Alice is all of us

Some weeks back, I received a message from a woman I’d never met, asking if she could send a voice note. I will call her Alice.

Her message was thoughtful, respectful, and also ominous. I instinctually knew immediately what the topic would be. I expected she knew we had a common story, something from both our pasts long gone. I accepted her offer of a voice message, and listened with trepidation - I was right in my instinct, but was surprised at how wrong too - it was not at all long past for her.

From this moment, a calm but shaky, steady but weighted processing began. I’m feeling a lot of things. Not least of all, what-ifs.

But I continue to fall back to this brimming of compassion for the people and families affected by a man over the years, myself included… these are my proverbial sisters, mothers, aunts from what seems a lifetime ago, all of us carrying an immense weight that we, at times, imagined lighter, or even may not have been consciously aware of at all.

What’s happened since this person connected with me, is a painful but astoundingly beautiful opening. This has come with so many emotions… the same that I experienced as a youth having been sexually assaulted, repeating now… vacillating from societally-ingrained minimization of what occurred, to accepting the violation for what it was. The guilt, disappointment, disgust, anger…

What is loudest through it all, though, is the compassion.

For my past self, still in so many ways a child. For the hurt caused to others since, and frustration, shame, sadness at not having somehow prevented it.

For his partner, what she must have been and must be experiencing now. 

For Alice, perhaps the bravest of us all, forging forward, taking no shit, calling for accountability.

For everyone who experienced this, having to revisit something that’s much more comfortable to put away…. Revealing so clearly these days, the complicated layers of our experience in this world, exposed to these behaviours and violations. There is so much we share, that by nature makes us feel alone… what irony this is. 

I’m amazed at the strength it takes to revisit such vulnerability. I’m awakened that this amazement is when I am considering the others, despite logically knowing this is what I am doing too. I’m strengthened by the knowledge that everyone in this is decidedly entering our own individual processing, strengthened by, and in order to, support of each other. How moving is this.

How long we’ve sat and accepted this thing that happened to us, until Alice, who, when learning it was not a one-off, could not let it slide. Now, so much is changing. While we may need to do work we never asked to do, and process feelings we never asked to feel, there is so much healing happening in this. 

I will lean in, as much as I can, knowing if I cannot, there is space, support and respect for that as well. 

Something beautiful is happening here. 

I am inspired by Alice and so grateful for that voice note, a gentle invitation from a stranger to open the box and give it voice if I am ready. 

I’m ready. Thank you.

To anyone with a story, whether you are ready or not ready to give it voice - in the words of Alice, “Whatever you choose to do is the right thing.” 

There are so many people who support you, either way.

Gentleman

Tastes of salt and sea,

Of ripened olives.

Smells like soft light 

In early morning orchards.

Feels like rounded edges

After a glass, or three, of red.

Sounds like the soft landing

Of shyness fallen.

Gentlest of gentle man,

Lowered shoulders

Sweetly familiar.

Lay down your pen

Listen.

Feel the drumming?

Calling you to heal

So hard

That you can hear

Beyond your wounds.

Thundering bass

Can startle, shake, 

and scramble our story lines.

Our pens scratch wildly

Trying to make order

Trying to cover

Profound sound.

We armour ourselves 

with narratives familiar and 

closed.

Comfortable in chaos

And cages

These stories write and wrap

‘Round and ‘round 

Like a layered long embrace,

We feel safe in.

Holding us so tightly 

we forget how it feels to 

truly

breathe.

We’re more than the story

We write of ourselves.

We’re the drumming.

… Listen.

