The grief had settled in my throat.
It was the kind that made breathing feel like a hard choice.
Beneath it was helplessness… the ache of witnessing something that mattered
and not knowing how to respond….
except through the tears.
The restlessness was anything but quiet
Against the advice of many… I went to the protest…
Not because I believed I could change anything….
I went because I needed to be there….. to see with my eyes and heart.
To let my body feel and know..
I needed to stand there in teh river that was flowing….
And something unexpected happened….
I could breathe deeply …again.
The young people were there….
The same generation so often dismissed as snowflake…fragile… anxious…distracted.
Oh and irresponsible..and entitled.
That is not what I saw !!
I saw courage.. agency….I saw a generation saying….Enough…to the divides.
Leadership spontaneously sprung in ordinary people.
Voices found one another…..and themselves..
Hope moved…freely through the crowd like a current….it was palpable
Was it the best way? .. maybe..maybe not.
But it was needed. ..and I felt a sense of pride that they didn’t sit pondering….
“We want freedom” …. did not feel like a a political chant.
It was something older…..ancient even.
The longing to belong… to breathe… to live with dignity.
To participate and be a player and not just a spectator in one’s life;
They were anything but fragile and anxious..
And part of me celebrated ….just this..
I saw roses passed between strangers….friendships taking root.
A community …remembering it’s undivided …. self.
And.. I saw the police. I saw fear and helplessness there too.
People carrying roles heavier than themselves….
Polite.. despite what they were ‘supposed’ to be
My heart went out to them as well…. thinking of the weight they carried, and would even in the future.
Whose side was I on?? I wondered?
Then a quieter question arrived…not quietly
Are there really sides?….
Or is the deeper wound our belief that we are separate?
Moments like these strip away labels..they remind us of the shared humanity we buried beneath opinions, uniforms, and slogans…
In the cry for freedom.. I heard something more than protest.
I heard our shared longing to find one another again… to define meaning all over again.
I was raining… and yet somehow I found quiet music…
I went home that night and slept….
Not because the world was healed… But because perhaps I was..
When one voice opens it pulls the thread of many voices…
We must take the step we know how to..
and not keep getting trapped in ……what-if?
For the first time in a long while…
I trusted that something alive had awakened ..
And that the future had already begun to speak….
We are waking up…
~Rhea
