We live in a wounded culture, one where each of us is required to not just "be in the [proverbial] closet," about who we choose to love, but also to create a legion of closets within which we are required to confine our personal interests. One closet, say the one where we hide our sparkly, faux, patent-leather, unicorn-shaped paddle for our weekly spankings may not be the same closet in which we hide our lipstick, platform heels, and formidable piles of sequins, from our straight male friends. One closet you may have the unbelievable strength to keep, is the one in which we hide our volcanic desire to live authentically, the one that drives us to show up for eight hours, armed to the toes, in black ballet flats and/or presentable button up shirts, rather than follow artistic wiles to do something genuine and inspiring... I call that one the career closet. Our identities are so begrudgingly entangled in the roles we are taught to play in order to survive, that we begin to believe that performing our roles in a satisfactory manner, makes us worthy of love and connection. No wonder so many of us feel trapped. Which is why for today's entry I bring you, my lovely rainbow warriors, some of history's most prolific radical artists and poets. These two women, Audre Lorde and Frida Kahlo both felt the unbearable tearing of their culture's expectations. Both women rebelled and healed their wounds, with extraordinary art. Enjoy:
Kahlo, a radical supporter of the Mexican Revolution and the Communist movement in the 1940's, and an openly bi-sexual woman, is now famous for her viscerally painted depictions of herself drenched in constant symbolic limbo, torn between two worlds. In Los Dos Fridas (1939), she depicts herself twice, her westernized self tries to stop the gushing of her blood from her open vein with surgical tools, as her somber insides soak her European style garb. Opposite herself, her indigenous self, holds her hand and continues to provide blood and life force to sustain both of them.
{Arbol de Esperanza (1946)}
Advice on surviving love and life from a compassionate revolutionary:
" Leaving is not enough. You must stay gone. Train your heart like a dog. Change the locks even on the house he’s never visited. You lucky, lucky girl. You have an apartment just your size. A bathtub full of tea. A heart the size of Arizona, but not nearly so arid. Don’t wish away your cracked past, your crooked toes, your problems are paper mache puppets you made or bought because the vendor at the market was so compelling you just had to have them. You had to have him. And you did. And now you pull down the bridge between your houses, you make him call before he visits, you take a lover for granted, you take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic. Make the first bottle you consume in this place a relic. Place it on whatever altar you fashion with a knife and five cranberries. Don’t lose too much weight. Stupid girls are always trying to disappear as revenge. And you are not stupid. You loved a man with more hands than a parade of beggars, and here you stand. Heart like a four-poster bed. Heart like a canvas. Heart leaking something so strong they can smell it in the street."
Audre Lorde: "Revolution is not a one time event."
Audre Lorde, a black, lesbian, feminist, born of Caribbean immigrants and raised in Harlem, set a new precedent for activists and writers, regarding the intersectionality of oppressions in 1950-60s American culture. In Sister Outsider (1976-1984), she wrote,
“I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.”
Bold spirited and relentlessly honest, Lorde's poem Who Said It Was Simple (1973), concisely illustrates her disillusionment with white feminist colleagues, unaware of the blatant racism they witnessed, while they planned a women's right's demonstration (Irony loves those of us with the best intentions):
Who Said It Was Simple (1970)
"There are so many roots to the tree of anger
that sometimes the branches shatter
before they bear.
Sitting in Nedicks
the women rally before they march
discussing the problematic girls
they hire to make them free.
An almost white counterman passes
a waiting brother to serve them first
and the ladies neither notice nor reject
the slighter pleasures of their slavery.
But I who am bound by my mirror
as well as my bed
see causes in colour
as well as sex
and sit here wondering
which me will survive
all these liberations.
Words from Lorde on how to heal during your many revolutions and rebirths:
For Each of You (1968)
"Be who you are and will be learn to cherish that boisterous Black Angel that drives you up one day and down another protecting the place where your power rises running like hot blood from the same source as your pain.
When you are hungry learn to eat whatever sustains you until morning but do not be misled by details simply because you live them.
Do not let your head deny your hands any memory of what passes through them not your eyes nor your heart everything can be used except what is wasteful (you will need to remember this when you are accused of destruction.) Even when they are dangerous examine the heart of those machines you hate before you discard them and never mourn the lack of their power lest you be condemened to relieve them. If you do not learn to hate you will never be lonely enough to love easily nor will you always be brave although it does not grow any easier
Do not pretend to convenient beliefs even when they are righteous you will never be able to defend your city while shouting.
Remember whatever pain you bring back from your dreaming but do not look for new gods in the sea nor in any part of a rainbow Each time you love love as deeply as if were forever only nothing is eternal.
Speak proudly to your children where ever you may find them tell them you are offspring of slaves and your mother was a princess in darkness. "
Simply put, none of this is simple. Sometimes the art of creating ones true self is damningly complex and painfully intricate. Braving the world outside of our closets, drawers, sometimes even wardrobes, can feel like a giftless venture, but as Lorde said, "If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive." Our expression of our pain, our passion and our anger is our vitality, and I plead with you, dear reader, to do just that. Even if it's from within your closet and you are creating from within your darkness, read, fuck, write, play, sing, dance, paint, tattoo yourself with your experiences. You are a vibrant night light of joy and you are valuable just as you were created, as quiet, as inquisitive or as queer, as you might be.
-To your personal revolts and riots and especially to your learning,
Cory
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Cory is a poet and novelist in the Los Angeles area. They have worked in mental health, education, social justice and fashion blogging and they aim to lead by example by bravely living an examined lifestyle.
"The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot."
Audre Lord
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