I’m not sure I totally understand the moment. Selfishly I remind myself of the hopelessness of the past. I wasn’t even supposed to make it to this day. But I’ve chosen to be here.
We have all chosen to be here. Chosen to wake up, to show up, to plan to be here, to fight against time and safety and fear and all the other narrow odds to be here, and despite
the grim authoritarian environment of our world, we have chose life above all else. For some this choice is not made easily and for others, we have quieted the memory of a more
difficult time, when the struggle to live was all-consuming.
And here we are, whirring through an extra-ordinary turn of events in which we must be who we are with what we have for the sake of other people. The all-consuming fire of human
empathy. The miraculous blaze. We burn for our brothers, our mirrors halfway across the world, as well as those mirrors right here beside us.
That fire, however, is impulsive and contingent on sustainable fuel and a watchful, committed, tending. It is not enough to simply care, though we care deeply and truly.
And we know this! How many of us have felt care as well as, motivation, urgency and curiosity, slip from our bodies leaving us pale and half-dead? How many of us have turned to
drugs, drinks, screens--have run away to avoid our gutted selves? Have put ourselves in harms way, overworked ourselves, ate nothing, slept less, crushed true love beneath our
chins, to compensate for the toll of an unfeeling word predicated on the suffering of others.
This is what our country traffics in above all else: You cannot survive this world by being yourself. Something must die. Something must flatten.
It is going to become even harder to be caring. That doesn’t mean we cannot bear it or fight it with dignity and strength. It does mean, however, that we will
need to strategize. We need to be tactile and resourceful and brave to ensure that we come out of this ourselves. We need to be honest in the face of shame and humiliations, we
must have courage when threatened with isolation, we must know the people to our left and right and meet them where they are at.
The days of subtle engagement are waning, our lives must be dedicated to what is right in front of us, and to the future we will never see. If we look to the fire of the
Palestinian people, it is immensely clear what capacity we truly have, and that we need not be afraid of what we cannot do, for there is very little of that kind.
Right now, take the time to regulate and meditate on this beautiful choice of yours. No matter what, it is a tool and a house. Treat it well, pour love and feeling into it. Your
heart deserves to race, your muscles deserve to pump, your sinew and skin deserve to stretch and stretch and stretch. You are alive. You have chosen to be here. You have made the
greatest, hardest, easiest, most terrifying decision of all; all else pales in comparison. All else is a hill, a path, a journey, a lake, an orchard, yours.
There are people on this planet, in this country, this city, who have made a different choice this morning. They have chosen to be dead. We’ve all seen it. When you look into their
eyes you are met with a wall that someone, or something, has put there; not their own. We will not wait for these people to wake up, because they may need many lifetimes to do so, but
we will refuse to lose any one of the living to their soulless ranks. We will link arms, we will de-arrest, we will escape, we will keep each other safe.