DrivingDrunk on sameness  Among the rough ragged lines of winterAmong the flattened harvestAmong the grey gone world

When, looking up — Geese. Hundreds. Towing each other, being towed

And I didn’t pull the car over but something pulled me overWe were both moving, both travelers But my progress spins so slowlyAnd the shape they flock in seems so sure

It isn’t safeI keep reminding myselfTo look up like thatTo take your eye off the roadSo my gaze goes backBut even without looking, I feel them still Their hearts all collectively thrummingTo the beat of a place they're not yet sure exists

Welcome to The ALIVE hour.

Illustration: Shannon ColonAudio + music: Chloe Riley

Things found in real life

* This spinach “tree”

* These handmade Christmas cookie boxes, tied up with care

Things found on the internet

* This obituary of a gray wolf, looking for love in California:

OR-93, a member of Oregon’s White River pack, was born in April, 2019, near Mt. Hood, about an hour-and-a-half drive southeast of Portland. Wolves can be coarsely built, big-boned and thick-necked, but OR-93 was lean and lithe. He had the long legs of a dancer, a large black nose, and a resting smiley face.

* This tribute to the late feminist, writer, and practicing Buddhist bell hooks:

…hooks’s twenty-first-century writings about love as “an action, a participatory emotion,” and companionship were prophetic, a return to the basis for all that is meaningful. The social and political systems around us are designed to obstruct our sense of esteem and make us feel small. Yet revolution starts within each of us—in the demands we take up against the world, in the daily fight against nihilism.

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