Scraping through the layers of trauma at times feels like passing through a needle’s eye; squeezing oneself either till breaking point or to the point of realization that the space is all yours; that the oxygen is sufficient; that your eyes need not be owned – neither by others nor your wounds and scars. During these moments of existential constriction, documentation, through words or images, of events and of snippets of a life, infringed upon by injustices and cruelties, becomes a basic necessity, as basic and essential as breathing.
Tonya Alexandri, April 3rd, 2016
‘Through the white curtain of yesterdays to a place
You had forgotten you knew from the inside out;
And a time when that bitter tree was planted’**
**From To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings by John O’Donohue
If I should have a daughter by Sarah Kay
https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kay_if_i_should_have_a_daughter/transcript
If I should have a daughter, instead of “Mom,” she’s going to call me “Point B,” because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me.
And I’m going to paint solar systems on the backs of her hands so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”
And she’s going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry.