I’ve had this little itch in my mind and heart since October 7, my birthday. It’s not just about Palestine. It’s about the things that have died within and around me, so I could reach this place in my life. I have shed all sorts of things big and small to be the person who’s writing this blog post. I know that could sound a bit cliché, like I’ve climbed up some golden mountain to enlightenment. That’s not the image I wish to create with my words. Let me put it like this: The same way baby teeth fall away to make room for adult teeth, I have released old parts of myself to give space to a refined and greater (I hope) self.
There’s something that happens when you reach your limit, when you max out on half stepping and receiving crumbs. It feels like a lightning strike in your body and mind, something falls off a shelf and shatters. Enough, the word sears itself into your mind. No more is shouted into your ear by a voice both inside and outside of you, changing the air.
I felt that way when I broke up with someone who treated me bad. I feel that way when I look at the state of my city, my community, and the world at large. I crave, and therefore reach toward, something that feels like fresh air and daybreak. To get to daybreak, though, we gotta get through the dark of night.
Darkness can be healing. It’s when most of us sleep — our bodies rest and restore. The womb is often a loving sea of darkness when we develop in vitro. Darkness can nurture our senses differently. You learn to listen a new way when you can’t see so well. The feeling of the ground under your feet is information you take for granted at midday. Darkness can be a struggle if you don’t know that you can trust the light to come.
The last 9 months have been dark for so many people. We might never know the numbers and stories of them all; it’s not just Palestine. It’s Chicago, Bangladesh, and LA, Khartoum and the encampments everywhere. The depth of collective pain feels so crushing and overwhelming. Despair tells us to give into it: stop masking, don’t boycott, give up on organizing, quit caring because those in power clearly don’t. You know what it sounds like, how it looks. it can be very hard to stand up to those subtle and overt messages. If you live in the US, you know exactly how bleak things look right now. But, in that darkness, we get to rely on our other senses. We can find each other in that darkness.
We get to shed the people, behaviors, and ideas that keep us in the dark with no promise of dawn. That almost certainly means a form of ego death. Who you think you are because you buy Coca-Cola products, for instance, has to change if you take BDS seriously. Similarly, in order to integrate your evolving values and principles, there will be habits and people you no longer enjoy. The dissonance will be so much. You will feel lost because you’ve been a fan of whatever for however long. Spend your time in the darkness of grief tending to yourself as you shed. Say yes to letting go, say yes to saying no. You will find love and new connection as the sun rises.
Remember there will be a full moon to light your path at night too.