I Like Alpacas
BY CHELCEE LORAINE. PHOTOGRAPHY BY DEUN IVORY.
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…What I most regretted were my silences…Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.
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I remember being told at an early age that as a woman of color I’d have to work twice as hard to get as far as others; as those neither women nor of color. Or being made aware of my body at the tender age of eleven as grown men eyes began to trace the dips and curves thereof. And what does this do to the psyche, or the spirit? To the experiences spoken of and kept secret? To start so young internalizing how one’s body, race, sex automatically politicizes them. While I may not have had the language for it then. Others would later offer that language. From the writings of Audre Lorde and June Jordan to Toni Morrison - the black woman’s mind, body and spirit took on a collective wisdom of what it meant to exist in the world and lean that existence toward liberation – in all its forms.
“The white fathers told us, I think therefore I am; and the black mothers in each of us-the poet-whispers in our dreams, I feel therefore I can be free. Poetry coins the language to express and charter this revolutionary awareness and demand, the implementation of that freedom” – Audre Lorde
And this language helped, it made tangible this idea that the personal is indeed political. From our hot girl summer declarations that speak of body positivity and forward-facing sensuality that is uncensored. To our gatherings of joy and open mics. I believe the griots of the past knew something, knew how powerful it was for us to verbalize and repeat our stories. How they are affirmed, validated and cannot be ignored as we do so.
Today, we open our cell phones and face the news of the Amazon burning – a literal threat to our oxygen, our breathing, to say nothing of the indigenous lives being harmed. We read the headlines of yet another mass shooting, to cops still using deadly force on men of color, to climate change being taken lightly, and women of color being paid much less than our counterparts. And what do we say to these things? To news that can be fear and anxiety inducing. Well, being an organization founded on the principles of breathing easy, of wellness and securing peace. We know that peace is not often given, it’s something we work toward. Often times, in past and present, something we must claim.
However, I don’t believe this fight, this declaration to be, was meant to raw us out. I believe the work of healing internally must lend itself to the external. It’s in this that our personal muses into the political; that we un-silence our stories. When we work to heal within ourselves we also realize how much of the fight was given to us. Be it issues of the body, or colorism, or anxiety - much has been inherited from the world we live in and how it came to be (i.e. colonialism).
By Brittany Wilson
Brittany is a lover, fighter, and walker of dogs. She’s obsessed with alpacas and llamas, follow her on IG.
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