The peaceful act of crushing green and purple fluffy tendrils between my fingers. Sprinkling them on paper, rolling it tight. Add fire. Breathe.
Suryakant Sawhney sings in the background…
Something so good…
It is so refreshing to be around others who come from the same, or similar, predicaments as yourself. We were speaking about the pain and suffering that Afghanistan and Afghans have endured. The collective trauma that we grieve, the wish to return but the heartache knowing we can’t, the pictures of poor children, the starving people. Our governments that fostered this collapse of a beautiful nation. We spoke of pain encompassing every fiber of our bodies, dragging heavy weights beneath our feet and fingers. She lit a cigarette as she spoke. “People in Afghanistan don’t want us to be miserable.” she said. “They want us to get up. And do something. Even if we can’t do something directly for them…we have to do something.”
It feels helpless, no? Being thousands of miles away from the land of our forefathers, our ancestral mountains, the rivers, the valleys. Being thousands of miles away while your land suffers. Your people are suffering. And the very institutions that paved the streets you walk on and built the schools that your siblings attend also created that suffering, not just on your ancestral lands, but damn near every land beyond the borders which you reside. Even within these borders. Even on the patch of grass that you stand on. So then you feel helpless. I feel helpless.
What is there to do?
The Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe V. Wade today, paving the way for states to outlaw or strictly regulate abortions. Nothing is surprising anymore, according to Twitter, according to my best friend, according to my mother. Children massacred in schools, their parents criminalized and handcuffed, their peers playing dead. Governor Abbott insisted “It could have been worse.” Nothing is surprising anymore. A billion dollars, no — 40 billion dollars, no no — 54 billion dollars to Ukraine to fund another imperialist propaganda induced war. Nothing is surprising about this, either. Gas prices inflated, rent inflated, food inflated, and people being crushed beneath this backbreaking cost of living. But nothing is surprising anymore. What is there to do?
Collective exasperation feels as if the fresh air has been snatched right from your throat before reaching your dried, sunken lungs. Exasperation feels like your eyes are glazed over and your eyelids are heavy and there are no tears left to fall and no matter how much you rub your face you can’t feel a thing. Exasperation feels like shaky knees, chains around your ankles, and nowhere to go. And this feeling is collective, because I know damn well I am not the only one feeling this feeling, for just walking down the street I see all these women with glossy eyes without tears and feet dragging as if they were chained. Just like me. I know it’s not just me. So what is there to do?
I remember feeling so helpless before. The girl I once was had cried for days on end, even weeks. In fact, it was ritualistic. For there was nothing to do but cry; plead; beg; fall; do it again. My limbs felt like they dragged me down. My eyes were barely open. My back struggled to uphold the living corpse that was meant to be my body. From the pit of despair that I had made my home, eventually I found my way up. And what was there to do? Speak. Write. Read. Do something. There was nothing to do but at the same time everything — an overwhelming feeling of screaming out into the sky beyond the mountains and the rivers and the valleys, tell somebody, speak.
It feels so helpless, no? There might not be anything worthwhile doing at all. It might very well be the most productive thing to simply sit in your home and cry and plead and beg and fall. But eventually, you are going to do something. Eventually, we all get up. The people who feel their limbs weighing them down and their minds dragging them into delirious pits of desperation will eventually become so overwhelmed with exasperation at their condition, that they will get up. And perhaps the only thing you do when you get up is write a blogpost that ten people read and never speak of again. But do something. We all have something.
