“I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.” ~Audre Lorde, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”
Can you feel it out there? The stickiness? The wondering of our community? The tired and wear and the constant wondering of “What am I supposed to DO with all this?” What is it that is swirling around and what can be done?
I suppose some things are left unsaid. At least that is what I have often been told. Or at times, even believed myself. But some things stick in my throat and burn, and then I have to ask myself: “What is the worst that could happen if I gave these words life? Breath? Ability to mean something other than the suffocating gagging pieces in my broken, charred throat?”
I am not alone in this. I can’t be alone in this. It doesn’t make sense at all to me that I could remotely be alone in this!
Some kind of thickness is out there, moving through and ravaging our community, and I have no words or explanation for what it could be. Except the “unknown” we have all heard is coming regarding the effect of years of war.
I have no specific words or pretty syllables to describe it. But I FEEL it.
I feel the exhaustion. I feel the worn. I feel the anger. Resentment. And, the scariest one I feel: the inability to feel. The inability to find a way to even describe or explain what years of war have done. It surrounds us all, pulling at us with invisible tentacles and infiltrating our homes and our hope and need for peace and calm and a chance to heal.
Because I have learned so much from experts and friends, and mentors and teachers, and amazing and wonderful people who just simply KNOW what it means to be hurt and ripped and torn, they give me the desire to speak. The desire to do something. Anything.
I am not crazy. And I am not invisible. And I simply know I cannot be alone in wondering so often, “Will we make any sense of this madness?”
This community is traumatized. And sometimes you can’t find the words for that. But, you can feel it so intensely in your body that it locks up and begs for a way out. And sometimes that way out comes in the form of hurting someone else. Or raging. Or yelling. Or holing yourself into a cave until you can figure out what it is you need to say. Or how you will go on. Or what it means to literally put one foot in front of another.
And that is where I have been. In my cave. Trying to figure out how to make sense of all this.
But what if there is no sense to be made? What if we have felt so much that we honestly don’t know how to process feeling anymore?
Should I have logic/rhyme or reason in seeing and watching all that has happened?
Is there a way to discuss all I do not understand? Can’t fathom? Want to fix? Can’t fix?
Here is what I know to be true:
I can’t put my exact finger on what I need to say. Because I just don’t know there are words yet for the pain and fear and sadness our community has wrapped around them in a blanket we cling to until it is filled with tears and sweat and blood. And then, because we do not know how to give up and we keep going, we wring it out, and put it on again.
What I do know is that I need to say something. Something. Just something. And when the words finally come to the tip of my tongue, or when I can figure out exactly what I need, or what we need, or dear heavens what do we all need?! That somehow this dark crevice will begin to close. Or dissipate. Or that we will find a way to stop the gyrating spinning of the last 13 years. I will find that release yawp that has closed my throat.
For now, I am spinning. And needing to speak. And at a loss for the words.
But I see it. And feel it. And I see you all and feel you all and I AM you all.
Me, too.
For now I am out of my cave and feeling the rushing ocean of insanity all around me with my wet dripping blanket around my shoulders. And I will eventually rise like the fierce Kraken from within.
For now, I believe it is enough to simply sit down, take a moment, and tell anyone who can hear me: My blanket is shredded.
But I have room in here for you, too.
Can you feel it out there? The stickiness? The wondering of our community? The tired and wear and the constant wondering of “What am I supposed to DO with all this?” What is it that is swirling around and what can be done?
I suppose some things are left unsaid. At least that is what I have often been told. Or at times, even believed myself. But some things stick in my throat and burn, and then I have to ask myself: “What is the worst that could happen if I gave these words life? Breath? Ability to mean something other than the suffocating gagging pieces in my broken, charred throat?”
I am not alone in this. I can’t be alone in this. It doesn’t make sense at all to me that I could remotely be alone in this!
Some kind of thickness is out there, moving through and ravaging our community, and I have no words or explanation for what it could be. Except the “unknown” we have all heard is coming regarding the effect of years of war.
I have no specific words or pretty syllables to describe it. But I FEEL it.
I feel the exhaustion. I feel the worn. I feel the anger. Resentment. And, the scariest one I feel: the inability to feel. The inability to find a way to even describe or explain what years of war have done. It surrounds us all, pulling at us with invisible tentacles and infiltrating our homes and our hope and need for peace and calm and a chance to heal.
Because I have learned so much from experts and friends, and mentors and teachers, and amazing and wonderful people who just simply KNOW what it means to be hurt and ripped and torn, they give me the desire to speak. The desire to do something. Anything.
I am not crazy. And I am not invisible. And I simply know I cannot be alone in wondering so often, “Will we make any sense of this madness?”
This community is traumatized. And sometimes you can’t find the words for that. But, you can feel it so intensely in your body that it locks up and begs for a way out. And sometimes that way out comes in the form of hurting someone else. Or raging. Or yelling. Or holing yourself into a cave until you can figure out what it is you need to say. Or how you will go on. Or what it means to literally put one foot in front of another.
And that is where I have been. In my cave. Trying to figure out how to make sense of all this.
But what if there is no sense to be made? What if we have felt so much that we honestly don’t know how to process feeling anymore?
Should I have logic/rhyme or reason in seeing and watching all that has happened?
Is there a way to discuss all I do not understand? Can’t fathom? Want to fix? Can’t fix?
Here is what I know to be true:
- Two people working on relationships to the point of having to walk away in order to maintain their sanity and their hearts without losing themselves in an abyss is terrifying. To know this has happened because war tore at them and they tried so hard to keep the love there first? Excruciating.
- Watching men and women give everything they have to a cause, only to realize it is a system and are now left wondering where they will go is upsetting. To know this will just continue to happen while we fly into the wind—breathtaking. For me, this is not a political issue, a downsizing issue, a logistical issue, this is a people who believed, issue. That makes it a human problem.
- Knowing something is wrong and not being able to put your finger on it is unsettling. Knowing something is so far gone that you have lost your ability to speak? The silence is deafening.
- We all knew war would take a toll. We all knew more than one war would take a greater toll. None of us knew what to expect. That is certain. To now feel the pain and confusion swirling around us while we try to figure out what all this means feels alienating. Even when we know the person next door is filled with, “me, too.”
I can’t put my exact finger on what I need to say. Because I just don’t know there are words yet for the pain and fear and sadness our community has wrapped around them in a blanket we cling to until it is filled with tears and sweat and blood. And then, because we do not know how to give up and we keep going, we wring it out, and put it on again.
What I do know is that I need to say something. Something. Just something. And when the words finally come to the tip of my tongue, or when I can figure out exactly what I need, or what we need, or dear heavens what do we all need?! That somehow this dark crevice will begin to close. Or dissipate. Or that we will find a way to stop the gyrating spinning of the last 13 years. I will find that release yawp that has closed my throat.
For now, I am spinning. And needing to speak. And at a loss for the words.
But I see it. And feel it. And I see you all and feel you all and I AM you all.
Me, too.
For now I am out of my cave and feeling the rushing ocean of insanity all around me with my wet dripping blanket around my shoulders. And I will eventually rise like the fierce Kraken from within.
For now, I believe it is enough to simply sit down, take a moment, and tell anyone who can hear me: My blanket is shredded.
But I have room in here for you, too.
0 Comments