SPIRITUAL SOAP: Loving Conflict

America, contradictions, and the beauty of it all.

Before we were The Black Sheep, we were a newsletter named Spiritual Soap. Please enjoy this article from our history!

What Would Washington Do?, 2023. Salomé.

Three months in a city is the travel equivalent of taking a weekend trip with someone you’re dating. Time takes you past first impressions and the idealism of something new, revealing subtle problems, like the anger that changes your date’s face when the weather changes their plans.

I’m 2 months into dating D.C. and things are getting complicated. Maybe I’m just projecting my ex onto it, but D.C. is more like L.A. than I would’ve guessed.

The White House is the Hollywood sign of politics—the symbol of big dreams and the one who kills them.

Like a city of vegan liberals overrun with homeless people withering on sidewalks, D.C. is a city of contradictions.

The Seat of Something, 2023. Salomé.

A contradiction isn’t inherently negative. Our desire for love and the cruelty we commonly enact on each other is a contradiction that makes obtaining the former the subject of fairytales. Contradictions are problems that promise a reward to those who resolve them.

I’ve taught myself to be less afraid of problems. It’s like choosing to cure an allergy to dogs if you work in a dog hotel. Life is a problem hotel and it’s better we not break out in hives and stop breathing every time a problem arrives.

The contradictions I see in D.C. are both new and old. The aggressive buzz of military helicopters seasons my day. The view from my desk reveals a water tower owned by the CIA.

I visit monuments to people so impassioned by their disdain for intrusive government they started a country that now starts wars in other countries.