I’ve become an observer. A person who is witnessing what she once believed was unimaginable in her country of birth. A person whose eyes and ears are open, but whose feet are frozen to the ground. A person whose ears listen in disbelief to distortions and lies; whose eyes are repelled by the sights she sees of hatred and animosity.
Many female friends and acquaintances are in a flurry of activity. They’re knitting warm pink hats with pussycat ears. They’re gathering steam as they gather together. I am a study of silence. Their walks are not mine. I will watch from afar, but I cannot respond to the call right now.
My voice no longer has anything that feels relevant to add to the surrounding cacophony. Not a shred of activism or urge to activate rises to the surface of my being. I sit and stare ahead of me, with little motivation to do more than that. I need quiet. It’s all I can do right now.
At last, I wept today for our loss of a leader who represents humankind’s better angels. I wept for the loss of a leader who could always be counted on to remind us of who we really are and what we’re capable of. I wept for the loss of decency, for the loss of compassion and for the loss of inspiration. I wept for people’s inability to recognise the gift we’d been given. I wept for our need to walk through the woods without a guide to shine some light on the path ahead. I wept for our planet, threatened from all sides and now without a vital spokesperson.
We all respond to life in our own ways, in our own time. Today, it’s just moving through the loss and praying it doesn’t get much darker before some light returns.