This today – because today – via Isabella Hammad in Recognising the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative:

The present onslaught leaves no space for mourning, since mourning requires an afterwards, but only for repeated shock and the ebb and flow of grief. We who are not there, witnessing from afar, in what ways are we mutilating ourselves when we dissociate to cope? To remain human at this juncture is to remain in agony. Let us remain there: it is the more honest place from which to speak.

I think of Sara Ahmed, in a post from some months ago:

There are times when we cannot be at peace with ourselves.

There are times when we should not be at peace with ourselves.

We are in those times.

It feels like we’re all trying today, to measure what has filled the last year, with the yardstick of a year. And it feels a little ridiculous, a lot impossible.

Like trying to count kilometers in a cup. Like trying to clock the speed of stillness.

I do not know how to end this.

So maybe then, a way to begin.