I never knew Grace Paley. She was someone my friends knew. She was an older generation. An activist. A Jew. A genius Jew activist who stood for hope and faith and loss and fighting. She was born in 1922; the same age as my grandmother. She started organizations I work with and she was a leader and mentor to people who are now my leaders and mentors. When she died people I knew were stricken. But I didn’t know her.
Regina Shavers passed away. She doesn’t even get a Wikipedia article, which is bullshit. She is another community elder — she founded GRIOT circle, she stood up for people. I don’t know her but people I know know her and they are stricken.
This is what happens. Wise elders get older, and then they die. The rest of us and the movement has to keep on going. At some point the movement, the work, gets passed on. People do work, get wiser and wiser, and then at some point they die. No one can pass on all their wisdom. All we can do is hope we got enough to keep going.
I can’t write either of them an obituary full of personal anecdotes. I am embarassed to admit I didn’t even know who Regina Shavers was before she died — and I barely knew who Grace Paley was before she died. It’s now, it’s later, it’s looking up and realizing that I am in a place where these leaders are real people. Someday the people that I know and think of as political and artistic mentors are going to die. I have always known this but suddenly I am realizing both that this is inevitable and that somehow it falls to the living to keep doing the work. It’s part of the cycle.
My roommate and I were talking once and she said something to the effect of, “You know, I just realized — I’m not the bright young thing any more brought to the table to be quick and clever. I’m supposed to be a different kind of leader — not the kind of leader you are when you’re a bright young thing — but I am expected to hold back, and let other people figure things out, and provide guidance.”
For the past few years I have been part of a huge Purimshpiel production as part of a team of genius artists and activists. It was started by two scions of Jewish arts — Adrienne Cooper (you need to go watch this video of her right now.) and Jenny Romaine (go watch her!) They did the whole thing, a to z, and visioned this enormous and beautiful surreal space. It is a mindblowing huge production — expect to hear more about it later — it is huge. It is beautiful. It is transformative. It is chaos and carnival in the best and most challenging way.
Adrienne hasn’t been involved in the major organizing since I have been, or she has been but in an advisory role. Last year, Jenny was in India and couldn’t participate. But this year, she is choosing to step back. It is not her life this year. But I have another friend, someone who I do think of as a kind of a mentor — she can’t do it either, not in the same way. Somehow, the guard is changing. Suddenly we are working without a net, or it feels like it to me — even though everyone will be around, even though everyone will be helping and working, even though Jenny is going to come back and do work. I am feeling the weight of it this year and that is terrifying me. I know that this group of artists is a group of genius genius genius workers, and I am just a tiny piece of it. But I am a part of it nonetheless and I keep getting caught in fear. Who am I? Who am I to help lead? I know I cannot fill any of these shoes but I don’t know if my own footprint is the right shape.
I turned 25 two weeks ago and I am unexpectedly feeling a need to be responsible. It’s not funny any more that I don’t know how to cook and spend my money on gold boots rather than paying my bills on time. I have a job, a good enough job, and I feel responsible to it in a way I never would have expected. But more than that, here and there, I am beginning to feel as if people actually listen to what I have to say; that I might say things right as often as I say them wrong; that I might know some things. That one day, little by little, I will creep up on being someone wise and smart and brave and willing to work in spite of fear. I want that. I want to be that person. But I am not sure I am ready for it.
But we don’t get a choice in these things. It’s easy to try and dodge responsibility forever and I admit to being tempted. But Grace Paley dies, or Regina Shaver dies, and this next generation that I am a part of runs up to try and hold the torch to keep this path illuminated. I don’t know how to commemorate the deaths of these women, these leaders, these people who are just as human as the rest of us and still managed to do some good in the end. I know that I have to keep doing this work in their honor, in the honor of everyone older and wiser who tried to make some good in the world.
Maybe someday someone will think the same about me; maybe not. That can’t be the point. And that’s not the point today. The point today is looking at this road, without these people. The point is how scary it is to realize that that moment will come, the moment when the tools fall into your hands and you realize there is no blueprint. There is no guidebook. You close your eyes, you remember what everyone who came before has told you, and somehow you start to build.
plainsong for everyone who was killed yesterday — david wagoner
You haven’t missed anything yet:
One dawn, one breakfast, and a little weather,
The clamor of birds whose names
You didn’t know, perhaps some housework,
Homework, or a quick sale.
The trees are still the same color,
And the Mayor is still the mayor, and we’re not
Having anything unusual for lunch.
No one has kissed her yet
Or slept with him. Our humdrum lives
Have gone on humming and drumming
Through one more morning.
But for a while, we must consider
What you might have wished
To do or look like. So far,
Thinking of you, no one has forgotten
Anything he wanted to remember.
Your death is as fresh as a prize
Vegetable — familiar but amazing,
Admirable but not yet useful –
And you’re in a class
By yourself. We don’t know
Quite what to make of you.
You’ve noticed you don’t die
All at once. Some people like me
Still offer you our songs
Because we don’t know any better
And because you might believe
At last whatever we sing
About you, since no one else is dreaming
Of singing: Remember that time
When you were wrong? Well, you were right.
And here’s more comfort: all fires burn out
As quickly as they burn. They’re over
Before we know it, like accidents.
