Thinking through pollen

 

What is "natural" and what is "unnatural"? Who gets to decide what fits in and what doesn’t? Who benefits from these made-up divisions, and what does it cost society when some people are mislabeled as "unnatural"?

These questions hit hard when we think about queer grief and grieving. What does it mean to express emotions that society labels as unnatural, especially for a body that's already suppressed? Our society has strong ideas about how emotions should be expressed, often dividing them along gender lines. Queer grief, often pushed to the margins and misunderstood, challenges these strict norms, showing just how arbitrary our ideas of "natural" and "unnatural" really are.

But if we look at nature, we see that it expresses itself with gentleness and delicacy, regardless of gender. Nature just is, and we can be too. We might not be nature itself, but we draw a lot of inspiration from it—nature as an entity, a force, and its countless creatures.

Think about a cottonwood tree releasing a bunch of cotton fluff in the summer, maybe grieving for a female cottonwood tree it never had. The way the pollen fills the sky and drifts away so swiftly is mesmerizing. When you watch the cotton fluff, you don’t think about the tree’s gender; you just follow the gentle movement of the fluff. Nature shows us that grief and expression aren’t limited by rigid categories.

Our identities are shaped by the relationships we build with the beings around us—both human and non-human. I lean towards the non-human because humans often struggle with complex identity issues, always trying to be unique and avoiding imitation. We're all tangled in a web of relationships with each other and with nature.

Queer grief reflects this fluidity. It breaks away from binary thinking and embraces a more natural, free-flowing expression of sorrow and loss. By acknowledging queer grief, we see the arbitrary limits society places on emotions and identities. Just like nature expresses itself without our imposed divisions, our grief and emotions can flow freely, beyond what’s considered "natural" or "unnatural."

By embracing the fluidity and interconnectedness of emotions and identities, we can move past rigid, artificial divisions and appreciate the beauty and authenticity in all forms of expression. Queer grief, like cotton fluff drifting through the air, crosses boundaries and invites us to view the world and ourselves in a more inclusive and compassionate way.

Queering is a constant transformation, shifting through space and time in response to the environment around us. In this way, nature itself is inherently queer. It shifts and drifts through seasonal changes, always transforming. So maybe the cottonwood tree's fluff is an expression of love and desire.