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The Call to Write

Filed Under: Emotional Literacies By Beth Godbee November 12, 2016 Leave a Comment

In the aftermath of Trump’s election, I’ve decided it’s time to move forward with this project focused on feeling-thinking-doing for JUSTICE. I’ve been tinkering toward a blog for months, but holding myself back. Now my heart, my head, and my hands are insistent: the time to write is NOW. So, I sit at the screen, hands poised over keys. Yet, the only word-like expression coming forth is “Arrrrrggggghhhhh!!!!!”

I often joke that I study language (composition, rhetoric, and literacy studies) because “words are hard.” It’s hard to come up with the right words. Or meaningful words. Or words that express how I feel, words that represent what my body communicates in breath, in pulsation, in temperature, in pain.

What I can say is that my whole body H-U-R-T-S. Now more than ever, I have no idea how to sit in meetings, classrooms, and presentations that normalize whiteness. Sitting makes no sense. My body wants to curl or hurl … to jump up or out …

My body speaks my mind. A few days ago, I burned my hands with jalapeno and then heated up the burn in a warm bath. The result = hands on FIRE. Aching to write-do-act, my hands, like my body, were literally incensed. Yet, the more I used my hands, the more the fire calmed. Or perhaps the fire was just transferred into its rightful place (in this case, an article tracing rhetorical interventions into microaggressions).

I am reminded of Audre Lorde’s “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism.” Lorde inspires me: “Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change.”

My mantras for this time: I allow myself to feel my emotions honestly and fully. I allow myself to acknowledge anger as a powerful source, one with transformative potential. I allow myself to write imperfectly, emotionally, toward moving forward.

mantra-copy

I may be writing nothing but “Arrrrrggggghhhhh!!!!!” for a while.

—
This post is written by Beth Godbee for Heart-Head-Hands.com. Please consider liking this blog on FB and following the blog via email. Thanks!

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Tagged with: embodiment, emotional literacies, language, mantras, racial justice, resistance, social justice, writing

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Updates to the new offering “Pathways Through Bu Updates to the new offering “Pathways Through Burnout: A Cohort Experience”:

For the past year, Candace and I have been listening to requests for an offering around burnout (or, more precisely, being burned up), and we launched a new cohort experience August 1st. We are deeply grateful for the range of responses we’ve received since then, and we’ve been prioritizing time to listen and discern what people want and need.

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About Beth Godbee

I'm an educator and former writing studies professor who believes our fully embodied selves matter in the world. We can’t just think our way out of the incredible injustices, dehumanization, violence, and wrongdoing that characterize everyday life. We must feel and act, too. [Pronouns: she/her.] Read more ...

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