Bearing Witness

I am fucking furious. There is no other way to put it. Watching what is happening in Minnesota—and all across this country—feels like a physical assault. It is not just a news cycle; it is a horror show. My chest feels tight, my stomach is in knots, and the terror is real. Some days, the weight of it all is so heavy that even thinking about being creative feels like a joke, or worse, an insult. I feel stymied. I feel stuck in the middle of a fire, watching the world burn on a five-inch screen.

A friend of mine posted on social media that we should all document what was going on—so we would remember, for ourselves, how we felt. So I decided one morning to add that to my morning pages practice.

But sitting there with the notebook open, the pen feels like it weighs fifty pounds. My hand is actually shaking because I am so wired on adrenaline and caffeine and pure, unadulterated disgust. The first few sentences are usually a jagged mess. They aren't even sentences; they are just words spat onto the paper like an exorcism. I keep thinking, This is pointless. This doesn't help anyone. But I force the hand to move anyway because the alternative is letting that poison stay in my blood.

When I finally finished writing about watching my fellow Americans tear gassed and killed for standing up for their neighbors, something shifted. I went on to other things in my pages, but they came easier. They did not feel so heavy. I felt unburdened.

We are all carrying around this weight with us. Those of us who are not actively being asked to put boots on the ground in this moment carry the weight of witness. It can stop us from doing anything other than hours of doomscrolling. But bearing witness is a way that is off the screen and just for me. It lifted the weight.

When I finally put the pen down, the horror has not disappeared, but it has changed shape. It is no longer a fog in my brain; it is ink on a page. And in that space where the fog used to be, there is finally room for my own voice again.

When I go back to my script now, I am not trying to escape the world. I am imbuing the work with the truth of what I have witnessed, but I am doing it without the leaden weight of a cluttered, terrified mind. I am available. I am regulated. I am ready to do the actual work—to call the senators, to do the mutual aid, to have dinner with a friend, and to finish the story.

I invite you to give this a try. If you already do morning pages or any kind of daily writing, add one page specifically for the world. Write about the injustice. Write about the fuckery. Write about the things that make you feel like you are losing your mind.

See if it helps. See if it lifts that weight just enough for you to breathe. And then, see how it informs everything else you do today. Because we cannot all be on the front lines every second, but we can stay open, we can stay available, and we can keep making the things that need to be made.