foi response from Kyli Kleven (AK)

Greetings Empowered Bodies,

I've finally returned to the internet at a small cafe across town. This was a hard twenty-four hours for me.

Its cold here (about -15 degrees). It was cold in the small room I moved in (about 50 degrees). I was only able to keep down about twenty ounces of water during my twenty-four hours. I threw up the rest.

Most of the more artistically inclined Alaskans were out of town for the holiday. Internet was not working in our house, or our neighbor's. I should have felt alone.

Thank you all for your energy during and your words before. Doing this has brought my family together, and has helped me understand myself in a new way.

Some things that came up for me:
In gender studies, we're always talking about models of being. Creating a movement that is based on movement is a compelling and logical proposition. It contradicts the way that many (certainly not all) cultural theorists conceptualize being.

Oftentimes, the body is talked about as one distinct experience, and the mind as another. They are connected by a bridge which carries signals back and forth between the two. Writing to the strangeness of this has been the focus of most of my academic work. Being a body isn't being a mind being in a body (does that make sense?). When we moved for 24 hours, it was a movement of all of what we are. We are expansive. We are large. We are fat (nod to Steve May).

Also:
War is complex. It is intertwined in capitalism, racism, sexism (and on with isms). Its complexity means that instead of stopping lots of things in isolation from one another, something must be created as an alternative baseline for living all at once. It matters that I've made an emphasis in my life leaning towards self-consciousness--even when I'm alone in a room far, far away. It matters that others have made that same baseline shift.

I have more, but perhaps I'll comment on the blog instead. Thank you all so much. I hope to see your faces someday.

Love and Snow,
Kyli Kleven