It does not mean she cowers

Two weeks ago, I asked one of my best friends if I should do NaNoWriMo. I need to do this more, I said. I need to practice. I need to vent a little of the pressure that’s in my head.

Do it!, she said. I’ll do it with you. We won’t write a novel, we’ll just write. Maybe we’ll send each other prompts, or maybe we’ll just sit down and let the words come, but we’ll write.

So I did. I wrote a story about All Soul’s Day, and I wrote a story about our ancient urge to tell stories, and I started a story about the power that language can have. I felt like I was on a roll, like I was accomplishing something. I wrote four thousand words in six days.

Then the election happened. It feels as though it should be capitalized: The Election, as if it won’t require a footnote in a history book in some distant future. The Election happened, and that night my writing time was squandered obsessively refreshing the New York Times, Fivethirtyeight, Huffington Post, the Guardian, watching the margins narrow and the numbers pile up. Words escaped me. I just kept saying over and over to those around me, What is HAPPENING.

I didn’t write on Tuesday. On Wednesday, in an attempt to spit out something, anything at all, I brought my computer with me to a technical rehearsal for the show I’m performing in. I opened up my story about language, intending at least to make a pass at its next paragraph, and instead I found myself writing the beginnings of a blog post about the time my mother took me to stand within sniping distance of a guard tower on the Berlin Wall. Coincidentally, Wednesday was the anniversary of that wall falling, and with it the tenets it symbolized. I got as far as describing my mother’s boyfriend’s car, a magenta muscle machine that should never have had children in the backseat, and then I tapered off. My two day total was 167 measly words. Not a one of them felt valuable or useful.

I brought my computer again tonight to rehearsal, and I opened the story I wrote over a week ago, just to see if the woman who wrote that story was still with me. Here is what I think is the best line from that story:

She could feel fear, but still practiced boldness, because just because a woman fears it does not mean she cowers.

I feel so much fear right now. I fear that we may see attempts (and likely successes) to strip us of our rights, especially those of us who already are vulnerable. I fear that the morals and values that I have worked so tirelessly to instill in my children will be seen as worthless or laughable by those who feel they hold a higher moral ground. I fear that those whose beliefs differ so wildly from mine will be emboldened and weaponize those differences, turning them on me and those who believe as I do in order to dominate and control us. I am full of fear.

But I will practice boldness, and I will not cower. I will offer up what I can, build a resistance out of my very existence, and use the power I have to hold up those who feel powerless. I will practice radical compassion, fierce love, and ferocious connection.

And hopefully, I will write.