I am finding it hard to compile my thoughts into coherent sentences lately. So, when I do speak, I have chosen to say only what is my truth. Returning to America after spending a month at home in Sri Lanka has been violent. To continue to look away at the dissolution of democracy in this country is becoming untenable. When I feel genuine fear and crippling sadness, I reach for my girls and my husband to steady me. I ground myself in my religion, in breath and in movement.
We are being asked to live inside a paradox; to watch as the old-world order dissolves, with no tangible direction forward, and continue reaching for lifelines to keep us moving through our own days. There is a suffocating cloak around me that I keep trying to shake off. Some days, I succeed. Those are good days. On those days, I look for small miracles, simple joys that tie me to the everyday sacred. But other days when innocent lives are taken on the streets, and children are pulled apart from parents and taken to detention centers at the age of 5…. well, those days, I just want to cry under the covers.
We cannot continue to live in privileged ignorance. The old ways of raising voices in protest and dissent won’t work either. It’s clearly not working fast enough to save lives. In all this chaos, we must carry on…to work, to care for our families, and to keep a roof that feels safe on our heads. I take comfort in the fact that I can engage in that last part at least. But safety for whom? Not the people who are being persecuted…Is it enough that I can play a small role in assisting people find safety on a parochial level? Honestly, I don’t know the answer right now. I am struggling to find peace inside my own world as the political temperature begins to boil.
Maybe we start with brutal honesty and radical acceptance first. “All is not well” (Shakespeare). Not at all. So, what next?
Nilmini
