elephants, oceans and anger

i am 25 and i am in the ocean, chest deep in salt water. ahead of me, the seafoam green bleeds into a midnight blue and stretches out forever. i feel that familiar tug, something unraveling deep inside, something bigger than the tide tugging at my legs.

white water claws at my thighs, swaying me a bit. everything tastes like chemical coconut. if i breathe slow enough i can convince myself this is all there is. there’s nothing to hear over the sound of the waves crashing on the shore behind me, the wind whipping my hair into knots.

a boat, a sleek black catamaran, drifts unhurried out on the horizon. i wonder how long i could swim for it until my legs gave out. i whisper take me into the damp humid. oh, how freeing it would be to leave my phone in the sand and give myself wholly to the ocean, to the dream gliding away in the distance. i dig my toes in the sand and think about how this is all that there is.

time passes. the only indication is the sun drifting lazily across the sky, battling clouds and painting shadows. i turn and see my cousins, my sister, packing up and heading for the car. slowly, all that is left of our beach camp is my towel, my book, my pile of seashells.

i turn and pull my singed skin out of the water, white tendrils swirling and nipping at my ankles. never turn your back on the ocean my grandma told me once, when i was young. the ocean is not your friend. yet i walk, back against the horizon, towards the towel. towards the parking lot. towards the towering high rises that line the beach. the concrete strip malls. the apartment that is not my own. i turn away from the ocean. i do not look back. i get on a plane. i go somewhere else and think about how maybe, for a second, that was all that there was.

i am 25 and i am tired. my COO sends me a slack message with a request to book a conference room next week and how are you doing. we are living in wild times.

she tells me she has started scheduling time for grief. regimented blocks of space to sit and feel. i tell her i have started to pray, on walks, in the sun. she tells me the youth keep her going. your generation is amazing.

i noticed sometime the other week that most of my friends and i don’t talk about palestine.

i am not sure how to feel about this. i am not sure what the rules are, if there are any. i am wary of performative activism, including my own. i don’t believe in a ‘right’ way to protest. yet there are parts of me that are disappointed, upset. how have we gone seven months and not spoken to each other about it? at the very least to ask are you okay? how is this trauma and violence and grief sitting in your body? how are you making space to process this? what, if anything, can i do to help?

i have tried starting conversations here and there. sharing stories of police violence against the peaceful protestors on college campuses. infographics and articles about the billions of U.S. dollars used to drop bombs overseas. i let my rage show. yet it feels, each time, like i have unleashed an ugly marred elephant into the room. one that is best left in the corner, one we don’t like looking at. i’ll then feel guilty. i’ve crossed a line. i’ll send a meme, a stupid funny tweet about some bit of pop culture that is probably already outdated, but at least we can laugh at it.

i am not sure how to feel about this. i love all my friends. i value their time and space and energy. i recognize how horrific this situation is. how again, there is no right way to protest. yet i realized i don’t even know where many of them stand. how much they know or don’t know. how much they feel or don’t feel.

maybe that’s okay, maybe it’s none of my fucking business.

but it’s also confusing. i see images of flattened homes and statistics on starvation rates and i want to fucking talk about it, want to roar from my rooftop to anyone who will listen. i want to unpack all of the systems at play––capitalism. patriarchy. white supremacy. i want the nuance and debate. i want to see their hearts. i want to get angry together. i want to mourn this together. i want to protest this together.

this being profit over people. being all the ways the global community is failing the children of gaza. all the ways in which our own country is failing students, failing us.

i am an inconsistent, imperfect activist. i will never claim to be anything but. i have a bad habit of tunnel visioning for periods of time, burning myself out and then looking away. i’m working on it. because when i do look, i feel a fire burn in me. something primal and molten. sometimes it’s generative, this fire. other times, destructive. i fear it’ll burn my house down.

i don’t know the balance. i don’t have the answers. and honestly, would love to know anyones thoughts if they care to share.

sending you all peace and love,

liv