Entry Seven: Where is Your Fire?

7/10/2024

I have a bad habit of stopping myself from writing and speaking out of fear that no one cares what I have to say, or worse, that I’m not important enough to be listened to. My surging belief in this idea is not only a disservice to the version of myself who created my blog, but it leads to long periods of not writing when I feel I have something important to say—but shouldn’t be the one to say it. In many aspects, I’ve long let fear control my life and my silences, fear of failure, fear of being wrong, fear of harm, fear of not “fitting in”. But today I was at the beach during sunset watching my brother play football in the sand. He and a group of boys he had met only a few moments ago laughed and joked as they tried their hardest to keep the ball in the air. I sat there admiring his confidence, he didn’t say a word or ask permission from any of them when he began to play, just jumped in and hit the ball to the next boy because he knew he could. And they allowed it, they welcomed him silently and openly, passed the ball his way so he could hit it back to him. His boldness, there acceptance, all led to this moment of connection. As I watched the ball bounce from one boy's head to another’s knee to another's foot, unexpectedly, something washed over me. A feeling, like a shower cleansing me and leaving behind such a simple truth but one I forget so often; I am human. And in this feeling and remembering this truth, I was led to another so easily forgotten realization; I’m human, therefore I matter. I blink and breathe, I love and lie, I’ve experienced and felt. And I’ve been wasting time looking for permission when instead I could’ve been finding acceptance. Looking back this makes me think of Audre Lorde’s essay The Transformation of Silence and Language Into Action where she says, “In the cause of silence each of us draws the face of her own fear—fear of contempt, fear of censure, or some judgment…But most of all, I think we fear the visibility without which we cannot truly live.” No confidence in the world would allow me to speak without fear, it’s the act of speaking despite your fears that lets me live. And so, from this moment forward, in everything I write and say, just know I’m speaking this place. My security in my truth simply comes from the fact that I am alive. This is important to me just as much as it is for you because when we start making distinctions on who’s voice matters and who’s doesn’t, we start making distinctions on who’s humanity matters and who doesn’t.

——

The night of April 25th, when Boston Police swarmed and swept Emerson College’s encampment for Palestinian liberation, I didn’t once cry. As I helplessly watched my peers be trampled and dragged on cold brick through the alley by officers, as listened to the agonized screams through the residence halls in the wake, as I sat near an open window above listening to the officers laugh and joke about their abuses, there were no tears. It wasn’t until I came home early that morning, after calling my mom three times to no answer, that sadness found me.

It was five in the morning, I knew the chances of her picking up were slim but in the aftershock of so much fear and trauma, I needed her. I wanted her to tell me it was going to be ok, that I was fearful now but soon it’d be less and less. That despite it all we won’t be silenced and we won't be stopped. I hoped that her phone would ring regardless of it being silenced, or she’d get up extra early for work and see my calls. Or maybe by some divine miracle, she’d randomly wake up to the missed calls and rush to call me back. But she didn’t, and as the sun rose on a new day full of uncertainty, I cried because at that moment I believed there were no miracles, there was no assurance of safety. I believed we were alone.

When I finally spoke to her it was in the afternoon the next day, I told her as much of what happened as I could without moving to tears again. I spared details and cut corners because I knew that no matter how much I told her there were no words to truly capture what I felt that night. Instead, I tried to paint a picture of everyone else’s pain, something she could empathize with without complication.

“I knew this was going to happen. I knew it was going to end like this,” she repeated over and over. My confusion silenced me, I felt like her response didn’t match what was coming out of my mouth. “Students beaten…Administration watching…Cops laughing,” she responded. “Of course, I was just waiting for it to happen.” All I could say to her was, “What?” 

“This is what people in positions of power do, they say they care about freedom and expression, and pushing boundaries, but the moment you step out their bounds of what those things mean they shut it down, brutally and painfully.” I was taken by how sure she was in this sentiment. Not that I didn’t agree, I just wasn’t sure why she was saying it. I didn’t “know” everything would end like this. I didn’t have an idea of what would happen or how it would turn out but I had hope, not in my institution but in the people, in the community. I had hope that maybe our demands would be met, I had hope for something even now I still can’t name. I had hope because a belief in humanity and faith in people is what brought us all into that alley, why would I expect it to end in anything contrary to that? I kept trying to get through to her, I plucked more details from my shaky memory, and I emphasized and overstated every single thing. I wanted her to feel what I felt, to connect to our pain in some tangible way. At the very least to ask if I was ok. All I got from her was, “I could’ve told you it was gonna end like this Sidnie.”

