I am not sure how to start this but I hope you are finding new ways to stay sane in the pandemic. One of my ways has been to learn. In the initial days it was to learn to cook things I always wanted to but never found the time to try. While I still cook, I am now actively learning on the web, mostly on Coursera and Edx, taking courses at colleges which I didn’t think would be accessible to me or would ever accept me.
I want to share some bits from a course I am doing - Storytelling for social change taught by Anita Gonzalez, Chair of Dance and Professor of Theater & Drama at The University of Michigan. In one of the interviews she asks Professor Holly Hughes - What does empathy have to do with storytelling?
Holly says, “We all have secrets. And if we are willing to reveal some of our secrets or appear to reveal some of our secrets, then there's a big possibility that the listener is going to start to trust us a little more, right? And they'll trust the lessons within the story. They'll enter into the landscape of the story. They'll maybe understand the difference between the different characters in the story.”
”Sometimes, when people try to express an opinion about something they believe deeply, they argue about who's right or wrong, or what others should or shouldn't do. But an argument usually doesn't go very far, because people polarize, standing up for beliefs without really listening to anyone else.
A story can be much more effective than an argument, because a story can draw you in, make you feel how a character might feel, and if someone's listening to your story, feeling your story, they might just change their minds about a topic or an issue.”
The course has been a mirror to many of the things I have felt but didn’t know I did or didn’t have the words to express.
Anna Deavere Smith
As part of the course, we had to watch Anna Deavere Smiths’ Ted talk. It is this stunning documentary theatre for which Anna collected stories through recorded interviews and then portrayed the people on stage. I have linked to the part where she is portraying a Korean woman (which I found very powerful) and how they experienced the Los Angeles riots. If you don’t have the time to see the whole thing, I highly recommend the part of the Korean woman that I have linked to.
Something I have been trying
Recently, I was signing out of a conversation and said - “Jaati hoon mein,” to which my friend replied, “Khud se jo itna darogi, tum pyaar kaise karogi?” Only this friend can find philosophy in a shitty Bollywood song and one that applies so well to me.
I have been scared of love but during the pandemic I see I am slowly letting it in. I have also been scared to know myself which I think is so essential to love oneself. And if letting another love you is scary, loving oneself IMO is super scary, you encounter so many hurt feelings in the process and it can be so overwhelming to have all the new information that you don’t know what to do with.
So one of the things I have been doing for some time is write. I write my feelings, write when I feel angry, write when I am upset, write when I feel jealous, write when I am happy and often it has led me to part of myself that may not been accessible otherwise, a part of me that may have been hurting. It has also helped be build a vocabulary of my feelings and I am slowly learning to express without feeling scared.
So here is a writing activity, if you’d like to try it, write about how you want to be loved, how you want to be treated, get down to the specifics without worrying about possibility. If there is a relationship (romantic or otherwise) where you feel friction (it is only natural), write about the friction, write about what are your needs are that aren’t getting met and how you want to feel, think of ideal situations and let’s hope they find us.
That’s it. Adios! Hope you will come back for more and maybe I will think up a structure. I know I won’t.
Love,
Indu