by Caroline Healy
This isn’t an essay exactly, not a journal page for my eyes only either (though it rather sounds like one to me). But here I am living in a shifting sand of a country that I used to count on, believe in, feel safe in.
I think of watching the play “Hamilton” when our freedom was hatching, growing into a whole new dream, figuring out the who and what of the new reality they were creating. I hear that the show is coming back to Chicago this year and I’m getting a ticket. I could use the shared voices, the fervor, the goal, so different from now. And here we are in a country where others are trying to dismantle what was built.
Ever since the return of Trump and the constant revelations of his inner workings and his many minions, I have worked to keep from blowing my top every single day at his power-driven and flawed henchmen and women. My initial line of defense was creating the habit of saving the most outrageous reports of what he had said and done as my way to encase it outside of my mind and heart. I felt I was constructive, building a case, saving evidence, screaming silently to… I didn’t know what. I labeled each email Fighting.
Do I ever go back to read them? No, because each day presents its own. Do I do that every day – no, but sometimes I read something that is so…so… can I say evil?... it should be on the record when the person who utters it shows up at the pearly gates. I’m trying to distance and contain, not traumatize myself. I want to be fighting for good, but how?
Why have I not spoken up about all of this before except in conversation with those who agree with me? I guess I didn’t want to “go there” and magnify the dark impact on me in this otherwise pretty darn meaningful and happy part of my long life.
The problem with looking away instead of burrowing in to face the danger is that I ended up sitting on a steaming cauldron of outrage, fear, and powerlessness that I ran away from asap. Guilty. Wondering what I could do, would do, without becoming a victim myself. Selfish, cowardly I could say. If only I’d face it. What I see now is that the only path is through. And it revealed itself pretty quickly.
One Saturday every month I join with 5 other women from church to consider a topic that is accompanied by about 10 pages of question-asking, quotes from wise ones, “spiritual exercises” to choose from, and sharing. And two pages of resources to go deeper. Unitarians like digging in, and last month the topic was Considering Resistance. That is where I found my answer.
Hidden in the resources list, I was attracted to a 12-page post on Substack by Satya Doyle Byock, “Twenty Archetypes of Resistance.” Her goals grabbed me and pulled me in to “enduring work of transformation, peace, equality, and freedom.” She asks, “What is your role? Which…of these archetypes most speak to you and the work you’re called to do?” I jumped in.
Going through her pages, I passed over The Neighbor, The Orator, The Prophet, and others without finding a match. I was on #12 of the 20 and starting to fear that I’d come up empty. But then came the 13th option, The Writer. The author’s comments touched on communication, inspiration, “keeping people’s souls afloat,” and “the deeper callings of the root of change.” I felt at home all of a sudden.
So, I’ll leave it there for now. I will become The Writer I have in me. I’ll say my truth, listen to others’ with respect, or at least try. Will I reach thirty readers, fewer, more? No telling. However, I do know that I won’t feel guilty anymore for my silence.
[If you are interested in the Twenty Archetypes of Resistance article, here is the link:
https://satyadoylebyock.substack.com/p/archetypes-of-resistance]