In the early hours of that morning when I called her over and over hoping for an answer, my fear and hysterics let me forget who I was dealing with. Instinctually, I searched for relief where it was meant to be, forgetting it never was. My mother has always been logical and rational first, emotions coming much later. I try not to fault her for it and I can hardly blame her, but as someone who’s overflowed with feelings and sensitivity since birth, it’s difficult to get through to her. I frequently come to her looking for respite and instead, I find a “how-to” manual, of what to do next, how to move on, never how to feel. I know she’s not cold, that deep down inside she was just disturbed and shaken by what happened that night as I was. But she wouldn’t let me see, and that was enough to make me feel alone in my weariness and ashamed of my struggle to cope.

On the other end of the line, she affirmed her rigid beliefs and expectations about the world with my experiences, prescribing “reason” and “logic” to each piece of brutality and horror. In her eyes, I somehow was to believe in both the importance of my actions and their futility. I did the right thing but I was wrong for believing in any end but violence. I tried to listen to her as much as I could, I wanted to understand her. But that morning I woke up with an anchor on my chest the longer I listened to her the heavier it grew. Soon, in an act of self-preservation, I tuned her out, but still, her logic pervaded my thinking. I toyed with the idea that it might be easier to move forward if followed her way of thought, if I just accepted that this was life, these things were bound to happen, and nothing I could do would ever change that. I tried, for a brief moment, but it felt like looking forward to a life that’s ended before it’s even begun. “Please don’t cry over this Sidnie, don’t wallow in it,” she said to me, getting ready to end the call. “That’s what they want you to do, they want you to feel empty and give up. You have to just take it for what it is, brush yourself off, and move on.” 

——

On our last evening in Lisbon, Ashley and I watched the sunset. We sat near the edge of one of the many cliffs peaking off hilltops around the city and watched as the sun slowly sank below the skyline. As time passed the crowd around us only grew larger, pockets of people—some in pairs, some in groups, some alone—crowded around the edge with their faces towards the sun. Originally we sat at a cafe table a few feet back from the edge, but our excitement kept us getting up again and again to peer over the edge. Rays of gold, bronze, and terracotta painted over the colors of the city below; showers of sunlight turned the crowd around us into gold castes of the people they were moments before. Watching the cars drive through the streets and the people bustling through alleyways below us grounded me; the world had not stopped for us on the hilltops despite what it felt like. Around me, a smile adorned almost every face, and if not a smile a grin of hope, a twinkle of joy. Couples held each other tighter and friends laughed a little louder, and in our minds we all thought of someone we loved. In this crowd of strangers, I felt plentiful. For the first time, I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders and I welcomed it. I let it sink into the contours of my collarbone, and I exhaled as it lay itself on top of me. I knew then that it was the simplicity of humanity that bonded us all, it was watching the sunset and knowing that someone, somewhere was watching it too, also thinking of someone they loved. It was standing amongst strangers and understanding them, not knowing, but understanding. 

I thought this feeling was something I’d only feel once in a lifetime, something to look back on fondly and search for in every place and face for the rest of my life. But it visited me again today on the beach. I felt it was I waded in the warm water, digging my hands into the soft sand in search of seashells. I heard it in the sound of waves crashing onto the shore, in the shouts of my brother and his momentary friends kicking the ball between one another. I saw it in the sun peaking below the horizon of a sky so blue it felt surreal. At that moment, I felt like if I ran fast enough and if I jumped high enough I could fly. But I didn’t want to, I wanted to sit here on this beach in the warmth of the sun and live.

Suddenly, and almost instinctually, I remembered a poem I loved in high school. I had heard it recited on a TV show and found an audio recording of it online set to music. It’s called Catch The Fire, by Sonia Sanchez. It reads, 

“Sometimes I wonder:

What to say to you now

in the soft afternoon air as you

hold us all in a single death?

