I am filled to the brim with gratitude...
To Mr. Dennis Michael Burke and Mr. Daoud Hari. Picking up the book "The Translator" could not have been coincidence.
A few weeks ago-- as many might know-- my Current Issues teacher gave my class a video project to do. We were to pick a book from the selection she gave us and make a video conveying the major issue in it. We only had four stories to choose from, one of which was "The Translator." My teacher gave us a brief description of each. I had already read one of them ("A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah), and while the others interested me, when I heard that "The Translator" was about Darfur, I instantly ran to the book cart and grabbed it. I had no idea where Darfur was, nor the extent of the horrors occurring there, but I wanted to learn.
I'm an average American highschooler, what can I say? I did want to learn, but my mind kept wandering off before I could crack the book open. There were math problems to fret over and literary terms to learn and a bazillion D'espairsRay blogs to read. I wanted to goof off and watch youtube videos and play DDR. I did not, in retrospect, want to see reality.
A few days before our video is due, I sit down at my computer and look up pictures of genocide victims. I come across the two pictures of the Iraqi children mutated by depleted uranium. I quit for a few hours. I cannot bear to look at these children. They are innocent and yet they are plagued with the sin of a humanity too far detached from nature. A couple hours later, I realize I have to face reality head-on for anything to ever change. I continue researching, all the while with my stomach churning and tears bleeding from my eyes.
The day after I finish my project, I open "The Translator" and read. I have found my calling.
Mind you, another calling. For a little over two years, I have wanted to raise awareness of eating disorders. I know about them all too well. My relationship with them is far too close for comfort. Addiction is an ugly thing, but people don't realize that I could starve just as easily as I can smoke a joint. People don't see the relationship between addiction and eating disorders, they don't see the connection between food and abuse and abandonment and rape and suicide. They see all skin and bones and vanity. Yes, I can be terribly vain sometimes, but that’s not the reason I don’t eat/eat too much/take nasty pills that could dislodge my insides or make my heart stop. I do it-- did it-- to atone for my sins.
But there has to be a better way to go about that.
I'm a spoiled, good-for-nothing, unappreciative brat. I will be the first to tell you that. But I'm also too sensitive for my own good; I understand things that a lot of kids around my age don't. I cry a lot and put myself in others' shoes too often and give my cats enough kisses to have a fur ball. I am not, in anyway, indifferent... although sometimes I really try to be.
So maybe I can put all this caring and emotion to something that might help someone, to something that doesn't have anything to do with me.
There's a wonderful woman in this world that I respect very much. I have never met her, but I still admire her. This woman would be 2medusa at 2medusa.com. Her website is a recovery and support blog committed to exposing the nasty reality of eating disorders. Recently, she decided to close her blog because it took too much of an emotional toll on her. I was heartbroken. I realized then how wonderful she is; she has never had an eating disorder, but for some unknown reason, she cared about all of us who have. She doesn't have to give a shit, but she does anyway. To know that someone cares about me for no reason at all is one of the most wonderful feelings I have ever had. It's enough to keep my feet moving forward.
So what about those who don't have someone to care about them? What do they do? How do they feel? How awful does it feel to believe that no one gives a shit about you? I don't think I want to know, but even briefly trying to imagine it makes my heart drop and leaves my lungs empty.
I don't want anyone to feel like that. I want these people to know that they ARE cared about, that someone out there does appreciate their existence. I don't want anyone to feel hopeless-- hopelessness is like death: dark and silent and empty.
But simply saying this won't help any-- or, at least, not much. No one in Darfur can read this. No one in any place going through this pain can read this. But the U.S. government can, as well as a hundred other countries fortunate enough to not have their own government betraying them. The people suffering won't know that someone does care until something is finally done.
I think back to the poem "The Sand" by Tara Hardy. She says, "If the sand could speak, she might say, I am the sand. When people climb me, they think I am a mountain, but I am one grain at a time." At the end of the poem, she says, "Bring me a movement, one grain at a time so that one day in my name, World, we can reconcile with dawn." I think she's saying that the world is like sand. Everyone is a single grain, but all of us together create a whole, together we create a mountain. Together we can bring on a movement and cross the threshold of peace to humanity.
So what can you do? Pass the word on. That's what I'm doing-- that's all I can think of to do. I really don't know much else aside from writing.
Tara Hardy says in another poem that, "When peace comes, it will not be on the wing of a dove, but on a wave of one hundred thousand million foaming tongues." So talk, spread the word, pray and care. It's not your responsibility to do something dramatic, but it is your responsibility to at least care for your own species.
It is scary, I know. I am just starting this journey and I have already seen things that I wish I could erase from my mind; I already want to push back. But as stated in "The Translator", we have to be stronger than our fears if we ever want to get anything done in life.
Click to viewTara Hardy-- "The Sand"
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Mr. T!!!
I know it's already the 7th in Japan, but you're just gonna have to deal. Anyway, I love you and your nonexistent farming skills and when you say, "Jes eet iz!" and you're overall WTF-ness!
Also, a happy birthday to my Uncle Jim whose birthday was yesterday. He is 51 and has now officially tilted to the old end of the bar! XDD
...there are to many birthdays in March. I can't keep track.
Also, I'm pretty pumped about SWORD Records signing with Maru Music. I am 100% up for cheaper D'espairsRay merchandise. Although, because I am an elitist fan, I continue seeing myself buying the Japanese releases and not the U.S. ones. I don't know why, but importing them just makes the CDs seem more... special for some reason that I cannot explain. And the idea of creating infrastructure for them to tour here is SUPERSPECIALAWESOME, too. Truthfully, though, I'd rather not have to see them with other bands. I have no interest in seeing Vidoll or DuelJewel at all, but I guess you take what you get. Just as long as I get to see D'espa, I'm good. XD
OKOKOK. Those bird masks they wore for their message to Taiwan are EPIC. Their new PV is going to be AWESOME... or maybe hysterical like the REDEEMER PV. Either way, ZERO in a suit is even better than listening to him in the tub. And, Karyu: You don't need a beak, love, your nose is already big! Muahahaha!
/mean. But he should know that he's my favorite person in the world and I make fun of his nose because I like it. Yeah, and I'm using my icon of him smiling for this post, despite the contrast, because it makes me smile.
EDIT: I'm chaning my layout. I like it, but it's too casual for me, I suppose. I want a nice, elegant D'espa one, but I can't find ANY like that that I like enough.
BTW, tomandakaulitz : Tara Hardy's voice does not sound like Bill's. At least, not in this.