your silence

Some people are staying silent out of grief, out of a need for time and space to process their emotions.

Some people are staying silent out of fear—
fear of the police,
fear for the safety of their families,
fear of backlash,
fear of looking dumb,
fear of losing followers, friends, or employment,
fear of being accused of “jumping on the bandwagon,”
fear of saying something unintentionally naive or ignorant,
fear of confrontation,
fear of domestic abuse from someone who disagrees,
fear of their own hypocrisy.

Some people are staying silent out of ignorance—they want to be more informed before they speak out.  Perhaps they want to learn more about the impact of systemic racism and white privilege before they form their opinions.  Perhaps they feel ill-equipped to make a statement.  Their silence is based on a lack of understanding which they wish to rectify.  “I’ll speak out once I know more.”

Some people are staying silent out of a different type of ignorance—an unwillingness to see or engage with the situation. “It will all blow over soon.”

I suppose, there are, perhaps, some people so sheltered from the news, people who have a very curated, limited, and filtered view of the world, who genuinely are unaware of what is happening around them. It is hard for me to believe that anyone in the 21st century can live under a rock that big and pervasive, but I don’t deny the possibility.

Some people are staying silent because they have nothing nice to say, so are choosing to say nothing at all.

Some people are staying silent out of confusion—they are getting mixed messages from the leaders of the country, from the media, from the people around them and they don’t know who to believe or how to feel.  Maybe their instincts, their intellect, their ingrained bias are all at war within them.

Some people are staying silent out of apathy—they’re tired of hearing about race, tired of the news and the media.  Perhaps this apathy stems from a feeling of overwhelmed helplessness.  Perhaps that has festered overtime and turned to an underlying bitterness and resentment.

What are ‘valid’ reasons for silence?
Which ones should be questioned, pushed back against?
Who is your silence serving?

What is your silence saying?

mourning

Yesterday I googled
‘my heart hurts’
And the only results
were medical
but
That’s not the pain
I was referring to

I’m not exactly sure
what to do with these feelings
Because they’re not really mine
The pain is theirs
The suffering is theirs
The oppression is theirs

So maybe google’s response
was the best I could hope for

margaritas

I was going through my phone notes and found this entitled “Tipsy Rambling 04.10.20”:

There are things that I make that have a lot of hidden meaning and there are things that I make that you could just take for surface value and there are things that I make that could really go either way and because it’s art, it really is up to you and not up to me, to find meaning and value in it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?  There are things that humans tend to find innately beautiful and things we tend to find innately disgusting. But it can also be said that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. So is everything to some degree subjective? There are things that science agrees upon, as if science itself is a God and the maker and keeper of truth. And there are things that “science has agreed upon” that have been disproven. There are things that we thought we knew and believed, things we live by and fought for and died for. And some of those same things we now relegate to fairy tales and fiction books. So really who is to say what is true what is meaningful what is worthwhile what is right? Does it make you happy? Does it calm you down? Does it make you want to get out of the bed in the morning? Does it make life worth living? If yes, then does it matter if it is good or true based on the standards of the world? Everyone else can find something to be useless and ugly, but if you can see life and purpose, well then by god, perhaps that’s the reason that you’re here, the reason that you have been given life, the reason you are different than the person beside you. Every one of us has a different story, different things resonate with us. Different things repel us. Different things terrify us. And isn’t that fucking incredible?? We are all so unique, so different, so individual. Yet at the same time there are so many things that bind us, connect us. There are so many overlaps and similar stories. Nobody is ever alone, yet somehow we are all alone always. Being humans is crazy, it’s beautiful, it’s scary, it’s hard, and it’s better with margaritas. You still reading kiddo? Because this is just the ramblings of a 26 year old stuck in quarantine so you might as well give it up now, but thanks for playing! Love you all, here’s some art (if you can call it that.)

