions
relief, fear, pain, anxiety, joy, terror.
i posted this on twitter.
it’s true.
xxx
a
ps. if you’re on either platform, please follow me on twitter (twitter.com/amandapalmer) and instragram (@amandapalmer - here’s a screnshot of my instragram feed from the last few days). i go live occasionally but am hoping to get better at the in-patreon tools.
------THE NEVER-ENDING AS ALWAYS---------
1. if you’re a patron, please click through to comment on this post. at the very least, if you’ve read it, indicate that by using the heart symbol.
2. see All the Things i've made so far on patreon: http://amandapalmer.net/patreon-things
3. A NEW IMPROVED FORUM IS COMING BUT FOR NOW…..please join the official AFP-patron facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/afpland
4. new to my music and TOTALLY OVERWHELMED? TAKE A WALK THROUGH AMANDALANDA….we made a basic list of my greatest hits n stuff (at least up until a few years ago, this desperately needs updating) on this lovely page: http://amandalanda.amandapalmer.net/
5. general AFP/patreon-related questions? ask away, someone will answer: patronhelp@amandapalmer.net