Be In Love and Be Forever Angry: Links/Resources for Coping
You are grieving in places you thought nerves didn’t grow. Your eyes are maroon from the glare of blue and red police lights.
You need someone to cradle your head, lift your chin, rub your back, and wipe the blood off here, here, here, and there, there and there. These several weeks have felt like a regression to a time, place you are too young to remember.
Sometimes you are soft and can’t bear the roar of a shower and sometimes your wrath makes you a diamond — especially when you’re among kin.
My friend, you are not weeping alone.
This is a time for revolution.
During revolution, there is always a momentous tail of joy, muscle and of course, grieving but please don’t forget your body during this time.
Because your beautiful flesh is a site of trauma — historically and currently, you have to fight for the body — to be more than a knot or missile. Pay attention to the body — which is hard right now because you are victim, survivor and giant at any moment. It’s easy to forget how to exhale or sit upright or let your shoulders gently rest. But do not get acclimated to suffering — despair and blackness make strange bedfellows.
We’ve lived in a place that has literally allowed for us to believe and center only black death. We’ve forgotten how to imagine black life. Literally, whole human beings have been rendered to die prematurely, rendered to be sick, and we’ve allowed for that. Our imagination has only allowed for us to understand black people as a dying people. We have to change that. That’s our collective imagination, someone imagined handcuffs, someone imagined guns, someone imagined a jail cell. Well, how do we imagine something different that actually centers black people, that sees them in the future. Let’s imagine something different. –Patrice Cullors
Please don’t forget that you are loved and filled with decadence, matter, pearls — organized in a perfect sequence.
Please don’t forget, you are loved and deserving of that constant love.
Call, hug or kiss someone on the forehead to show that kin and gratitude because they need that — you need that more than ever — to suffer less. Show a child of color that you love them.
Your body is clenched with stress and mourning — remember to take care of it by touch or stretch. There is plenty of research on trauma, motion and healing.
Living right now — in love — is essential.
In revolution, amid writing, protesting, and strategy — take care, beloved. This is healing work too.
If You Need to Talk:
How to find support when you can’t afford therapy
Help with therapy without insurance
If You Need to Read:
17 Poems to Read When the World is Too Much
Staying Focused in the Movement
If You Need to Write:
Emotional and Health Benefits of Expressive Writing
If You Need to Mind:
Mindfulness and Anti-Oppression Work
Send love to others:
Sending letters to those in Orlando
Remember the good stuff that is happening:
Issa Rae raises money for Alton Sterling’s children to attend college
