#112: I Feel Broken, How About You?
The aftermath of the election, the ongoing genocides around the world, and what I hope we can do as artists, with our words and actions, to heal and help in our home communities and beyond…
Hello my friends,
Like so many of you, I haven’t been functioning very well these past few days.
This world, which is full of so much good — so much abundant love, connection, and kindness — is also, as we are ceaselessly reminded, full of hate, bigotry, sexism, racism, homophobia, and violent unkindness of all kinds.
I haven’t known what to say, what to do, or how on earth to be after what has just happened. I imagine you’re in the same boat. If nobody has said it to you yet, let me be the first: It is okay to feel this way.
This is a collective trauma we’re enduring. To know that so many of our neighbors, co-workers, family members, and friends are voting against our basic and fundamental human rights is unimaginably horrific. I want to validate that, if nobody has yet to do so.
But, I want to also share with you something else, some words that keep ringing in my ears, words that Meryl Streep once shared on stage as she received an award in 2017, another time in our country that was full of division, violence, uncertainty, and terrifying anxiety.
Not only had Donald Trump recently taken office, but he had spent much of his campaign and early days in the position doing the exact same things he is doing now: spewing violence, racism, hatred, and division. You might remember that he publicly mocked a disabled reporter, Serge F. Kovaleski, as well as encouraging and creating countless conspiracy theories.
Streep, who was accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement, chose to use all the eyes that were on her at that very moment to talk about the importance of telling stories. The importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The importance of a free press. She argued that public figures, especially those in power, have a responsibility to set an example in how they treat others.
While these words have gone on to inspire millions in the fight against fascism and tyranny, it is Meryl’s closing mark that has always sat somewhere deep inside me, waiting to be awakened.
Let’s read the excerpt below, together:
“…and this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.
This brings me to the press. We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage. That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our constitution. So, I only ask the famously well-heeled Hollywood Foreign Press and all of us in our community to join me in supporting the committee to protect journalists. Because we’re going to need them going forward. And they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.
One more thing. Once, when I was standing around on the set one day whining about something, we were going to work through supper, or the long hours or whatever, Tommy Lee Jones said to me, isn’t it such a privilege, Meryl, just to be an actor. Yeah, it is. And we have to remind each other of the privilege and the responsibility of the act of empathy. We should all be very proud of the work Hollywood honors here tonight.
As my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia said to me once, take your broken heart, make it into art. Thank you.”
“Take your broken heart, make it into art.”
Those words keep finding me.
When I wake up hazy, after snoozing my alarm one too many times, feeling an ache in my bones, a swell in my body and belly from a night spent binge eating to numb the pain of this new reality we’re all living in, in which things seem to keep getting worse and worse, these words find me somewhere in the silence.
Almost in a whisper. “Alex, take your broken heart and make it into something beautiful. Something that might help to be a small light for someone else. Something that might heal you, anything at all, but please, the voice insists, make something.
I like to think it is the voice of my grandmothers, who always encouraged my being a writer. Or maybe it’s the women and men and people of all genders in my family, who never got to live their dream, but sacrificed so that I could live mine, whose sacrifice and bravery, and relentless pursuit gave me a life where I have the freedom to speak.
And in those quiet hours of morning, the words, for a moment, fill me up.
Almost as if someone is saying them out loud to my soul.
They have begun to repeat so often that they are becoming a mantra, a rallying cry, a code of ethics, a constitution of self, something that gets me out of the bed and into the chair, into the desk to work, to write, to create, to commiserate, to think, to imagine, to build something new.
And as I’ve been feeling so dissociated, battling waves of anxiety, rage, despair, and so many other emotions, that phrase echoes in my mind, and when I focus on it, when I let it sit in my gut, when I wrap myself around it fully, I start to believe again. I start to believe that things won’t always be this way, and that maybe, just maybe, I can do some tiny thing to help make things better.
I wonder — what have you been hearing?
