Broken Horses

by Brandi Carlile

I of course was told for most of my childhood by multiple sources that to be gay was a one-way ticket to hell. Homosexuality and suicide were the “unforgivables,” and I believed this wholeheartedly. Thank God for books and libraries…and school.

But maybe there are too many “coming-out stories” and not enough of us talking about an uncomfortable and awkward…emergence.

When you are told your whole life that it’s wrong for two women or two men to marry, when your homeland agrees and when you realize that you believe it, too, deep within your primitive senses, a reckoning is imperative. It is a process but it’s mandatory whether you’re LGBTQ or not. A person’s self-worth is dictated by what inalienable rights are allowed to them. The right to not live your life alone is a big one.

We were in London for the election in 2016. It was a devastating morning at Heathrow Airport. I was shamelessly crying at the departure gate; random people were walking by and squeezing my shoulder. They could tell I was American. None of them were white.

There is nothing more real or more practical in this universe than mysticism. Remember that…and it’s usually sitting right smack in the middle of grief.

Fishing sometimes defines me. Some days it’s all I can think about. I’m so obsessive, but nothing’s really ever got ahold of me the way fishing and music have.

All these years have taught me that fishing is really just an attempt to connect to something that you know is there, but that you can’t see.

“If you find me in my work, I haven’t done my job. If you find yourself, then I’m an artist.”

I often convince myself that I don’t have a right to address my upbringing and the way that the hard parts of my childhood made me feel—which was panicked, exposed, and excluded. The work I’ve done with War Child, incarcerated people, and even the friendship I have with Jenny Hopper has given me tremendous perspective. But as I’ve learned to empathize and cope with the injustice and pain in the world, I have learned to ignore my own because it feels less and less important. I have often felt ashamed of my own internal struggle.

This has fed an insatiable case of impostor syndrome that I don’t know if I’ll ever fully kick. But I do know now that pain is relative and never naming it contributes to the way I feel in almost any scenario where attention may be drawn to me that could result in my embarrassment or rejection.

People in this country who are in positions of privilege must learn to find ways of fighting for the just treatment of others not by centering and platforming themselves but by holding up the ones who are suffering. It’s not about shame or repentance, it’s about understanding that Dr. King still gets the bullhorn while many of us must organize, galvanize voters, peacefully protest, teach our children, plead with our parents, pray, resist, and amplify.

“Fishing is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable. A perpetual series of occasions for hope.”—John Buchan