A Mile in Their Hair

I had a conversation recently about the widespread frustration regarding the closure of the hair salons due to the pandemic.  I carelessly rattled on about finding it amusing how desperate people were to get that luxury back.

“I’ve been cutting my own hair since high school,” I bragged.  “So it never occurred to me that people would prioritize salons and barber shops amidst a global health crisis.  There are so many recent YouTube videos of people cutting and dyeing their hair at home for the first time.  It’s kind of comical really.”

Still chuckling I glimpsed an expression out of the corner of my eye and could tell immediately that I had said something insensitive.  “Oh shit, she misses the salons and she gets her hair cut and colored.  Way to stick your foot in your mouth again, moron,” I thought, mentally chiding myself. After backtracking, trying to recover from my blunder with mildly self-deprecating mentions of my own lack of self-care and the past mistakes I have made in home haircuts, we let the topic drop.  However, it has continued to linger in my mind since then.

Gray hair.  Assuming I live long enough, I will eventually get gray hair.

And that will probably start happening way sooner than I realize.  But isn’t gray hair for old people!  60 and 70’s, right?

But the more I have thought about it, the more I have realized, no, probably long before then.  (An article I just read said that on average women begin to notice gray hair at age 35.  THIRTY-FIVE?!) Older women all around me probably dye their hair now and I have no idea.  Am I that naïve?  Have I been fooled by the media, the beauty industry?  Like hairless armpits and bikini lines, chiseled abs and toned thighs. Like blemish-free skin and unnaturally long eyelashes.  There have been so many times when I have wondered why I can’t look like my friends/colleagues/peers on social media?  Usually I write it off as a good angle, a well-designed filter or photoshop.  But that all goes out the window when they also look flawless in person!

I have only just recently started to wonder if it is less that I can’t look like them, but more that I don’t.  I choose not to.  I generally haven’t prioritized going to the gym or buying makeup products.

I recently (pre-pandemic) bought my first make-up brushes and palettes since the hand-me-down ones my mom gave me to putz around with in middle school.  And to be honest, I feel really good about it.

I thought it would make me feel vain to care about my appearance, to spend money on something I have deemed frivolous for so long. I thought it would feel like I was giving up this crucial part of who I am, like I was succumbing to some sort of peer pressure, complying with the unreasonable societal standards of beauty, selling a part of my soul.

And maybe some ways that is what’s going on.  But let’s face it, the fact that I struggle to feel attractive when I’ve put on a few pounds or haven’t concealed the circles under my eyes… Isn’t that proof that I am a already a product of this image-obsessed society?  Just as much as the women dying their hair?  The women wanting to erase their wrinkles? The women comparing themselves to their friends and coming up short?  I make the same comparisons, I feel the same inadequacies.  I just don’t do anything to change it!

I thought it made me stronger, better, to resist the beauty industry.  But all it has really done has brought about a sense self-righteousness and put another barrier between me and my fellow women.  It has made me judgmental in a subconscious effort to ignore my jealousy and insecurity.

Not feeling like I’m good enough has caused me to push away more people than I can count.  To put up an innumerable number of barriers.  To close myself off without realizing what was happening.

How do I stop that?

How do I stop judging the people around me? How do I stop judging myself?

How can I cultivate a deep and unrelenting sense of empathy and understanding?  And will that stop me from making dumb comments in conversation?  Or will I just need to have more grace for myself, because that’s always going to be something I do?

How do I love myself?  And will that help me to better love others?

 . . .

It is interesting how each stage of life seems to have its own defining factors, its own standards for comparison.  Gray hair just isn’t something I think about or pay attention to yet.  My peers are all having babies and buying home or else they’re advancing in their careers and doing CrossFit.

But eventually my hair will go gray and I will need glasses and technology will feel overwhelming and I will start to forget things. And then I will think back on 26-year-old me and realize that I have never been as immune to the naivete—or the illusions of invincibility brought about by youth—as I imagined myself to be.

And maybe by then I will stop comparing, stop judging, stop with the constant insecurity.