A Series of Unnamed Griefs, pt. 3

[Third unnamed non-death grief]

n. the warbled sound of news in the background always, unceasing, even when you turn it off, the are words unclear but the tone as metallic as machinery. A cruel domino configuration of tragedies and horrors, one after the other, after the other, after the other, after... The innocence of childhood juxtaposed with one onslaught of mass deaths. Social media feeds, endless streams of bodies, of blood, of parts, of cries. Headlines, curt clippings of inconceivable word combinations. Knowing “peace” as a concept, as a two-dimensional word while not knowing the true experience of it. The thin, single red thread running through all peoples that reverberates when someone is hurt—or killed— for being who they are, feeling the pulse of it numbing your limbs until you can’t remember a time when there wasn’t that dull ache that makes you wring your wrists when you are idle. The unidentified human cry echoing in your ears at night, deterring sleep. No, not the immense grief of being there. But the grief of watching from a distance. Relentless, relentless.

I turned to social media in a moment of distraction and was met with bloodshed. The aftermath of killings in Gaza played out in my hand. I had not gone looking for it, yet could not look away. I had the feeling of stepping off of a spinning carnival ride. This has been the story of so many days: attend to life as “normal”, get some reminder (maybe subtle, maybe horrific) of the fact that mass amounts of lives are being unjustly taken (in Gaza and all over the world. When has this not been true?), find a way to breathe again, then go on and keep caring about deadlines and celebrities and grocery store shopping and posting on the internet.

I acknowledge that this particular unnamed grief centers the pain of witnessing warfare, killing and genocide, while not directly being victims of it. This is a grief, I believe, that does deserve its own acknowledgment: the grief of a lifetime marked by global pain and horror.

Speaking just for myself, these times in particular are asking me to be gentler with others. They are reminding me to keep my anger directed at systems and institutions and power structures more than the human beings entrapped in them. In that vein, these times are making me say the words “human being” as often as possible, at the risk of being corny or mawkish. These times are asking me to be braver than I think I can be, and if I’m being truthful, braver than I want to be. They are asking me to hug my loved ones more and to be honest when I’m in pain.

Spring, itself, is staggering this year. As I type this, I can see the very tops of blossoming limbs from my window, looking like they are sprouting right from my computer, and, despite everything, I am glad for them. Beauty, terror, joy, grief…all a mixed litter of confetti on the ground we all stand on.

In work, I employ inquiry and I do not balk at the results. I have a thousand questions and very few answers. I am a carer dedicated to the liberation of all people, but that does not make me an activist. I do not have any right to tell anyone how to show up in this world. However, something that I know for myself is that nihilism isn’t any kind of answer. Despair makes sense and it’s a stalwart protector. Despair can block the heart from further pain. I cannot blame anyone for experiencing it, but it’s not a landing place. I have to come to learn that my suffering is not an offering. My suffering will not keep others from suffering. But maybe my willingness to feel it, accept it and care for the wound of it, is. It’s not a question whether to suffer or not to suffer, because logically we all know that it’s synonymous with living, but a question of how you want to engage with it. This is the place from which I decided to reach out and write this to you.

We cannot wait for everything to get better before we allow ourselves connection, creativity, wonder, awe, love, relaxation or action. Many folks who are activists and organizers have said this better than I: in order to build a better world, we need to visualize what it can look like. Maybe despair says: a better world is not possible, but imagination says: watch me.

Pema Chödrön says that compassion “involves willingness to feel pain”. “In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience—our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror. It has to be this way. … Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” Chödrön’s book, “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times” introduced me to the practice of tonglen, which essentially is the exercise of inhaling pain of self and others and exhaling relief to self and others. Let me note that I am wary of the fact that meditation as an action in response to injustice can veer awfully close to “thoughts and prayers” rhetoric. Chödrön, herself, talks about how meditation can be used as a suppressant and that, if meditation is sought out in order to feel good, it is bound to fail. She adds, “Trying to fix ourselves is not helpful”.

And yet, here I am, and something about this speaks to me. When all things feel hopeless, when it feels that there are no actions to take, this has felt like a direction. Some kind of direction. A means for being with the feelings rather than shutting down.

[See also: Community care & relationship building combats burnout in political movements, Using Radical Re-Imagination to Create a Vision for Our Future]

Author’s Note: This piece was originally written April 2024.