“Writing is a Form of Resistance”

When I was younger I loved to perform on stage. Any small school production, whether it be a play or talent show, I was always in line to audition–excited for the chance to convey to people how I believe the given material should be presented. Somewhere between puberty and high school suddenly I found myself choking to speak even plain English on a stage. So instead of trying to face my fears and become a triumphant underdog in my own mind, I decided to spend my time on the internet watching other people perform. Admirable.

It was when I first heard Sarah Kay’s “If I Should Have a Daughter” that made me love slam poetry. I was in tears by the time she had spoken the first line of the piece.

ThisĀ is something people have to hear.

I did not know how or when, but I knew that I wanted people to hear her words. So when the end of senior year approached me and I didn’t feel that I was ready to go, I realized saying goodbye with the poem could help me have a final hurrah before I moved on to “bigger and better” things.

At the audition I held my phone up and read the words and people cried.

On the stage of the actual event I saw a recent ex-boyfriend, forgot all the lines and stood confused and frantic.

It’s funny now, and to be honest I’m surprised at how okay I was that this happened.

Because I realized that writing is a form of resistance in that no matter how large the scale, it can push you to feel and do things that you might not be comfortable with and find power in it.

During the given class time instead of writing about the prompt I sat and wrote the lines of Sarah Kay, finally getting to perform it for myself.

B (If I Should Have a Daughter) by Sarah Kay

If I should have a daughter, instead of ‘Mom,’ she’s going to call me ‘Point B,’ because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me.

And I’m going to paint solar systems on the backs of her hands so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, ‘Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.’

And she’s going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry.

So the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself, because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried. ‘And, baby,’ I’ll tell her, don’t keep your nose up in the air like that. I know that trick; I’ve done it a million times. You’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house, so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place, to see if you can change him. But I know she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby, because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few that chocolate can’t fix.

But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything, if you let it. I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind, because that’s the way my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this.

(Singing) There’ll be days like this, my momma said. When you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises; when you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape; when your boots will fill with rain, and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment. And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you.

Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away. You will put the wind in win some, lose some. You will put the star in starting over, and over. And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life. And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting, I am pretty damn naive. But I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily, but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

‘Baby,’ I’ll tell her, ‘remember, your momma is a worrier, and your poppa is a warrior, and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.’ Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things. Always apologize when you’ve done something wrong, but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. Your voice is small, but don’t ever stop singing. And when they finally hand you heartache, when they slip war and hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street-corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.

 

 

Response to “Travelling” by Grace Paley

It’s seemingly easy to spot an “other.” Regardless of how similar our background or values may be, we can be quick to dismiss the possibility of shared experiences after a glance at a person’s face. In fact it’s not entirely false to see history as a show of societies racing to create cultural barriers based on outward appearance. In Grace Paley’s “Travelling,” we see a young woman struggling against her given reality as a white woman with innate privilege. Though she may not have fully understood why the rules of her time deemed it strange, Paley knew that her seeing her grandson in the body of the little black baby would not be a shared sentiment in those around her.

The prevalent culture would perhaps judge otherwise, but I find it interesting that in this story, the mother of the child and the man sitting next to Paley have more in common with each other than with our narrator. The man and the mother both share the idea that what is occurring in the bus is not only dramatically uncommon, which is a thought Paley would too share, but also wrong. When the man says, “Lady, I wouldn’t of touched that thing with a meat hook,” he is taking part in the known narrative of his society. The mother of the child understands this, even if she knows that this narrative is cruel and wrong; the nature of Paley’s actions is anything but natural.

I ended my reading of this passage with mixed feelings of admiration and frustration. Though Paley’s actions are undeniably laudable, I want so badly to say it should have been matter of fact. But the truth is theres no doubt in my mind that the same questions of morality that plagued minds then, are prevalent today. I just hope I could be as confident when faced with this kind of conflict as I am right now writing in the comfort of my privilege.

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