In Memoriam
On narrative, loss, and listening.
CW: This post discusses guns and gun violence.
Hi Folks,
I think I can speak for a lot of us when I say it has been a heavy week. I feel as if I am still processing the events that happened in Texas, and I logged on this morning to see reports of another shooting with teen victims, this one in Tennessee. It feels these days as though our collective grief never ends.
I’ve been reflecting a lot this week on when storytelling becomes useful— of when to open my mouth and when to shut it. Every time I have logged onto social media in the last few days it has felt like a spiral of the same things being said. Vote. Call. Protest. Tragedy asks so much of us, and gives us so little time to process. It feels every time we rally together there is another thing to mourn. I don’t know how we are meant to live with this collective grief and continue to push action, especially when it feels our actions lead to so little change.
When a major shooting happens in what we deem to be a “red” state, much of the discourse tends to focus on that. When it happens in the South, loose gun laws are brought up. We— rightfully so— scrutinize the politicians in charge of our states, and question their priorities. For example, how can you push the argument that all children’s lives matter when it comes to abortion, and then let children die in their school hallways? How is it that entire generations have come to be afraid of movie theaters, restaurants, concerts, classrooms?
What I often find missing from these conversations is the further discussion of how these states became so “red” in the first place. It has always felt strange to me to label an entire community on the presumed state of their politics; anyone from the South, the Midwest, or Appalachia is always going to be associated with Republican politics because that is the view we as a country hold of these places. When we associate community culture with political parties, we implicitly make the assumption that those parties are representative of the people. In turn, this contributes to the national stereotypes we hold of other places and other people, stereotypes that will not be broken if we don’t start challenging them.
Rural states are not “red” states. There are individuals in them who hold influence and power and damaging beliefs, but they do not speak for all of us. In fact, they often speak for very few. Voter suppression runs rampant across the South, and it is so tiring to be told by people on the internet to “just vote” time and time again.
This is a great post by Dee Noonan on that topic, as well as this Twitter thread.
I also have been thinking this week about the practice of using storytelling as a gateway into empathy and change. In college, I studied personal testimony and its role in advocating for change, and found that there is power in owning our stories. But there is also difficulty in doing so. And there is a time and a place for knowing when to listen instead of speak.
Almost everyone I know in the South has a story involving guns. For many, it’s a part of life here, inherent to the place itself. It has always been this way, we tell ourselves when we think of how or why or when we might change. I could tell you here about how I grew up with guns. How I learned to shoot at summer camp, mailing the targets home proudly. How I went shopping for rifles with family as a weekend errand. I could tell you how normal it felt to me for so long, and I could tell you how I learned to run from them, too. I could tell you about the woman with a gun in my school carpool line and I could tell you about the time at the mall when everyone suddenly started running in every direction and I could tell you about all the nightmares I have had every night this week, remembering these experiences, imagining the future. I could tell you how strange and difficult it feels to work in schools right now, how I have no idea how to have these conversations with my students. How when they tell me they are afraid to come to school I have no response other than, so am I.
I could tell you all of these things and it would make no difference. These are not stories I want to relive. These stories hurt, and they have hurt me. I do not want to live in them again every time a new tragedy happens. This is not a snappy essay where I tell you all about the things I have experienced and try to relate them to what is happening across the country. These memories are mine. I was not there in Texas; I do not have anything to contribute to this story. Me spilling my trauma onto a page will not change the fact that people are dead. I hope those are words I never have to write again.
When we teach personal narrative, we often— whether we mean to or not— teach students that their most important stories are often the most difficult ones. Certainly sharing can help when it comes to processing, but at what point do we say it is enough? The stories I have received the most recognition for are the ones I would like not to repeat. I told them once, I put the words on the page, and now I wish to move on. I will have to move on in order to be happy in this lifetime. I have more stories in me— stories waiting to be lived and stories waiting to be told. Part of healing, at least for me, is creating space for those stories to take root.
If you feel your limits of resiliency are being tested in a myriad of ways by the universe right now, you are not alone. We are reliving the same stories over and over again with no space to let new stories grow. There is only so much we can take, both collectively and individually. I don’t know how many more headlines I can wake up to like this.
All this is to say that there is value in learning to listen as much as there is in learning to speak. In the historical storytelling tradition, storytellers were regarded as sacred; if they were speaking, the rest of the audience was quiet. We would do well, I think, to grow as skilled at listening as we are as speaking. It is not always easy; I, for one, have always been the better storyteller. My work now is learning how to listen. I invite you to do the same.
It’s a difficult read, but I think it is important to learn more about each life that was lost last week in Uvalde.
Here is where you can find the individual Go Fund Me’s for the families of the victims.
Also, Da’Shaun Harrison’s words on grief in Scalawag have been running through my mind a lot this week:
Thank you for this post, my heart needed to read these words.