"To Exist in the Face of Suffering and Death and Somehow Still Keep Singing"
Channeling the Vitality of Florence & the Machine's "Free"
This is the fifth installment of my weekly series of Friday music shares. This week I’m taking a break from tracks from the TRANSA compilation and sharing a Florence and the Machine song with you. The title of this post is a lyric from the song, “Free,” and is a guiding message for me these days.
Last weekend was one of the most acute experiences I’ve had in practicing the ability to experience joy and find meaning alongside difficult circumstances and distressing emotions. This task is of course one major part of the marathon we’ve all been at for weeks, months, years, or generations, depending on your personal and historical relationship with oppression. Multiple of the mantras I recently offered as a piece of how I’m existing under the Trump administration focus on this commitment to “somehow still keep singing.”
But last weekend it was all condensed into 36-72 hours of intensity that really required some intentionality around the practice of balancing personal and collective hurting and fear with joy and connection and meaning-making.
I was in Stillwater, Oklahoma for my first ever attempt at the Mid South gravel event. I’ve been training with the All Bodies on Bikes team to become an adult-onset endurance athlete and was set to do 50 miles of cycling up and down the red dirt hills of rural Oklahoma last Saturday. On Friday, severe winds and extremely dry conditions led to outbreaks of wildfires, including one in western Stillwater that grew quickly and prompted evacuations and filled our air with hazardous smoke and dust. Amid the chaos and fear of trying to determine our safety and be ready for evacuations, I also felt sadness and horror as we learned of the dozens of homes lost and hundreds of residents displaced. And my teammates and I soon had to come to terms with the fact that this epic and joyous event and this culmination of months of training and a great deal of expense wasn’t happening. The Mid South gravel cycling events on Saturday were all canceled out of concerns about safety, air quality, a dire need to not divert resources away from the fires and the people whose homes were lost, and out of respect to the suffering local communities were facing.
We cried. There was much to grieve. For many of us, this event and our training for it had been a way to take temporary escapes from the existential threats of fascism and climate change. We were so excited and so proud of ourselves being there, and on Thursday evening and Friday morning I was consumed by being present to this event and this community (Mid South at large and the people of All Bodies Bikes more specifically). I wasn’t reading the news. I wasn’t holding the feelings and life circumstances of clients. I wasn’t thinking much about other things in my personal life. I was a cyclist having fun with my bike friends in a new and beautiful landscape. And then the escape ended dramatically as the reality of climate disasters threatened that landscape and our safety and disrupted our plans for joy and community.
The song that I am sharing with you today is Florence and the Machine’s “Free,” released in 2022, which Florence Welch wrote about the power of music and dance (and in her case performance) to quiet anxiety and free her even temporarily from the constraints of distress. I put it on my 7 hour long playlist for my bike ride to help me lock into why I was doing something so physically challenging, and I was going to share it last week with y’all in the spirit of finding ways to feel temporarily free of the weight of all we are facing. And then fires broke out. I did not have the brain space to even remember that I was going to write a substack post.
On Saturday morning, the winds had shifted direction and softened and the air in Stillwater, Oklahoma was remarkably clear. My teammates and I did not move into toxic positivity or seek silver linings as a way to dismiss how wrecked we were by all that had happened and was happening, by all that was lost personally, collectively, and by the community that was hosting us. By the reminder that the world as many of us have known it has changed and is changing. And also we found each found ways to not lose ourselves in the despair. Our bikes were built and the air was safe and we were together. Most of us decided to go on shorter alternative rides away from the areas damaged by fires. Some caught up with friends from afar that we rarely get to spend time with. There was live music and good food. Fundraisers emerged and resources from the races that didn’t happen were re-deployed to community centers and shelters. We danced and bounced around and sang along as a band from Kansas City (Belle & The Vertigo Waves) covered Love is a Battlefield and performed their Mid South inspired song, DFL. There were many hugs and laughs. People accomplished physical feats that meant a lot to them, even without the structure of the race. There were plans for future meet-ups and ways to further support Stillwater. There were reflections on climate change and calls for using bikes to be more responsible caretakers of our natural world. There was silliness and play and love and joy.
Is this how it is?
Is this how it's always been?
To exist in the face of suffering and death
And somehow still keep singing
Now I intend to write in the coming weeks about how “joy” is not enough as far as resistance to and defiance of fascism and climate change go. We must do more than feel good and find temporary breaks from the suffering. And not just because we’ll exhaust ourselves trying to escape a reality that is all around us. But because resistance doesn’t always feel good and is still critical when it’s hard and awful. And still, we build and maintain strength for the hard parts by staying alive to joy and connection.
Further reading: One of the folks who was at the event was cyclist and cycling advocate Abi Robins. They wrote a powerful substack reflecting on their experience last weekend, and specifically about climate change, the spirit of Mid South, and what we can do. I strongly recommend reading it:
A gorgeous and nuanced reflection from Sebastian as always. You never miss, friend!
“And still, we build and maintain strength for the hard parts by staying alive to joy and connection.” YES! Thank you for sharing the meaning you are making out of my current favorite song and out of your trip. I’m glad you found joy and connection even when things did not go as you hoped or expected.