For as long as I have a voice, I must use it
Caring while anxious.
Hi Friends, and welcome back to Make Peace. I have been on a unexpected Hiatus from writing, as in September + October + November I traveled to 5 different regions- the most I have traveled consecutively since 2020. I am back in Detroit now, and getting back into the flow of things. Even while I have been gone, new friends and colleagues have supported this substack by reading + following. Thank you for your patience + the trust that I have something substantive to say. The next few posts will be a backlog of writings that I’ve been piecing together during my time away. Talk more presently soon. -smc
When I wake up, the last thing I want to do is look at my cell phone. Lately, however, I’ve been in a bit of a predicament. Even with an analog alarm clock + a newly fixed laptop, I can’t escape the fine-tuned UX convenience of a cell phone. I reach for it first every morning without fail.
Yet, I rush past setting my alarm clock before bed, and I refuse to sleep with my phone anywhere within 10 feet of me. Both are the root of a looming anxiety- I’m so preoccupied in my mind before I go to bed because of my rumination that a 'nighttime routine’ feels frivolous and insignificant in the scope of war polycrisis, and the latter because my brain can’t get the image out of my head of the over 3,000 people being unknowingly detonated upon while simply living their lives and wanting to be connected to their community through technology in Lebanon just a few short weeks ago. It has not left my mind, though so many concurrent massacres continue to happen. Though I have not seen a pager in real life in many moons, I know that the next time I see, perhaps hold one, I’ll feel fear in my hands.
The grief of seeing other humans die and be hunted on my cell phone is haunting. The grief lives in my skin. I know it is minuscule to the pain that I see, but I can’t fathom, much less make sense of the brutal actions of colonizers worldwide inflict upon other humans. We can see government entities hunting people- women, men, and children- and the governments don’t care. The most grief-filled part of what we can see, is that what we are seeing is always how colonizers have committed ethnic scrubbing since they started doing it. And they still don’t care.
Within the thin six years I’ve been doing and learning about this work, I deeply underestimated how much caring would affect my body and mind. I think it’s something that all people that care wrestle quietly with. And it’s deeper than the sores on your feet after a march, or the ragtag organizing project burnout. Deeper than community conflict on Instagram and the roiling holiday arguments that burst all newly-budded care-rs natural sense of nuclear family. I’m talking about the pain, the discomfort, that is caring about the wellbeing of all living things- not just when it’s convenient. It’s seeing the concussions and bruised ribs of old friends working at the Emcampments and sharing their gofundme’s. Or the notification that someone in my actual, proximal community has had their whole family martyred and is trapped in a burningly connected world of pain. It is the realness of life that haunts me as a person who has chosen to care. It’s my own aimless tensions and tears in the dark, my private caring, that I carry: that all in my lineage have carried before me in some way. The intergenerational trauma that is experiential empathy is more than palpable. It is alive within my body. Burningly alive.
When I chose to be a freedom worker, I did not think that my words would be listened to by anyone. The tango of dreaming within what life is and moving toward what life can be. The role of the freedom worker in current years is to protect the trust of your people- community members, lovers, neighbors, enemies, those that may have harmed you, those you may not be able to see, rather those you will never see- and to aim toward cultural choices that improve all of our lives. This is the world I want to live in. For all our lives to become fuller, more colorful. To feel the bursting packages of our lives more often than not, with everyone being able to access this level of humanity not at the expense of another. To be a freedom worker is to want all living things to be considered alive.
Free is what we all are by birthright. It is not something that a singular, annual task can accomplish. I can feel the swelling edges of that freedom when I least expect, at the 99.999%. Every time we really act on something, we feel the fullness of what it means to be alive- what it means to be free. For as long as I have a voice, I must use it. I must use it. I must use it. I must use it. Even when my body is scared, shaking, I must use it. I must use it. I must use it. Even when the Europeans could not, did not, want to understand where I come from and why I do this work- I must use it. Even when my quilting classmates bulldozed my boundaries in the South, when I found out we were further apart mentally than we were physically in tandem. I must use it. Even when my friends, my neighbors, my loved ones are selfish in action and intent, trying to preserve what little autonomy they have in a system of oppression: We can change together, and I must use my voice. I have to barrel towards destiny. It’s the human experience of life. I deserve to transform with the Earth. I must. We will.
With gratitude: I have a roof over my head, food in the fridge, and a mostly working car to drive; A loving partner, chosen family, and community. A lucky brain that wanted to prioritize a moral compass instead of conquest. And with all of my luck, I still can not escape the crushingly dead weight that is choosing to Care. I will try and stand, and make friends with Caring in a way that is healthy. Today- I will make it through the day. And tomorrow again still. We will keep living, and with life we can choose to do what we can, to do what we must do for our collective freedom to choose Caring.
smc