Carries low (lyric)

 Shame carries low, carries low

 Shame carries low, carries low

 Shame weighs you down, weighs you down

 Shame carries low, carries low

I didn’t let go because you did it

But because you couldn’t see it

Shame carries low, carries low

In the bend is not the breaking

In the words is not the meaning

To be seen within the weeping

Is to heal

Even deep inside the fearing

We live our way into believing

Hands were reaching for the taking

Or not there

 Shame carries low, carries low

 Shame carries low, carries low

 Shame weighs you down, weighs you down

 Shame carries low, carries low

I didn’t let go because you did it

But because you couldn’t see it

 Shame carries low, carries low

Untitled (lyric)

Ten foot waves come crash against the sea shore

Washing clean the marks of an old war

Spins the breeze to blow away the feelings

Holding you from walking through to more

Here you are

It’s ok to fall

Step into the forest breathing deeply

Humming low with life no questions asked

Spread your arms and touch the lovely lichen

Feel yourself a part of all that’s passed

And in the spring when all is drenched in dew

Wet your lips on tears of this breakthrough

Dig your toes deep into earth and life

Welcome morning where you’ll realize

Here you are

It’s ok to fall

Nicotine

Today I woke tender,

Tired.

Weighty with disappointment.

I feel sorry,

For the ways I

Get in the way 

Of love.

For the shaking

Of heart and

Weakness 

Of resolve

To do better.

For the fear,

Of the needed breaking.

Of the spillage

Bound to happen,

The mess I’ll make

In order to clean.

Gender Role Based False Security

Lately I’ve been getting questions of who/where “the father” is, in my travels, or from strangers and known folks alike online. It’s really got me thinking.

Many of the men who ask are intrigued, but transparent in that they’re amazed it can be done without a man. Some even have judgement behind it, and have gone as far to say a child needs a father. It’s reminded me of someone I dated once. 

I was writing about an idea around the buried, subtle shame a large portion of men seem to carry for being a man, having born witness to men wronging women, and raised by strong, opinionated and feminist women of an era. How it can sometimes be the culprit of mansplaining, controlling behaviour, and overall insecurity, surfacing as overcompensation for the anger, (real or perceived), directed at their gender. This idea did not intend to excuse, by any means - but came about in an effort to understand the root cause.

I was studying IT at the time and wondering about job prospects - to which the person I was dating then said, with some disdain, “You’ll get hired because you’re a woman”. Not because I was bright, and able. Not because I loved problem solving and was a natural leader. Because I was a woman, and companies are pressured to become more diverse with equal representation, “ruining good job prospects for white men”.

In response to what I was writing, this person at the time went on to say that he feels he is rendered inconsequential. That “equality has set us back 100 years, because men are no longer needed to provide, and on top of that, only women can make decisions about their body when it comes to pregnancy, so they (he/men) feel lost.”

I should note that I'd seen no signs of these attitudes up to this point in dating him. I was floored, and thought, I must not be hearing right. So, I focused on trying to grasp his real meaning, as I am even to this day - and I can understand his feelings and the roots of them, triggered by changing times. I even had empathy. There was fear and sadness there, however misguided, and it was very real to him, and many other men. Clearly, that consideration was one-way, and I see now that my having empathy, while helping to keep me sane and human, also kept me in unhealthy dynamics too many times. I’ve since learned that I can have this understanding, but it does not mean I need to relinquish my own needs.

To imagine a life and children with someone with these insecurities, poorly cloaked in self-righteous resentment for equality, or womens rights… I would have continued to dim my light for his sake. 

I’m guessing he caught wind that I have a beautiful babe, as suddenly, 6 years later, my “Your profile was recently viewed by…” has several occurrences of him. 

I sure hope he has grown. That he is well, and happy.

But I’ve decided to block him. Because while I feel it’s important to reflect, and share this bit of my story now, I won’t need the reminder again. And because whatever opinion he may or may not have of me and my life now - I don't need to consider it, it is none of my business.

I am so grateful for the career I have now. For the confidence, encouragement and support I have found. For the male, female, and non-binary leaders who have and continue to create spaces where all can be fed and flourish in previously unwelcoming industries. And for how seldom I come across attitudes that are contrary to that inclusion now - they srill exist, there is work to do, but I am as out as I've ever been from under it. 

And so grateful for my sweet babe, who will be raised to love, to seek understanding rather than blame, to accept with respect to self - and to reflect on their feelings, as well as where those feelings really come from. I hope you never dim your light.