The Day Hope Died

· 🪦 why I quit writing here & why I'm finally back for good 🧮 ·

Dear (few remaining) readers, I hope you can forgive me. I know that I’ve been quiet on here lately, despite promising (myself) this would be the one place I wouldn’t disappear from. I’d initially hoped to use this space to rediscover my voice as a writer… To bring the story of where I come from & why I do what I do a little more into focus for my followers. Perhaps even to reinvent myself as an artist along the way. I then hoped to use this space to connect with (& boost the work of) other artists who I admire.

But the more closely I pay attention to what’s going on in the world—the more self-indulgent it feels to post or promote anything personal… Lately, I’ve begun to wonder if carrying a perpetually broken & constantly aching heart is merely the condition of being alive today. To have made it this far, survived for this long, grown this resilient & this strong—only to continue to bear witness to such staggering destruction. Truly, there are days when the weight feels unbearable—yet we must find a way to bear it.

I’ve never liked just how easy it is to turn a blind eye—especially in countries such as ours—nor how powerfully sedated everyone in contemporary society seems. The hypocrisy of my own statement is not lost on me (as someone who relies heavily on meds to avoid falling apart)… But there are wars that wreck the world, wreak havoc on the collective conscience, & will haunt us for a long time to come. These are events we must shoulder & share the guilt for. I believe we’ve been witnessing one in real time…

{ protest in Washington D.C. }

I’ve been struggling to write this essay for well over 150 days… For over 150 days, we’ve all struggled to make sense of—struggled even to stomach—world news. Forgive me, dear readers—for perhaps I presume too much by including you in this collective grief… Yet how could you not be struggling alongside the rest of humanity? Unless you are one of those who has turned off & away from any & all news entirely—in an attempt to preserve your own faltering sanity.

But sadly for me, I swallow world news like a daily dose of poison… Every morning, the headlines wait patiently alongside supplements & prescribed medications—knowing I’ll eventually falter. Sure enough, before I’ve even finished my cup of coffee, one of the central causes of my depression enters my body & unsettles my nervous system… I surf through clickbait & start to doom-scroll as easily as I swallow the antidepressant that’s supposed to counteract these heavy feelings.

{ sign in Washington D.C. }

How long have I been this deeply depressed? More importantly, how long have I been this fearful? I can date both states of being back to age nine or ten at most… But my memory becomes difficult to trust before then—because of a series of distressing events that punctured several holes into an otherwise carefree childhood. Caring about others—sometimes far removed from myself—served as a way to distance myself from emotional dangers lurking closer at hand…

Still, until recently, I remained hopeful about the state of things. Pragmatic, certainly. Cautiously optimistic. Maybe even a party-pooper from time to time (okay, a lot of the time). But a doomsayer? Never! Certainly not one of those seers holding a cardboard sign & shouting at strangers about the coming of the end… Except lately, I find myself actively resisting making such a spectacle of myself. Or worse, fighting the urge to curl up into a ball & do nothing at all.

{ sticker in Portland, OR }

If you’re still with me, dear reader, I salute you… However, I cannot guarantee you a happy (nor even a truly satisfactory) ending. In fact, I can almost guarantee you will get nothing worth making it this far. If I seem to make light or poke fun—please know that it is only to keep us limping along to the sobering tune of reality. It’s no secret that I’ve been struggling to believe in the goodness of humanity… That I’m even beginning to doubt any prospect of seeing a better future.

Whenever I reach this point, I remind myself of the fact that I started referring to myself as an existentialist by the age of sixteen—just to cope with belonging to a blind-folded society in a cruelly unjust world. Here in America, we are hindered by our inherited fear & our bottomless greed… We are taught to mind our own business, to commercialize our every last breath, to make a profit from our pastimes, to grieve quickly, & to grin while we take our beatings.

