At some point in the past few months, an idea has attached itself to my thoughts: I'm tired of forgiving cruelty. There are so many decisions that we all make every single day that go back to the simple idea that we are all just doing our best to avoid some random cruelty. Once I started realizing how many of my daily thoughts stem from that core fear of some random act of nonsensical intention, I found an odd form of freedom, but a somewhat dark sense of perspective. And some moments, I find myself overwhelmed at how much pressure we put on victims -- including ourselves -- to be able to keep our chins up and our spirits high despite the trauma that has been imposed on us from so many different directions.
For some reason, listening to hour upon hour about Dolly Parton's America over the past few days has given my cautious swerve some hope. Her songs, her story, her laughter, her optimism, her eternal kindness all act as a sedative to that stubborn venom that seems to sneak in to the news of every single morning.
And while much great art has come out of so much pain, what beauty could also come out of kindness, especially when supported by the kind hearts of teachers and writing mentors. As writing teachers, I believe we can help students build a framework of a space where ridicule is not an option. There can be no sinister reactions. We can dig deeper in our responses and in ourselves to help students dig deeper into the things they don't even understand about themselves -- yet. They can't see the potential that is their future reality; sure, they have skewed dreams of what their lives will look like, but I think savoring that beautiful naïveté gets us through some of those dramatic hormonal years and situations. But, at some point, we have to become united with the other artsy and injured souls to find that meeting place where we can defeat the darknesses of our memories. Because we have to make sense of them so we can make it somewhat easier for those who are coming into this world right behind us. If we make practice of omission, then we are leaving them to shovel their way through perpetual and unnatural misery. We have to let them know there is another side that they can reach, where the disquiet and calamity becomes harmonic nostalgia and undisputed peace -- once we accept the invitation of our vulnerability and become vocal about what others might have once called weakness, or what we might ourselves have called weakness.
I was once told my kindness would be my downfall, but I reject that notion and embrace a spiritual saturation of trust, though I will squint at and try to intercept any outline of friction, because that heat rarely makes a gourmet meal but it always makes for great stories to learn from. To help teach others. To release every galaxy of afterthought that might grind through my sky of obscurity into some sort of oblique premonition of defiance. With our troubled minds, we're supposed to dress ourselves up in some extravagant collapse while balancing the expectations of a lopsided society. How harmonic those horrific compartments are where the people in charge get to bruise and corrupt the innocence of our homes and our dreams -- all for more wealth and power. They pilfer through our mission of inclusion to the point where we all question if change is even possible.
But the more comfortable I get with understanding how prolific the cruelty is and how deep the pain can go, the more I appreciate the role of writing in my healing process, and I want to help others find the strength to use writing as an outlet. And most of the time, we don't even know how to form the words and sounds of our pain. We can't string together any of our boulders in mystical ink. We have no method of initiation, or else it just feels hollow. And some days the raw truth just drags a little too heavily. So, I try to bring some prompts and images and words that sneak into the consciousness and into those intentional shadows to see if perhaps some bounded words might ruffle themselves out into a memory that just has to be put down on paper and stared at. Maybe even read out loud.
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