James Baldwin turned 100 on Friday. if you’re looking for a way to celebrate his life that might make you cry, read Toni Morrison’s eulogy for him (In your hands language was handsome again……..Yours was a tenderness, of vulnerability, that asked everything, expected everything and, like the world's own Merlin, provided us with the ways and means to deliver.)
his words are with me, this week, as they often are, specifically:
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
―James Baldwin,The Fire Next Time
this quote is usually brought up in the context of racism, and lately i am present to how relevant it is to interpersonal relationships. i think about all my judgments, all my resentments, all my ideas about what other people should be doing, which i am usually much more literate in than my own hurt or what i need.
in situations that feel painful, unpredictable, i wanted, needed, someone to blame. i thought Identifying The Culprit would offer solace, would Make Things Easier.
with or without culprit, the unheld wounds roar their little heads at inconvenient, embarrassing times. i don’t know who they are or where they came from. i hurl myself towards culprit culprit culprit in a current situation which might have little to do with what i’m feeling. but here you are: you! you must have done something, to me. what else would explain this bottomless feeling? there’s no telling when the feeling will end. get me out! you—this story about you, can get me OUT.
the thing is that it can’t. the feelings, i’m learning, are very good at making their way through when i let them. hatred is a terrible yet effective dam.
the unheld wounds, the pain, need grieving, need tending, need holding.
as Malkia Devich-Cyril said in conversation with adrienne maree brown last week:
”We’re all trying to build a life on top of something horrible. We’re all trying to build a future on top of some death, you know, on top of something we’ve done wrong, on top of something that’s been done wrong to us……everywhere in the world people are trying to build freedom on top of a devastation…..and if we don’t allow ourselves to find ways to navigate loss, to face loss and navigate it, we can’t lean into the future, we can’t open up our hearts and our bodies and our minds to what’s possible”