{ friend in Washington D.C. }

If we dare complain, we are told to be quiet & grateful for the little we’re given because of a carefully constructed illusion that there isn’t enough to go around. When our neighbor has something we don’t have, we find it easier to covet & bad-mouth them rather than learn to share or celebrate the success of others. But despite being raised in what I was taught to judge as a morally bankrupt & impulse-driven culture, I held out hope for a gentler & kinder world.

I clung tightly to this hope—just as I did to the belief that I was doing the things that would help usher in a better future for all. I voted, I volunteered, I recycled, I rallied, I protested, I marched, I organized, I demonstrated, I educated, & I boycotted… In short, I showed up. I saw many small changes & kept right on hoping for a big change to come—to sweep the entire nation—maybe even in my lifetime. I prayed I’d live to see the day we joined hands & burst into song.

{ rest-stop in South Carolina }

After the end of the first month of this relentless war—which is just another in a series of relentless wars against innocents—I shared some thoughts that started with the words: “These are not dark times we live in... These are simply the times—& things have been dark for quite a while.” I then lost the will to share my true sentiments almost anywhere except for in conversation—either fighting back or releasing tears. In those early days, I wept far more than I spoke.

I circulated the news relentlessly. Not because I felt like it made any real difference—but rather, to keep myself from going numb… I donated to relief efforts & tried to encourage friends to do the same. I, too, cried for a ceasefire. Then I, too, slowly stopped waiting for it. As our own government continues to unmask & reveal itself to be the fully unhinged monster it has become—perhaps always has been—I see how I, too, am complicit… How perhaps I always have been.

{ reading in Philadelphia, PA }

Westerners all over the globe have spent several lucrative centuries in blissfully ignorant slumber & will be waking to an incredibly grim reality. Some are waking sooner than others, while some will continue to deny the effects humans have had on the planet until they find themselves more personally affected… A handful might even remain miraculously unscathed—emerging on the other side of this tunnel we’re digging ourselves deeper & deeper into.

If I’m going to be brutally honest here, my friends: I will admit that I no longer see a light at the end of this tunnel… But I can still feel its glow. I’ve stopped praying to see better days—am in fact resigning myself to never seeing them with my own two eyes—but I haven’t stopped praying that our children or our children’s children might. I haven’t stopped praying for the innocent. Nor for the planet, itself… Which—as the poet Joy Harjo taught me—has personhood.

{ exhibit in New Orleans, LA }

To be honest, dear readers… I thought I was done with poetry. I grew weary of the elitist gate-keeping at every level & found it frustrating to sit with what felt like intentionally complicated books. During the lockdown, I discovered a budding desire to belong to a broader community of caregivers & councilors—to a workforce that got their hands dirty. I’m grateful to have found just that in pursuit of art therapy with special education training.

Yet it seems poetry wasn’t quite done with me. I find the words spilling out of me & onto the page again—though it still doesn’t feel like the right time to share them. I don’t know if that time will ever come, but I can see in the eyes of my students the bitter cost of all this silence. I can see how weary the newest generation already feels. I put into their hands the work of poets such as Fatimah Asghar & Safia Elhillo because I trust their words more than mine.

{ display in Lakeland, FL }

Instead of imagining better days to come—which now seems to me just one more form of escapism—I’ve been trying to anchor myself in the love that I’m given in the moment that it is given, & in the glimmers of divine light I feel privy to in the presence of nature. My greatest remaining comfort is this: Somehow, strangely—& maybe even for the first time in my life—I’m not afraid. I’m gritting my teeth & committed to not going anywhere… I’m here for all of it.

If all I can do is bear witness, then I won’t look away until my heart gives out from fully breaking. I’ve rolled up my sleeves & I’m praying my knees don’t give way. I used to fear death, but I see it everywhere now—the way it weaves everyone together. I won’t let anything stop me from planting seeds & hoping they’ll grow—for the sake of those already born into this very broken world, & for the ones whose karma will bring them back… To suffer—or to feast off fruit we plant today.

{ digital collage made on Martin Luther King Jr. Day }