Kern Carter's Blog, page 79
November 10, 2021
My Voice
And My Truth
Photo Credit: Lilit SargsyanYou will not look at my skin and make me feel bad,
For I know my skin is beautiful,
As it shows the pain of my brethren.
You will not look at my eyes and make me feel bad,
For I know my eyes are beautiful,
As they hold the stories of a whole nation.
You will not look at my hair and make me feel bad,
For I know my hair is beautiful,
As it’s loaded with memories of my elders.
You will never look at me and silence me,
For I know my voice is beautiful,
As it gives life to the truth of a people.
My skin, my eyes, my hair, my voice are not yours to take.
They belong to a world that
Needs to hear the truth, to reflect it on its worldly skin.
You may try to take what you think is yours,
Though much of the time you are taking another’s,
But you may never take what I do not intend to give.
You will never take my truth and my voice,
As they no longer belong to me alone,
And I know that in them lie my power and my worth.
My Voice was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
November 9, 2021
Striving For Truth
An exploration of being a truth-teller.
Photo by Tatum Bergen on UnsplashWhat does it mean to be a truth-teller? Does it refer to someone who tells it like it is, no matter how rude? Or is it someone who has tactful candor? An art form perfected over time. Does truth-telling refer to holding others accountable? Or perhaps telling their version of the truth? No matter the definition, truth-telling is hard.
When I have to bring up what I know will be a hard conversation, I like to start by saying, “The story I’m telling myself is…” Starting this way has been particularly helpful in my relationship with my husband. It helps clear the air, and convey my internal narrative. This phrasing allows expression of impressions and feelings without labeling or talking in absolutes. Nearly every time, the story I am telling myself is not the truth.
Recently, a story I’m telling myself is I feel that Truth eludes me. I marvel at those who can read a situation and see between the lines. Perhaps I am too naive to be critical? I am deeply empathic. Maybe even too agreeable. I am working on building a backbone, especially when I disagree with a situation or something said. I hate confrontation. I want to be “nice.” Since the pandemic began, this niceness conflicts with my duty to protect my children. I must keep my children distanced or masked from everyone. I am conflicted between offending someone versus keeping my children safe, which is really no choice at all. Nonetheless, it is a struggle for me. However, with age I find I care less and less what others think. Maybe by the time I am eighty years old, I will be a fucking riot, saying whatever I want. I hope so.
There’s a saying I love: “Don’t believe everything you think.” In other words, don’t believe every story you tell yourself. Don’t assume the thoughts, intentions, or motivations of another. These negative stories will carousel in your mind until they foam out in a fury. Or they distill into stress causing physical harm to your body. Perhaps being a my-truth-teller is the best we can hope for?
Ultimately, I want to be a truth-striver. I listen to those with different perspectives, who have struggles I could never fathom. I believe their truth. If you believe people, you really hear what they are saying. You will find humanity. Not necessarily agreement, but a commonality of feeling.
My girl, Brené Brown, has a mantra, “I am not here to be right. I am here to get it right.” This mantra plays on repeat in my mind when I am confronted with intense situations. Especially situations involving prejudice. Outside of being a woman, I have every privilege there is. I am a straight, college-educated, suburb-living, stay-at-home momming, white woman married to a white man. We have a stable income and three healthy biological children. None of this is “right.” Just what it is. I have so much. Yes, I worked hard and made decisions that led to this comfortable life. That is not the point. Everyone is doing the best they can with what they have. We all struggle. But I started with a leg up, because of the circumstance of who and where I was at birth. Then I was lent a helping hand every step of the way. Recognizing and using my privilege to help others is one of my core values.
Just as Brené tries to get it right rather than be right. I too strive to get it right, which means I definitely have some things wrong. I actively strive to grow, learn, and relearn. Never arriving at a destination but always reaching for what is right. Striving for Truth.
With all this truth-telling I have that “Tell The Truth” song by The Avett Brothers stuck in my head. It is a great song. You should check it out.
[image error]Striving For Truth was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
‘What If’ is My Daily Food
One of the voices in my head that has persisted since I was a child to this day is, “What If?”
Photo by Carolina Heza on UnsplashIf Tim Urban illustrates procrastination with a monkey controlling the steering wheel in the brain, the same thing might happen in my head.
I don’t even remember when this voice first appeared and finally nested there, finding the most comfortable position to always make me doubt myself. But this voice really ruled my life.
I’m haunted by everything with the opening question “What if?”. What if they don’t like me, what if the pineapple tastes bad, what if the way you laugh irritates other people, and a million other “What if” questions.
I even majored in college not because it was my will, but because I was afraid of other people’s expectations and feelings of disappointment if I forced my will. Luckily the major I finally chose wasn’t too far from the things I like — though still not what I wanted to understand more deeply — so I was still able to live it until the last day. Although full of tears, of course.
Since this voice seemed to occupy the highest throne in the structure of controlling the contents of my head, it made me accustomed to doubting myself and taking it as a normal thing. I will quietly listen to how my friends talk, express their opinions clearly, laugh, and so on. I silently listened as my head scrambled for control of the steering wheel. The words I wanted to say, the response I wanted to convey when my friend told me, all went back into the furthest alley in my body, because once again, the voice reigned and took over the wheel.