What have your ancestors been whispering in the form of words of wisdom or songs of encouragement, consciously to you or otherwise? Do you feel comfortable sharing them with us here? How have you been making it through these days of despair and hopelessness? What is getting you out of bed? What is giving you the will to carry on?
There is no right answer.
Online, I’m hearing every kind of hot take and talking point imaginable, but I hope that, while we let ourselves grieve and react, we remember that something precious and beautiful and real has been lost — a kind of hope for a new way forward — and it is okay to feel heartbroken and devastated, and betrayed, and saddened, and fearful, and unsure.
What you feel matters, and it is all your body experiencing this new reality, a new set of obstacles that are already here and preparing further for all that is yet to come.
the thing about hope…
It can be hard to reach for hope in times like this. Hard to reach for love or patience, or kindness, especially when all feels so damn bleak. And while I know our hope is not dead, it might feel currently dormant or beyond our reach. Maybe you feel numb. Maybe you feel rage. Maybe you feel shame. Maybe you feel that there is a crack in the very structure of your soul and that your mind cannot bear any more pain. Anymore suffering.
What has happened is maddening, heartbreaking, enraging, perplexing, and so so terrifyingly awful.
But, I want to invite you to do something.
To try, as hard as you can, to please feel your emotions.
To not avoid them or repress them and bully them into silence. To grieve. However you need to. And, if you can, grieve in community with the people you love. With your friends. Your family. Your colleagues. Anyone who you know is feeling this same pain you are.
My beloved ayandastood has taught me so much about how grief is not always meant to be faced alone, but in community with those we love. She has taught me that we heal through and alongside other people, not just ourselves, and for the things that can never heal, our loved ones help us carry the weight of it, the sadnesses that might never resolve, the heartbreaks that stay with us all of our days.
So please, if I can ask anything of you at this time, one thing, it is to please let yourself grieve, in community, or alone, or whatever feels best for you.
And when you are ready, I — and so many others — will be here with open arms, ready to welcome you to the continuous and important work of organizing and fighting back against fascism, racism, and the horrors that are already here and may worsen and intensify in the coming years.
I want the comments below to be a space where you can vent, where you can voice your concerns without censorship. Where you can share your rage, your pain, your hopes — anything you feel called to express.
And also, if you feel like sharing, what is it that is comforting you through these troubling days? What’s helping? What’s hurting?
I want to create a space where we can let it all out.
Also, let the comments be a place where we recommend mutual aid, places to get involved, places to donate, and people and organizations that we can directly support.
Now, and in the coming years, we will need each other more than ever before.
The complicated mix of fear, anxiety, rage, and pain…
For many, the emotions of what has happened are a complex mix. I know so many feel heartbroken that we do not have our first Black and South Asian woman president elected at this moment.
I also know that so many feel a deep sense of betrayal from the Democratic party and elected officials on all sides, who have continued to shift rightward and normalize aspects of conservatism, courting Republican ideals and leaders, validating their ideology, and offering them more space to speak than anti-genocide activists globally.
I know so many feel betrayed that the Democratic party and current administration haven’t done more to halt the funding of weapons that make these genocides possible, that our administration hasn’t done more to protect us from what’s to come and hasn’t done more to deliver on the promises they campaigned on. Many of us despair for what we hoped the world would be and the crushing juxtaposition of what it is.
I know so many are rightfully angry about student loans, and Roe V. Wade, and that we do not have more Supreme Court justices who represent our values. That so many things that we hoped would happen these past few years have not come to pass.
All of the rage, pain, fear, and sadness you feel is so valid, as is the heartbreak so many feel over this election loss — as we begin to accept the unimaginable: that we must endure four more years with an autocratic leader who embodies racism, sexism, dishonesty, cowardice, and cruelty toward so many.
I want to create a space where we can all voice our grief and pain without judgment and where we can encourage each other, that all of the things we are feeling are valid.
The left is as vibrant and diverse as any other group, and there is a chance that many of us may have many conflicting ideas about how we get towards the liberatory world we dream of, but I hope in the coming years that the left and moderate center of the Democratic party and the progressives and the leftists and the socialists and all of those who seek a loving and more just world, that we can find ways to all collaborate and work together, to build the world we want, which will take brand new tactics, brand new ideas, and brand new ways of thinking.
