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When I was four years old, I was immobilized and isolated in a hospital room at the end of a corridor. Being at the end of the corridor meant to me that I was as sick as a living person could be. I had reached the end of the line. Get worse and I would be dead.
I had no one to talk to so I spent a lot of time doing arithmetic problems in my head. I'd try to make the problems difficult and, no matter their difficulty, I could solve each one. This brought me enormous relief. I thought that as long as I could solve these problems, I was okay and would stay alive.
My relationship to numbers didn't exactly save my life but it reassured me that the one I had would continue. I could hold on to numbers and they would work a certain way, no matter what. Know how they work and they were there for me, permanently. As long as they were there, I would be there.
I've never stopped feeling that sense of precarity, the permanent threat of being placed there at the end of the line. And along with that, I've never stopped wanting to attach myself to things that will work in certain predictable ways, no matter what. Some time back, words—there and permanent—took the place once occupied by numbers. Words never vanish; they never trick me. I piggyback on their permanence. We're in this together—words and me—and, in affirmation of that, I write. When I do write, I feel protective toward words, feel they should be treated properly, kindly. I want to establish a relation of mutual care.
I can focus on a concrete situation. Along with many of us, at this moment I am really bothered by whiteness, what it is, what it makes me, what it makes me make of others, etc.—all of it a cultural/personal/theoretical/political mess—too much to either handle or dismiss.