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IT'S THE FIRST DAY OF APRIL . . .
and I feel like a fool.
When people in power are acting like clowns - kidnapping, murderous, violent clowns - it's hard not to wonder if your own features are taking on the qualities of what you're looking at.
In my head, I go in circles between understanding that we can't fight every single person, or every single issue, that stands in the way of justice, and remembering that compassion and open heartedness are at the core of the connection that I believe we all seek. I keep coming around to this tension where fear of conflict is impossible to separate from our desire to be good people. We are socialized - especially as women - to grow quiet in the face of anger and admonishment for being too willing to speak up.
Since the word 'woke' started being used as an insult, I've thought about the word 'feminist' and how it was / is similarly diminished. The reality is that damage can be done by people carrying either flag, when they wield it with self-righteousness. But just as with feminism, I see more air time being given to the worst examples of wokeness, the ones that seem most harmful or cringe-worthy. What's that phenomenon whereby people fear a plane crash more than a car accident, even though we participate most often in the one that is more likely to kill us?
The question haunts me: how can you tell the moment when you go from being called to self-reflect on the efficacy of your communication, and the moment you are shamed into silence?
The arguments chase each other around in my head and land on a memory: my mother, struggling under the constraints of single parenting and substance abuse, reading census in the back woods of Kentucky, a part-time job accessible to a smart woman without a college degree. She would come home, time after time, and put an empty cardboard box on the stair, telling my brother and I to fill it with all the books and comics we were willing to part with. Households with children but no books were a silence my mother couldn't bear.
In that part of the country, the same homes could probably have used some fresh food, but for all her love of farming, Mom was always better at growing ideas, hatching out stories. What do we do with grief and rage? We give it a voice. The only thing that seems worse right now than what we've got, is being quiet about it. Who are the people whose voices ring with truth in your soul, whose courage is contagious, who you return to again and again to remind yourself that you have a voice?
I was a painfully shy child, quiet and close-mouthed when I felt the least bit seen. I think I was speechless in part because I didn't have language yet to express how it felt to be mistreated by the people who were supposed to love me. If I couldn't say what was true, I didn't want to say anything at all. Sometimes we choose silence when our grief makes language seem like a fool.
I think of Madame Pélicot, her consciousness stolen from her, insisting on keeping her eyes open in order to shift the shame from the wronged to the wrongdoer. I believe we can be angry when our hearts are open. What might open-hearted conflict look like? I think it would be rooted in validation over dismissal. What are we trying to do with our time here on Earth? How will we make connection with what we feel called to think about, communicate about, or act on?
It was difficult for me to work my own thoughts onto the page today, rather than just typing in, word for word, what poet and novelist Kaveh Akbar published in the Nation on Friday. Nevertheless, his words are driving behind each one of mine, reminding me that language is always there waiting for us, when we are ready. I am someone who has to go back to writers, to books, to words, to find myself. Even something written yesterday has the power to stretch across time, just as words hundreds of years old can cut straight to our hearts, as if spoken by someone in the room with us, although we are alone.
Each time we write this newsletter, it is something of a trust exercise. We put our words out there into the silence, and we believe in their ability to resonate. Sometimes it happens that we meet one of you who was inspired to change your life because GFJ made it seem possible, or offered encouragement. Other times we watch the jobs come in, sometimes a trickle, sometimes a flood, and we see the resonance in the opportunities that speak up for workers and team members, regardless of who is defining 'good business.'
Sometimes the core motivation of criticism or distraction is to silence people. How many times have we been told not to dream, while living inside the imaginations of mass murderers? Are you ready to step into words that some people may point and laugh at? If what you thought looked great on you is to someone else a clown suit, can you wear it with dignity?
I often think of Marguerite Duras saying, "To write is also not to speak. It is to keep silent. It is to howl noiselessly."
I'll say to you all what I sometimes say to my own little self: if you have to be silent, make it loud.
With an open heart,
Dor + Tay
photo by Estefania Trujillo Preciado
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