An Elephant in the Room
This is a poem written after a year-long cohort training with Creating Freedom Movements. It was delivered in Berkeley, California on August 17, 2019.
The altar is a center point and anchor. I place a poem on it of rainbows and despair filled with hope — a collective heartbeat to establish connections on this very important first day.
Yet with the altar in the middle of the room, I’m separate… excluded … barred… My freedom of movement not achieved
Thought I could use a journal again; quickly proven wrong. Tried and failed again.
Internal questions, external barriers and oversights. A long history of self-doubt creeps in so I stay silent, seeing what might change.
Movements I cannot do. All stand up… Feel the Earth. Meditate, Breathe, Stretch… I adjust their frame to accommodate my reality and go on.
DanceAbility class: a glimmer of hope. So many tools to empower community… to assess differences and needs…
Intentions and actions make a difference no matter how sure. Keep the movements at the level of the most impacted.
What one cannot do, all will not do. Inclusion of a different sort. If one is seated, another sits; lay down in pairs so no one feels alone.
The jigsaw puzzle pieces click together, forming a new understanding.
Necessary lectures — People with passion, bringing important causes to life.
Valuable Intentions and promises lodged within an ableist paradigm of failure for those defined as OTHER… different…
Theater of the oppressed: Oppress me. Told to stay put. Let others come to you. Included but different, segregated, apart.
This is seen everywhere: education and our government, transportation and housing… Separate is rarely equal. Even when seen, is the inequity understood when the body is different?
Have you considered harm created by our internalized ableism found within the structural trauma, hidden in paradigms built into our systems?
Production and accommodations constrict the advancement of the other, the disabled, the poor, the disfigured, and the different.
Was it a sign? A warning? But it exists in all of society, in my every waking moment and often my sleeping ones too. These messages get taken to my sleep to be tossed and turned yet once more.
Transformation, healing, point of tension. Will I break again? Years passed by broken and alone. Why am I held responsible for Society’s Failure?
Do what you are comfortable with when others are free. I hit the limits of my body, touching the ongoing harm within my soul. Do you recognize how freedom is not achieved?
Journal, write, sing, remember and don’t judge us for our demands and structure. We are new, be clear when it’s us vs everywhere.
Supply solutions, fixes… help us check our ableist ways. Beware of our abled fragility. We mean well…
Abled fragility… Ooooh important concept and term. Like White Fragility, Abled fragility silences us crips. Yes, crips as in cripples. Do my disabilities cause discomfort? Why do my needs unnerve you?
Difference… disability in this world based on what we produce, how we contribute, how we follow the leader….
Structural oppression embedded, deep in our DNA. Ugly laws, historical trauma, a burden on society now an added weight on the scarcity model of a new program even when creating freedom moves…, no movements.
At the start, I sought freedom, authenticity, to provide the hidden spark that I had lost. I sought mindful community both inside and out.
No one is perfect, yet perfection is demanded, apathetically extracted. I grab the windows along my path, moving forward … Seeing a new compilation of parts… the old me reassembled and ready in those varying rays of light.
Knowledge,
Peace,
Justice,
Community…
Our internal layers obstruct from fulfillment. Our historical traumas cause such a muddy mess.
Every day, I seek a tsunami of change… ripples from our words and actions. Let’s reframe the oppressive othering. Connection and wholeness are vital.
Through community this can be better. We relearn interdependence through sacrifice for the collective good.
We survive and thrive as allies sharing the treasure chest of the life we want and deserve.
With family… community… transformation and healing can occur.
Rebuilding together generates power that creates freedom that moves through our hearts and spirits, rippling outward in such meaningful ways. The progress is slow…
are we listening?
are we heard?
I have grown this year. I have laughed and cried…. sometimes a lot.
Discovered a new valuable language. I have found allies and have seen the work yet to be done.
Transformation starts within, then grows outward much like an ugly weed in a garden. When given a chance that weed yields the most precious fruit.
Nothing new is perfect: To grow and build with promise we agree to show up in solidarity with each other. Collectively we are stronger.
Creating Freedom Movements is a process and not a static reality. To be effective, we all must agree to continue to learn, to leave what we thought we knew at the door and blend with others in beloved community.
© Michele Mashburn 2019
