I can’t cry
Every single episode of season four of Queer Eye on Netflix brought me to tears. ‘I can’t write left-handed' and 'Grandma’s hands’ by Bill Withers never fails to elicit the same response. That Christmas commercial where a family or a group of kids decorate the home of the elderly single person has made me cry for decades.
I cry when I am sad, happy, tired, etc. For me it is simply an expression of emotion that engages my full self. I have been wanting to cry for sometime now.
But for some reason, given all that has happened in 2020, I can’t get past a few controlled sobs - tears, really.
The closest I have gotten to really crying was early this summer when the tape of the last moments of Elijah McCain was back in the news. His sweet, calm but pleading voice as he explained to police officers how he was different and asked for understanding (and even guidance) as his life was being choked out of him encapsulated for me what it is like to be at the mercy of others while still being human. The tenderness of his humanity coupled with the picture of the police mocking his murder almost did it. I really thought “here it comes, the emotional release I crave.”
Something is stopping it.
Perhaps if I let myself feel the sadness and rage - which is what I feel more than anything even though there is change happening - completely and uncontrollably, I won’t be able to do what I feel compelled to do at this moment.
So until then, my body and mind continue to vibrate. Sometimes in accord. Sometimes in dissonance.
I guess the time has not come when I can feel it all. Until then, I stay a little tenser, and more intense than my norm, waiting until it is safe enough.
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About The Author:
Jara Dean-Coffey (jdc) is Founder and Director of the Equitable Evaluation Initiative and the Founder of Luminare Group. For the past twenty-five years, she has partnered with clients and colleagues to elevate their collective understanding of the relationship between values, context, strategy and evaluation and shifting our practices so that they are more fully in service of equity. For more about musings + machinations click here.