I say—

Where is your fire?”

This essay is an amalgamation of experiences and feelings I’ve been grappling with for the better half of the last year. It's been brewing in my head and scattered on pages, scribbled on receipts and sticky notes for months. When the attacks on Gaza first began I wanted to write about sensitivity. How we’re told not to feel, to limit our emotions to survive, and how it leads us to turn I blind eye to suffering. I wanted to implore you to bear witness, to see what was happening to feel it, to let it anger you and force you to act. But I thought, who am I to ask that of you, to suggest that you not only examine your life but question it? My doubt led me to move on, leaving my urge to speak inside my chest to rot. After the encampment was raided I wanted to write about sense, at first to try and make sense of what happened, to understand it, but it took me about twenty-four hours and another phone call with my mom to realize making sense of it all was futile. Then I thought maybe I’d write about both, sense and sensitivity. I wanted to break down the etymology of both words in their similarities and discuss the differences in the application of each one to our lives in our emotions. But even at this point, through my many stages of emotional contemplation, each time I sat down to write I felt like something was missing. There was a truth I needed to feel that I had yet to find. As I sat on the beach and listened to the poem again for the first time since high school, I realized it had been there all along. 

“Where is your fire?  I say where is your fire?

Can’t you smell it coming out of our past?

The fire of living…not dying

The fire of loving…not killing

The fire of Blackness…not gangster shadows.

Where is our beautiful fire that gave light

to the world?” 

They will tell you that making sense of it is the only way through, that you must categorize your suffering, put it into a box, give it a label, shove it into a corner, keep it nurtured but silent, and address it only to understand it. Then and only then can you begin to heal, once your suffering is lifeless. Once it’s stable enough to be addressed without feeling, once it poses no danger. But through this process of trying to make sense, you’ll find that it is a long winding road with a dead end and no exit. Because there is no making sense of brutality and unnecessary suffering, there is no making sense of mass death, the erasure of bloodlines, the devastation of land, there is nothing sensical about famine or war or genocide. The only way to “understand” is to adopt the mindset of the empire, and that is as good as death. Their definition of healing isn’t healing at all, but a trick into their forgiveness. To understand someone you must empathize with them, and to empathize with such violence is an exercise in madness. Once you fit your suffering into their boxes you have you mimimized it. Once you fit your ways of thought into their boxes you have killed it. You have shaped your mind and heart to their definitions of life, you’ve accepted evil as the way of truth.

The fire of pyramids;

The fire that burned through the holes of

slave ships and made us breathe;

The fire that made guts into chitterlings;

The fire that took rhythms and made jazz;”

I won’t waste time trying to make sense of evil, because it’s not sense that forms humanity. It’s our ability to see ourselves in everyone and everything around us, It’s the ability to watch the sunset and feel something, and know that everyone else feels it too. It’s our sensitivity. In each of these moments, on the beach today and in Portugal, where I felt this great empathy and love, all I could think about next was liberation. All I could think about were the people in Palestine, Sudan, and Congo, who deserved this feeling and so much more, who deserved to be free. It is the empathetic next step because solidarity is inherent to humanity. 

And so this is what I’ll lead with, I’ll flock to those who share this feeling, who feel no shame in empathy and instead in it find strength. I’ll hope for the best and prepare for the worst. And when the worst comes I’ll cry and grieve what was lost, then let it move me forward. Because I know that it's no mistake that I’m here today. Every person who existed before me fought to ensure my existence would be a reality. And in making sense of their suffering, and suffering across the world, I’m codifying it. What a shame to waste my time trying to make sense of nonsense, instead of letting it move me to rage and letting my rage move me to action, letting it fuel my fire. I think of Audre Lorde again, “What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them still in silence?” Without speech, there is no hope, and without hope, there is no dreaming. Dreaming of a better future, for change and justice, for the day that imperialism will fall, dreams that naturally lead to action. And I know that it is not in vain, because I look at the sun and feel its warmth. Humanity has prevailed before and it will again. 

Hey.  Brother/Brotha.  Sister/Sista.

Here is my hand.

Catch the fire…and live.

Lorde, Audre, The Transformation of Silence Into Action 1987