Doing Language: One Messy Conversation at a Time
“There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” Toni Morrison,
In the past two days, I’ve had one long conversation each with two separate men around #metoo, Kavanaugh, and what men are feeling in response. One ended with deep connection and compassion for each other, the other one had those elements, too, but ended up being more contentious.
I left the first conversation feeling like we’d made it across this unknown, tumultuous sea, this man and I who were simply neighbors for a few short hours sitting in a cafe working next to each other. I didn’t know him before, and I most likely will never see him again. Pretty amazing, really, that we went ‘there’. Toward the end of the conversation, he shared, “This is all we really want, isn’t it? Connection. To feel this connection with each other?” I agreed with him that I sense this is what we really want. Somehow, we waded through the rough parts. We never really resolved anything in a concrete way; instead, I noticed that it was the staying with each other that mattered, not separating with ideas of right and wrong, even though we both clearly felt very differently about the subject.
I left the second one feeling like I was reeling against the ropes while also feeling like I was still standing — a part of me stunned by what I’d just experienced while the majority of me could acknowledge that I was not seriously hurt by what had happened. I felt that I’d grown somehow, aware of a larger sense of my own ability to be with the discomfort of this experience, one, unlike anything I’ve ever navigated. I knew this man already. We have a friendship. I can’t say I know him well, but our interactions have always been pleasant. Maybe this made it easier to go deeper. I don’t know. I do know that a lot of pain and difficult emotions surfaced. It felt like both a conversation and a sparring match. Like we were boxers somehow. I realized, and said, at the end that I hadn’t shared my stories with him but had listened to him intently. I’d shared how I felt, but I shared little of my #metoo experiences. I realized I wanted him to know he was heard. Maybe I thought he would want that for me, too. But after a long while, it was clear we were at a kind of standstill. We both feel very differently about things. I suddenly had no desire to go further. Perhaps he felt this way, too.
One thing I do know is how good I am at trying to calm raging waters. I’ve learned well how to do this as a young girl in a dysfunctional, sometimes violent, home. I learned how to ‘take the blame’ so the fighting would stop, so the arguing would end, so there would be peace for even a short bit in a chaotic environment.
I’ve also been taught well, as a woman, to be a soother of men and their feelings. To soothe another as a human being can be a lovely thing. But it can also be a way to stay safe, and clearly not a way to forward either party’s growth.
This ability to soothe and smooth can serve AND it can smooth over conversations that don’t need to or shouldn’t be soothed. And, as an adult at this point in my life, I know it is not my duty to make anyone feel better, to try to take away someone’s experience. For far too long, many women play this role. The soother. The smoother over. The one who manages the man’s feelings. It is not helpful to any of us.
I am not practiced nor skilled at these conversations. But, I’m doing my best to show up for them as they are coming to me. I am learning how to not try to make men feel better but listening all the same. I am learning how to not unconsciously become a punching bag and not be a puncher.
This isn’t easy stuff. And, I realize the parallels to what People of Color must have had to navigate their entire lives. I realize how much I know about my experience and how much I do not know about others’ experience. I can listen and I can ask to be listened to, as I did this morning. There are so much anger and fear in our world right now. I feel as if I am surfing the waves, far out from any solid land. And, again, I am aware of how my white privilege has allowed me to feel what I thought was solid land, thought was surety of safety and some kind of ‘truth’ for so long.
Life is always changing. Always. We can hang onto some kind of ‘this is the way things are’ or ‘this is how things should be’ or ‘he is right’ or ‘she is right’ etc. but in reality these moments are moments and then things change. But what doesn’t change is love, the foundation that does lie under it all. And these are the questions I am living… “How does it look to truly love the world and everyone in it, including me, right now, as it is?” “How does it look to be love in action?”
“A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.” Jorge Luis Borges
This is raw stuff. Hard, raw things to talk about. Maybe easier with strangers, maybe not. It’s the uneasy, uncomfortable stuff that grows us. They can feel wrong in the moment, like we want to turn and run away from them, but I know in reality they are creative processes. Like anything where we face the unknown head on, difficult conversations take us right into a creative process, full of obstacles that grow us. Here in the creative unknown, we have to listen, feel, and sense our way. We find allies to guide us, and what I want to share is that the person on the other side of the conversation, if it remains safe enough, can be our ally.
And, of course, if the conversation turns unsafe, end it.
I am simply writing these things that feel so hard to write, this raw material, because I believe in the power of voice, the power of each human being to share what is inside and the extraordinary journey it is to become more conscious and alive to what it is to be not simply human but a compassionate human willing to grow.
We need to hear these things. We need to express what is inside of us, to a trusted friend or perhaps to someone new.
I am not pretending to offer some grand understanding of how we heal this. I am not pretending to get you to believe in one side or the other because there aren’t two sides. Not really. Not at the foundation of this.
There is one body of humanity trying to heal itself in an evolutionary way. If this time, these conversations, these experiences are our raw material, what kind of art will we make, together? I know it will be messy. Very messy.