I only realized this and was trying to understand it about a year or two ago, when — like it or not — the final stages of college and thesis started to arrive. There are many research topics to choose from, but I didn’t find any that caught my attention. My head is always filled with “What if I don’t do it now, will I be left behind?” “What if I don’t understand, and no one can help me?” “What if the title I want isn’t accepted?” and other similar things.
One of the things I can be grateful for from this pandemic is that I have a lot of time to think and know myself. In previous years, I had been too busy going from morning to night as a social person to often forget that I, too, needed to think about and understand myself. It was at that moment, I listened to everything in my head about this “What if”, looking for every answer to a question that was really just an unfounded fear, and slowly I found a way out.
I just need to follow my own will.
As someone who really listens to what other people have to say, at first this was very difficult to do. The sound repeated itself, but I tried to keep my grip on the steering wheel. If it feels too tiring, I’ll take a break and not think about anything. It’s been almost two years, and of course, there are still plenty of times where I lose focus and the sound takes over again. But at least I know what to do about it.
I know that even if the voice overwhelms me, I’m still mine and I’ll be the one to decide where I’m going.
[image error]‘What If’ is My Daily Food was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
November 8, 2021
I broke a plate today, and wrote about it
Art by Agnes (Author)Bright and early, before the day really started, I went into the kitchen and, accidentally, broke a plate.
At any other point in the day, my reflexes might have helped me catch it.
At any other point in the day, I might have realized that removing the clean dishes from the rack was better done when one is awake and in possession of Jenga-like, laser focus.
But it didn’t occur at any other point in the day.
When something like this happens early in the day, it’s natural to think: “we’re off to a great start today.” I might have texted my mother a photo of the plate with that same sarcastic caption. The irrational mind can’t help seeing it as an omen for the many hours ahead, even as the rational one cringes at the thought.
I tell myself to shake it off. It’s just a plate. Sure, you won’t replace it with the same type, because you bought it a year ago and your set will now be one short, so what? Breathe. Like literally: breathe. My brain thinks in too-long sentences, and even when I don’t say them out loud, it leaves me winded, and it’s way too early.
I look at the pieces of broken plate and try to find an alternative meaning to “bad omen”. (Yes, I am aware most people would just pack it up, chuck it out, and move on with their day. Let’s blame the artistic tendencies and do this instead).
My mother texts me back: “it happens, ask the greeks.” Wise woman.
The Greeks say plate smashing, rather than breaking. I think it makes it sound more intentional. There’s an actual intention and force behind smashing that breaking falls short of. Don’t you think? In “breaking”, you almost see the torn pieces. There’s something about the combination of letters, the phonetics of it, that sounds like the “k” is tearing the word in half. “Smashing”, on the other hand, conveys full force, one-direction, plaster-plate to the floor.
Once upon a time, Greeks smashed or “killed” plates when mourning. The only thing I lost here was the actual plate; it’s too early to be mourning anything else. According to the highly questioned — but more highly consulted — Wikipedia, they also threw plates in the fireplace as a display of wealth: “why wash the dishes, when we can just get new ones?” Not identifying with the Greeks, I kept looking at the shards of the plate. Kintsugi comes to mind too.
“Kintsugi is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold — built on the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art.” [1]
I’m not gluing it with gold (or with glue for that matter) but I love this concept so I let my mind play with it.
I broke a plate today and wrote about it. This is what we do, right? We observe, we notice, we process, exploit, embellish. Pretty sure it contributes next to nothing to our darling blogosphere, but I do feel better about the broken plate. Thou has not perished in vain. Your transparent circular form has been reconstructed in a convoluted circular blog post.
Since I wrote about the million unpublished drafts I own, and I didn’t write about the fear of running out of ideas, I’ve been thinking a lot about writing. Why do we write? How do we write? When do we write? I think we are writing all the time. I think writing is the act of noticing things and matching what we notice with the words we know. I couldn’t answer the “why” in just one sentence but, to bring it full circle, I’ll say this: it often brings a sense of calm.
I broke a plate today and wrote about it, and it’s fine.
[1] Tiffany Ayuda, How the Japanese art of Kintsugi can help you deal with stressful situations, NBC News, Updated April 28, 2018, 9:59 AM -03
[image error]I broke a plate today, and wrote about it was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Magic in the veins
A quiet, coffee brewed morning is where she aligns herself with this early dawn.
Call For Submissions—Lonely Writers
One of the recurring messages we read from writers is that they feel alone. Writing is a personal endeavour, and even though aspects of writing are—or can be—collaborative, it ultimately comes down to you, in a room, spilling your heart onto the page.
The goal is, hopefully, to make that feeling change. We can find ways to make sure whatever journey we’re on in our writing careers, in our lives, is not a lonely one. But let’s talk about it.
What do you do to not feel alone? Do you even feel alone at all or do you think this is just something writers (or people in general) like to say?
Same rules still apply:You can submit to this or ANY of our past writing prompts. Just scroll through our previous newsletters. They’ll be marked “Call for Submissions.”Be as creative as you want in your submissions. As long as you stick to the topic, we’ll consider it.Just because you submit doesn’t mean we’ll post. If you haven’t heard back from us in three days, consider that a pass.Please reach out if you have any questions at all. If you are new to Medium, here’s how you submit a draft to a publication.
[image error]Call For Submissions—Lonely Writers was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
