It has been months since I’ve had words swell up in me the way they have been over the last several days. The amount of words, their weight and gravity, feels overwhelming, beautiful and stunning, all at the same time. Despite the feeling of not being able to, or not knowing how to hold everything — words, feeling, emotion — I am grateful to be feeling because the alternative is to be numb. And I will not be that.
Someone asked me recently, (paraphrase), “How do you nurture your writing practice?” What I received/heard within the question was, “How do you siphon the words?” and I love how my mind transmuted the original question into this, because it reminded me how the words are always present. It is usually me who is unable, or unavailable, to meet them. And language*, I think, is a meeting place.
I siphon words in the same way I siphon understanding, by listening and being open to receiving. I think there is also some aspect of trust, though I don’t know how to explain in what ways. This siphoning, listening, is a kind of tuning in. Like tuning into the station on a radio, I am tuned not only into a particular channel but also into a specific frequency. To be siphoning is to be both channeling and flowing. I can describe this as getting caught in a slow and easy current and instead of fighting it, I yield willingly to it, allowing it to carry, like hold, like guide me.
The other part of this nurturing, this siphoning, is that I am almost always listening for words, waiting for them to come sweeping in and compel me.
The title of this letter comes from one such sweeping. At the end of Law and Order SVU episode 12, season 21, entitled ‘The Longest Night of Rain’, after wrestling through both a tough case and the unexpected passing, by way of suicide, of a close friend and colleague, the show’s leading character Detective Olivia Benson says, “There’s just a lot of rain in one place.”
And this is what feeling, and writing, and grieving, has felt like lately, a lot of rain in one place.
Words from the night of Tuesday, December 5th.
Tonight, before I could even take control of the words pouring out and onto the page, I wrote, “THE WORLD IS ROTTED OUT”. The anger I feel deep within my body and beneath my skin both startles and scares me. I have never been one to welcome or sit comfortably in anger, rage or fury, but I am presently honoring the necessity of their presence, and while I cannot deny that there is truth in what I have written, there is a lot of rotten in the world, there are other truths.
There is a story I remember being told when I was younger. It was about a man and a candle, and a darkness which was all consuming. At face value the darkness was more vast than anything present within it. This man’s fear of the darkness impeded his faith in the power of light, but once the man lit the candle he saw and realized that even the smallest amount of light could transform the darkness. Amidst the darkness, through the light, the man could see other sources to be lit, wood, paper, oil, brush, leaves, and the candles held by other people.
As fancied and idealistic as it might come off, LOVE, mindfulness, heartfulness, is a light. Even as it may not appear to be so, or even if it is hard to see or believe, I’ve always chosen to trust that love is a stronger force than anything. And I’ve never been more impassioned, more moved, more fueled by love, and loving than I am now, even as I feel deep waves of rage, anger and grief.
Words from the night of Wednesday, December 6th
We don’t die just when life leaves our bodies, when we stop breathing, when our hearts stop beating, when the air ceases to fill and release from our lungs.
We also die when we stop feeling, when we stop hoping, when we stop caring, (about each other) when we become numb, desensitized and indifferent, when we stop cherishing life, all life, when we begin to believe that one life is more important, more meaningful or purposed than another.
Historically, violence against people and communities is preceded by psychological warfare. This involves and almost always begins with the development and dissemination of manipulative language that shapes opinions, beliefs and values.
Psychological warfare lays the foundation for long term controlling of attitudes, behaviors and emotions, particularly as they relate to the perception of other people, and communities, in juxtaposition to ourselves and our own.
Once psyches have been mangled, the violent believe their violence is justified, the terrorized believe they are deserving, and those watching either believe they have no power or choose to relinquish their power to those whose actions have been deemed, via the manipulative language, as justifiable.
It’s a hard pill to swallow, but the truth is that we all, in some way, shape or form, have been taught to think and believe something so vehemently that it is enmeshed and embedded into our cognition.
So the question is, and it is one that has been asked by others many times before, Whose life have you been taught to see no value in?
Note:
there is a distinct difference between words and language and it has taken me some time to put the difference into a legible form. words i perceive as elements of language. alone they have definition but the meaning is plain, or flat without association or relevant context. but when words are put together, to form language, they then move from element to conduit. they become a message, a full body, with a shape, and voice, and sound that tells you something, teaches you something, leads you somewhere. opens and informs you in some way. from language we construct narrative and, in the words of Toni Morrison, “Narrative is one of the ways in which knowledge is organized.” language is how whatever we understand to be knowledge, whether it be fact or fiction, truth or lies, is imparted.
“We also die when we stop feeling, when we stop hoping, when we stop caring, (about each other) when we become numb, desensitized and indifferent, when we stop cherishing life, all life, when we begin to believe that one life is more important, more meaningful or purposed than another.” 🤍
Hola , Hermosas Reflexiones. Creo Que En La Tristeza Se Abre El Espejimo De Una Sabiduría , Un Alma Bella Y Otros Placeres , La Realidad Siempre Se Expande. Un Saludo.