“[W]hat I most regretted,” writes poet & feminist writer Audré Lorde, “were my silences.” I had planned to write something different this week. And this – Israel and Gaza, the Palestinian & Israeli lives lost and the weight of the emptiness that remains – asked that I write something different instead. “What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say?” Lorde asks.
I always found it strange, after my own experiences of loss, that the world keeps spinning: the sun rises, people wake up, walk their dog, go to work. That the same, mundane bodily needs could shepherd me through another day. After a loss that was so inexplicable, the sun setting felt equally as strange. Without acknowledgment, the loss – the accompanying hurt and anger and sadness – sits in the dark, unnamed and grows into a deepening hurt.
What do you need to say?
This will take courage. Courage, from the Latin root “cor,” which means heart; courage as in open-heartedness, whole-heartedness. At the start of her essay, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” Lorde shares her recent experience facing the uncertainty of a cancer diagnosis, a three-week period of waiting, and of considering, she writes, her own mortality. This reality, Lorde observes, put her fear of speaking out into perspective, though the vulnerability of sharing will always require courage. “[O]f course I am afraid,” Lorde write, “because the transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation.”
This will take compassion, too, which Pema Chödrön writes, “is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals.” You are not asked to fix; you are asked to be with, to acknowledge a “shared humanity.” In face of such suffering, of seemingly insurmountable, generational conflict, this may be one of the most important acknowledgments you can offer: of humility, of vulnerability, of yourself.
What does it mean to practice courage and compassion? It’s being authentic. One pillar of whole-hearted living – what researcher and storyteller Brené Brown defines as living from a place of worthiness. “Authenticity,” writes Brown, “is a collection of choices we have to make everyday. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.” Authenticity is a choice – your choice – to be yourself. And maybe showing up as you are, in the face of such hurt and suffering, is to acknowledge that you are right there too. Lorde writes of authenticity through voice, too: “[F]or every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit in a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.” Our shared humanity.
When I was knee-deep in grief, I wanted to be invited in. As I was, which was, raw, aching, blurry-eyed. What do I need to say? That today, I’m a bit blurry-eyed, angry, afraid and sad. That I’m not sure what to say other than, that I’m with you. Maybe the silence, after the initial naming, is ok. What does the space look like that holds you when it is hard? Where do you find comfort? Look there and speak it.
for reflection
What is one way that you can choose to be real today?
What keeps you silent? Who benefits by your silence? Who misses out?
What do you need to say?
for the library
Audré Lorde, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” in Sister Outsider 40-44 (Crossing Press: Berkeley, 1984, 2007) (available/ public library)
Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection (New York: Random House, 2020) (available/ public library)
Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2001) (available/ public library)