What has been nourishing me?
Something that’s been helping me is turning to the wisdom of Octavia E. Butler, one of my favorite writers, who had the courage and tenacity to write books as powerful and brilliant as Parable of the Sower.
Octavia dared to imagine another way forward for humanity. Turning to her words, in her books and interviews, has offered enormous support to me today.
I can feel that unshakable hopelessness beginning to calcify into resolve each and every time I hear her speak. Her words are a balm of healing and a seed of becoming.
Other writers who I’ve turned to are Adrienne Maree Brown, and Toni Morrison, as well as the sci-fi legend, N.K. Jemisin, all of whom have given countless public talks, interviews, and written works that inspire, encourage, and strengthen my resolve that a better world is possible.
They remind me that we can withstand what’s coming and build a community organizing practice so loving and powerful that we can endure and overcome.
I know that so many people will be affected so negatively by what is about to happen, but I believe that, if we have the courage, we can be the light of reason, hope, and resistance against the chaos, cruelty, violence, and mayhem.
Lastly, I’ve been turning toward the wisdom of the many women in my life, my wonderful sister, my incredible mother, my wise grandmothers in heaven, and all the women who came before me — my ancestors, all who fought against racism, sexism, and cruelty at every turn.
I think of my queer kin, my trans siblings, and all genders, who have fought tirelessly for their rights and continue to do so. I think also of my amazing father, and all the people in my life who show me every day what is possible, when we believe and dedicate our lives to something greater and more than ourselves.
I think of my ancestors, kin, and elders who faced situations far worse, yet took their pain, heartbreak, and trauma and created progress, community, and love.
I’m not here to tell you what to do or how to do it. Every form of grief is valid, and however, you respond to this moment is not something anyone should police or condemn.
However you’re feeling — heartbroken, shaken, hopeless — it’s all valid, my loves.
My only request is that you remember there are people all around you, even the universe itself, who loves you deeply. When you’re ready, we’ll be here with open arms, ready to share in this pain, to love you through the hurt, and to find ways together to bear witness to what has happened and will continue to happen, while also brainstorming creative ways to keep each other safe in the years to come.
These words, like me, and like all of us, are imperfect. I didn’t say everything I wanted to say or say it as eloquently as I hoped I would have.
But I’m giving myself grace, and I hope you will do the same for yourself. A voice inside me keeps telling me to speak, and I’m starting to listen.
Whether it’s my ancestors, my family, my kin, or a me I haven’t yet met, I hear it so clearly, again and again:
“Take your broken heart and turn it into art.”
A closing idea…
Toni Cade Bambara once said, “The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”
And I am here to tell you, whether you know it or not, you are an artist. Whether your art is a painting, a poem, or the powerful way you love your family and friends, whether your art is in how you sing, how you dance, or how tenderly you hold your loved ones when they cry, so they know they’re never alone — your art, your voice, your unique expression has the power to make the revolution irresistible.
Lastly, I’ll leave you with this:
We are stronger than we know. Together, we are unstoppable.
I love you. I’ll see you in the comments, my loves. We’re going to get through this, I promise.
Use the space below to vent, to express whatever you feel, about anything at all. Let it all out. Let these comments be the release you’re looking for, the connection you’re hoping to find, or whatever would serve you best.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
We are going to survive as best we know how, and together, we are going to create new and powerful ways of becoming.
I look forward to connecting with you in the comments.
Love always,
Alex
PS: You may have noticed that I haven’t sent out an e-mail in ages. I think I’m only going to do so when I feel really called to reach you all at once, but I still do publish essays regularly on the Substack website and app, they are just not e-mailed out. I just want you to know, that if you are ever hoping to hear from me more frequently, I am here, with open arms and I am so grateful for you and all the joy and wonder and purpose you bring to my life and the lives of all you are lucky enough to know you ❤
