Last night I dreamt of bombings.
This blog post was originally going to be about trust. About finding purpose and joy in art making, about belief in a higher power and the ability for my higher self to show up in my work. About how to find faith and trust in a world that seems to be crumbling. About trusting the process in writing, and what it means to find that process anew post-MFA. About the healing power of good art. How many times it has saved me, from watching New Girl in a humid room at the back of a house that I hated in Kentucky, to reading The Bell Jar during my first week of high school, so far removed from everything that I once knew. About how writing is the closest to God, to purpose, to my higher self—to whatever human name we have given this divine feeling—that I have ever felt. This blog post was going to be about trust.
But last night I dreamt of bombings.
Like anyone who is paying attention right now, I am frightened at the state of the world. How can I speak about trust or faith or God right now? Last night, I had a terrible dream about a bombing in my California coastal hometown. Upon waking, I realized, not for the first time, that this dream is the truth for Palestine, Iran, Ukraine, and so many more places. Every single day. I realized, not for the first time, the pure luck of my privilege. The luck to be born in a country, in a family, that is not actively facing displacement and death at the hands of nuclear weaponry. The pure luck to be born into a country that is responsible for the destabilization of other countries. The pure luck to not be a refugee seeking asylum in the very country that disrupted my homeland. The heavy realization that my luck comes at the hands of others’ demise.
Recently, my little sister sent me a post on Instagram, a platform owned, like so many others, by a comically evil white billionaire. It was about thermobaric weapons sent from the US to Israel, which leave behind no human remains. Almost 3,000 Palestinian people have been “evaporated” since October 2023, leaving behind only blood and tissue fragments. These were real people, with dreams, with hopes, with lives. They loved people, and they were loved. They made art and love. They made meals for their families. They brewed tea and coffee for their loved ones in the morning. They played games and sports. They gossiped about each other. They were children, or they were adults that still held their child selves inside of them. When I read the post, I must confess that I thought not only of those Palestinians, but of myself, my friends, and my family. The fragility of having them all alive and well at the same time. Perhaps empathy and selfishness are not as far apart as I would like for them to be.
Continuing my scroll this morning, I read a post about how only 20% of teenagers now read for pleasure. My life blood is the written word. As an educator, someone who has worked in library services for the past six years, and a writer. What can I trust in, if not the power of the written word to unite, to guide, to encourage empathy? Where do I put my faith, if not in words?
Upon waking from my dream, I laid in bed for a long time. I told my boyfriend about my dream before he had to go to work, and he rubbed my back in slow circles. When he left, I scrolled these posts on my phone, and I thought about what it would feel like to lose all that I have now. My one bedroom apartment, the books that line the shelves in it, my job, my friends, my family. When I finally got up, I made tea. I turned on my resistance playlist, mostly made up of Tupac and Marvin Gaye, and I reorganized my bookshelves.
In the face of so much suffering that I do not have control over, it was all I knew to do. Some people put their faith in God. I have always put mine in the written word. Perhaps these are not so far apart either. After all, what are the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, if not demonstrations of the power of the written word? Books have always been a source of stability for me, calm in the chaos, the most grounding objects that I know. Books, like prayer, are true exercises in human empathy and humility. The humbling of the self before the written word, before the blank page, before the divinity that lies in the lines between words on a page.
This post was going to be about trust. About faith. About what I truly believe in. Now, I see that it is about empathy. Perhaps these are not so far apart. Faith is about trust in what you cannot see with your eyes, what you cannot feel with your five senses. Empathy is about extending that muscle toward other human beings, in far away places, in countries that your own is responsible for destabilizing. It is about the grief and love and fragility of all that is around us. It is about all that we take for granted. For me, empathy—like trust, like faith—is still found between the pages of books. It is found in the power of hearing one another. In the long-lost skill of listening, not just waiting for your turn to speak. Books are not a one way conversation. They are an ongoing dialogue. For me, this skill of listening, of empathy, is most well honed between the covers.
Last night I dreamt of bombings.
Today, I dream of a brighter future ahead. I hope this is not blind optimism. I hope that it is not folly. Today, I will find ways to make peace with what I cannot control, and I will find organizations with which to donate my time and money. Today, I will go for a walk in the sun, and I will come home and turn the pages of a novel. Today, I will listen to artists that I feel have or had something to say. Artists that transcend the confines of time and loss to make something that lasts. I will not give into despondency. I will use the anger thrumming under my veins for something good. I will think of the beauty of humanity. I will remember the two separate groups of people I saw protesting fascism over the 50 on Friday. I will not throw up my hands and cry out to a God that only helps me. My God cares for all people, not just the ones with the luck to be born in the country that does the colonizing. Above all, I will continue to read, and I will continue to make art, always.
This is my resistance.