The Myth of Masks Part 2: Feeling the brace, noting the blemish, and making space for change

A tall, lean white man imagined a template -- a curve, like ka lani (the heaven) -- to weather an inconvenient illness, and live what mattered.

 "Multiple Chemical Sensitivities is an inconvenient illness because it makes others uncomfortable dealing with the symptoms that don't stay the same, and (we) could ask them to make changes that would inconvenience them -- change their habits, stop a convenient behavior, stop polluting, or consuming. Multiple Chemical Sensitivities is inconvenient to those of us who live with the illness for as with all illness the pace at which we have been used to being human is changed, usually dramatically; and the solutions are not easy to find nor stable. How inconvenient." - 'Notes from the writer's Desk', Beatrix Blunt

Thousands in Seattle, march in silence

Rain has fallen heavily where we live. Puddles soften the gravel road around the campground here on an island just over thirty miles, and a ferry ride away from Seattle where thousands of people march and protest. The issues, feelings, reality and the rage of "uncomfortable" make their mark. The road of protest has been long. The struggle different in different folks. 

The thirty miles between this island and those marches is not far, an hour's drive at most, but it is  psychic distance that percolates within me. My Ancestors and their histories of trauma lodge in me; I feel the voices, and the blemishes of anger no longer suppressed rise on my face. The redness (ka ula) of rage heats like Pele (molten lava). The thermometer won't confirm the fever, but my body knows  hot none-the-less.

It's not a simple myth, no myth is, but The Myth of Masks is ripe for telling; wanting to join the collective protestors who march. Instead of my physical presence in a protest march I draw the myth out here. 

 Ritualizing my journey through writing I am not defective, but can I be clear? 

I AM an old brown woman with chronic chemical sensitivities, and ancestral memory of embedded discomfort. 

Minneapolis therapist and trauma expert Resmaa Menakem spoke of that 'embedded discomfort' in an interview with On Being's Krista Tippet. As the black man and white woman sat in a face-to-face interview just before lock-down, Menakem said:

 "You braced. You were like, “No” — your face turned red; the whole thing. Just — “No.” But, you see, that’s where you start; right there, not in this “Let’s bring everyone in and make them all comfortable.” Bodies of culture are uncomfortable every day. White people have the luxury of not being so." - "Notice the rage; notice the silence" - from an interview with Resmaa Menakem 

The bracing body memory -- steeling against the next ... -- and the kina'u  (stain, blemish, defect, minor flaw or imperfection) red on my face like a mask collude in this time of The Virus and Uprising of 2020. 

 "The Virus and White Supremacy gone amuck have blown my cover story, and I'm here to witness that as a good thing! See, I've been that 'token exotic conditionally acceptable Hawaiian; the one who people confide their racism to as between friends.' That is a sore and sadistic place to be. That is a place where anger hides behind internalized masks binding the liver until she (the liver) just won't take it any more." - "The Myth of Masks: Diving into the cover for meaning"

An aging Island woman stenciled a wall 'of home' -- laua'e ferns -- to keep rooted to 'aina while living on wheels.

 Astrologically, one pattern of my life story, my personal myth, reads: 

"You are a mass of contradictions - making demands on people but complaining when they do the same to you; expecting others to make overtures to you and withdrawing when they do. Although you are highly imaginative, you react to stimulating people in a generally negative and critical way." - "Short Report Personal Portrait" Astro.com

But that is one angle on a whole and complicated myth. Of course there would be contradictions in the relationships I have in a dominant white culture, who systematically injected crisis and capitalism into a world intimate with nature. My history -- that one -- has lived so long without expression. Masked with shame or confusion, a history like mine so  kindles our bodies for heat burning our organs, altering our brains, challenging our lungs for their capacity to breathe, and lingering in our livers where anger cannot find a way out.

 "For we are each peopled by a multitude of presences, personalities and purposes, as well as layers of psychic activity that the act of writing can stimulate into awareness." -from Riting Myth, Mythic Writing Plotting Your Personal Story by Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D

We received this poem from Aurora Levins Morales the other day. We are patrons of her work, grateful day in and day out for the decades of her medicine. This poem speaks clearly. Aurora has been clear for a very, very long time.

Before including it here I sent it to a long-time friend, sister who has been on the front lines, healing wounds and cooking turkey and soup for many. I said, "This one's for us." 

Poem for the Bedridden

 In times to come
When the generations look back
On the Great Uprising of 2020
And speak of the people in the streets,
the people healing wounds, cooking food,
Making signs,
Because so much will have changed by then
They will also speak our names, the ones
Who could not join the crowds
Or write manifestos
Or cook vats of soup
Or deliver supplies,
Whose fields of action were our beds,
Our chairs set by the windows
Where we could watch you march by.
They will say these are the ones
Who carried the consequences of the bad old days
In their bodies, who shouldered the harm
In lungs that wheezed, in guts that churned,
In aching muscles and crushing fatigue,
Whose hearts burned beside our own
As the old world fell, and as we marched
And toppled monuments and governments,
Did the work of resting
For the sake of the whole new world.

 "If you share the poem," Levis Morales wrote, "add the part below."

by Aurora Levins Morales

"Share with attribution. Feel free to read at events, but if you're charging money, send me some. Support my work as an unsalaried Jewish Woman of Color disabled artist. Become a patron of Aurora Levins Morales."

Tomorrow is Summer Solstice, Ka Piko o Wakea, the Sun, Ka La will be at his fullest, brightest light. Our friend included us in a wonderful morning of preparing the small ZOOM group in letting go of Spring ... and letting go of what may need to be released.

We, Pete and I enjoyed the gift, went deeply to that Source of all Being, relaxing and restoring ... I felt the heat of the mask of reddened rage present. As I dropped my shoulders and listened to my friend's voice, I came back to myself. Softened for the present moment I believe the new season will include space for change, and my masks?  I keep them handy. And am grateful to have my bed on wheels to rest. Change is slow.

Remember, if this post provokes or inspires you please consider sending me a little something to help pay the rent.

I'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment or email me. Conversations may be more important than ever.

E Ola Mau Kakou (May we live!)
Mokihana


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"Juneteenth-Sweet Honey in the Rock" (this was streaming live when I posted; it's not now. But explore the site; Bernice Johnson's message (Sweet Honey in the Rock's founder) is powerful; and contribute to the work of Equal Justice Initiative.)