Somos Nós: Francesco Tripoli e Lu
“My heart aches a lot these days, more than usual. Lu and I are immigrants here. My family and friends are mostly split between the U.S. and Italy. Many others are scattered like precious jewels across this precious planet, our home. I don’t much see or hear from local friends either. The virus has shredded so much. I have seen and felt a general withdrawal that reflects social distancing more than physical distancing. Although, my heartache sooths a bit when seeing so much of the world rise in solidarity and support of Black Lives. It has been a challenging time to put it mildly. Still, I feel a deepening gratitude to the beauty around us that persists, resists, and insists. If it wasn’t for my love, Lu, the despair would be all consuming.
Two weeks ago, I attended an online memorial for a dear someone who passed away. She passed away not only from the virus, no, Ruby was also a victim of an economic system and the correlating value systems that make some people more expendable than others. She was poor, Black, and precious, absolutely essential to many, but not to a society that extracts, processes, and disposes of life especially Black lives like some people do facemasks and gloves - I’ve seen them littered about, a sign that we don’t really care for anything other than a return to a dangerous normal that was wrecking the planet, shredding and burning its forests, polluting its waterway veins, thickening a sky with all the emissions from our consumerist tendencies, orchestrated by the capitalists to loot and channel the wealth of the planet through our creative hands into their accounts.
This planet is heaven and the most powerful seem intent on orchestrating our weaknesses and divisions in such a way that we continue to be petty accomplices to massive destruction instead of together supporting the needed regenerative change in order to ensure that this heaven survives, heals, and thrives. We have largely refused to unite because it’s easier to be divided. Returning to “normal” only makes sense if we were comfortably blind before. In either case, there is no returning. In this surreal and seemingly unchartered reality, Billionaires are exponentially growing their horded wealth stolen legally from the commons, all while the majority are hoping for common consumerist distractions and survival instead of transforming our societies substantively, instead of making our communities more genuinely resilient. Yes, I think this virus is showing us the countless weaknesses of a system not based in justice and equity, but rather piracy and a narrow notion of profit, a system of mine and yours, instead of ours, or better yet – we could nurture into being a society that humbly stewards what belongs to the future.
The cure for all that ails us is radical solidarity. Are we genuinely capable of accepting this cure? It all depends on our capacity to dissolve habits and stories. It depends on our capacity to decolonize and collectivize. It depends on nurturing new stories and so much more.
Yes, I’m sad and angry. Look at the situation in the nation where I was born, the u.s. There, normal is leading towards an ever brazen fascism that puts the entirety of life, especially Black lives and poor lives on this human-forsaken planet at risk. The consequences for the world are nearly beyond imagination, that is, if we didn’t have history to warn us of the danger we are in. What is the pandemic doing in other places? How about here? … The way the collective is being steered scares me a good bit. The various forms of violence - economic, emotional, physical, all of it, woven through a catastrophic “normal” before - is now mutating and metastasizing much like the virus into something of a generalized death cult. If people don’t even greet each other as much as before, how then can we possibly connect enough to face the gravity together? How is genuine solidarity possible?
The u.s. dollar, the reserve currency of international trade and finance, is being endlessly “generated” into existence to benefit the largest banks and the billionaire class. Why doesn’t the federal reserve bank of the u.s. produce trillions to benefit a Green New Deal? Because it’s not about the health of nations or the planet, it’s about the unchecked cancerous greed of a few…
In April, I was scheduled to open a social center café of sorts, a place where people could enjoy a simple snack made with ingredients that we could trace to people with names like Maria, Hugo, and Tozé, instead of names of large transnationally held corporations. In this café, differences would be celebrated, stories shared, you could read a book quietly or aloud, the music of old and new friends meeting would invite you to join, a nourishing recipe of coming together in a beautiful and strange social place. We wanted to care take and nurture into being new connections, a place where we would try to foster a deeper regard for the essential nature of the real world wide web of interconnected social synapses that grow beauty by together transmuting the grief inherent to life into praise for it too. A wonderfully abnormal space for all. I know that’s a tall order, but I come from a long line of simple good cooks who nurture connections. That was my aim. Not a restaurant as much as a home, so that all could come home to here. Now, I’m a bit lost.
Yes, my heart aches a lot these days, for so many reasons.
One way I soothe the heart a bit is through the medicinal meditation of cooking with and or for people. So, I’ll continue doing so for sure…
I hope to see you around. Perhaps we can break bread together soon. I hope so.
Meanwhile and beyond ~
Take care, revel, and share.” - Francesco Tripoli
“It felt as if I was a bear who was going to have the hibernation, no one could come to see me because I needed to sleep for a long time.” - Lu
