Saying the Hard Part Out Loud

Telling the truth about telling the truth

I’m wading my way through the deepest crick of summer, and the air is still where I am.

In August, the days have finally melted and run together, puddling at the back of your step. It’s a sort of existential dread that walks with you, meandering towards a new season and the end of something.

When I lived in South Africa, the coldest days of winter signified this time - the snaps and bites of a surprising frost, and the last of my winter uniform. Here in the States, these are the proverbial dogged days: time to prepare for the labor of cold months and the end of another year. Here, August smells and tastes of the sickly sweet: salted caramel and sea water, the very bottom of a frozen, almost melted, too-sweet margarita.

Incidentally, this is one of my favorite times of the year. I love to feel good about feeling bad, and this is the time of year that I was born.

Perhaps it's the loom of Virgo season, but I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few weeks about what it means to say difficult things and how to tell the truth in work and relationship. Perhaps it's that I’m at the part of the job search (month four) that my inspirational narrative about struggle has about run out. Perhaps, I’m just moon-cycling.

Whatever the reason, at this moment, it’s just hard. Life can be beautiful, and this is the hard part.

I’ve also watched in wonder as the country that I live in finally wraps its mangled teeth around the truth of the genocide of the Palestinian people as live-streamed global theater. As a litmus test for our morality. We’ve failed, again and again.

I watch CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC in the gym - perhaps an act of masochism - and see all the different ways that we can find words to tell the truth about our humanity and shield ourselves from it, simultaneously. I say this with no hubris, either - the dissociation of my politic and my work has kept me from being full throated about my horror. I am now, though.

I share my birthday with Bisan Owda and I think of her constantly. I check my phone every morning to make sure she’s still alive.

Telling the Truth

I’m thinking a lot about the courage it takes to tell the truth, to ourselves and in our work and to those we love. There’s so much incentive to lie or dissuade, omit. As I look for work, I’m reminded constantly of the performance that is sometimes required to convince someone to let you labor. There’s a dance to it, and I’m forgetting the steps. Of course I want to be your program specialist / people and culture lead / program officer / strategic consultant. I do, of course I do.

And - this is my forty second job application. I’m questioning my own worth and my own willingness. I’m watching the world around me crumble and I’m laughing at the wind. I’m sitting on the beach and I’m down to the dregs. I’m turning thirty four and it wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

And - it will never be as hard as watching your people turn to dust. It will never be as hard as watching your family die in front of you.

I think the call of this moment is to find the courage to name exactly what is happening - to us, around us, on our behalf. It feels like an act of protest at this point.

Those of us who work in change are finding every word available to tell our stories and raise our funds in a way that will keep us safe. Those of us seeking work are turning up the volume and putting on the face that will prove that we can help, we can work, we can make it work. Those of us who organize are sounding the alarm. I don’t think that one outweighs the other - for me, it’s about naming the thing in front of me, and wading through it, in the sweet and sickly still of mid-August.

It’s the natural progression of change to hit bottoms and tops and marvel at the two. I hope you don’t worry - that attention is better spent elsewhere. As I wonder, I get to work on beautiful projects, and learn warm lessons, and wade through the last of the surf toward work that I believe will be truly meaningful. I’m just using this time and space to say the hard part out loud. I hope you will, too.

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to listen to later

Zombie by the Cranberries, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert

I am mourning the shuttering of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and all that it means for free press, non-commercial radio, and our ability to tell American truths and stories.

Of course that brought me to this, the Cranberries’ Tiny Desk concert, and this rendition of Zombies, specifically (starts at 11:58).

A perfect incantation for late summer rage-crying and conjuring.

Rest in peace Dolores.

Olay and Friends, Laverne Cox

If you’ve been as chronically online as I’ve been lately, you may have noticed the #discourse about Laverne Cox and her self-reported dating history. I don’t think any of that is my business to discuss on this Substack, but I did follow the conversation, and it led me to this panel discussion on Olay and Friends.

In it, five trans and non-binary public intellectuals have a conversation with Laverne about the implications of her story telling and tell her the whole ass truth about it from every angle. I marveled at how open she was to be called in, talk about her own choices, and listen. It was a master class in collective accountability, and I learned a lot.

[I will *asterisk* this with the fact that there’s been some significant fallout from this conversation, and what did and didn’t happen, particularly around some policing of the gender binary and shade from certain panelists. I say this because I am not putting these people on a pedestal, but I have deep respect for how each of them showed up and told the truth, Laverne especially.]

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something beautiful

I recently came across the work of Malak Mattar, a 26 year old Palestinan artist. It is emotive in a way that is visceral, charmed, questioning, and sincere. I’d like to share some here, and encourage you to sit with her work and the truth she is able to wield without saying a word.

Mother Protecting her Children, Oil on Canvas, 2021

Sleeping in Nature, When the World Sleeps Series, Oil on Canvas, 2021

No Words, Oil on Canvas, 2024

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last word

Last year, for my birthday, I donated and asked that others donate to Ele Elna Elak, a volunteer-driven organization that provides clean drinking water and fresh vegetables and food to families across Gaza. I plan to donate again for my birthday this year, and if you’re so moved, you should too.