PLEASE NOTE: this short blog post is written specifically for the community of people who knew and worked with Chris Goode.
“What would be the pace of this process if healing were at the centre?” *
Dear friends,
I woke last night, fearing an angry ghost.
I wrote some things down.
It won’t be for all of you. But it’s written from within my own grieving process, as one way for us to not be so alone.
I am writing this for us, those who are alive, grappling with this situation that is so full of impossibilities. I am feeling so many things, but one of them is the clarity of a community coming together as we make our way through the debris of this explosion, with so much love and care and compassion and carefulness, at completely different paces, but nevertheless, together somehow. So this blog post is about that feeling. I write it as a companion – in case these words can be companions to you as we find our way through this process.
I am feeling so many things, unexpected emotions that visit with force, memories that I didn’t invite, seemingly opposing thoughts framed by love, anger, fury, distrust, and disbelief.
This thing we are confronting, navigating, holding uninvited conversations with, it is bigger than we can grasp alone.
So please know, as the sorrow slips to rage slips to distrust, slips between pasts and futures, please know that there is a steady heart somewhere, between us all, calling us. A steady hand that is our solidarity.
I find myself noticing a clearing. Perhaps it will come closer into view. I want you to know that I feel it is possible that we’ll find each other there. Those of us who are hurting and hurt, those of us who have been harmed, those of us who will never forgive, those of us who are heartbroken, those of us who remember with love, those of us who can’t let go, and those of us who remember with woundedness.
Those of us fighting and those of us crying and those of us cursing. We’re all there.
We find a way forward. Our fear of monsters is done. Our trust in ourselves is arriving.
Friends - please keep some deep kindness wrapped loosely but surely around you, so it is there when you need it.
rajni.x.
05.06.21
* While I was awake, I listened to episode 7, season 2 of Prentis Hemphill’s Finding Our Way podcast – a conversation with Kazu Haga about Navigating Conflict. It resonated so deeply with the feelings I have around everything that has happened within our community, the harms caused, and the ways in which we might approach healing. This quote is from Prentis. Listen/read here: https://www.findingourwaypodcast.com/individual-episodes/s2e7
** Also, one of my favourite blog posts, which I have probably mentioned to you already if you know me, is this one by Mia Mingus. It is about Dreaming Accountability. Again, it feels so relevant to what I hope might be seeded in this (wider and longer) moment. https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/dreaming-accountability-dreaming-a-returning-to-ourselves-and-each-other/
ADDENDUM (29/6/21): Since writing this, I have been reading adrienne maree brown's 'We Will Not Cancel Us' (a timely birthday gift!) which has also been very helpful to me. https://www.akpress.org/we-will-not-cancel-us.html
