A week ago, I was getting ready to drop off one of my babies to school, and I came face to face with both my immense privilege and the dangers my babies will continue to face for being who they are. It was “Punish a Muslim day” as proclaimed by white supremacists in the UK, a day to get their revenge. It was vague and infuriating. Anxiety inducing and terrifying. Confusing. One of those many moments as a mother where you question yourself, what are my instincts saying? Am I being overly dramatic? But.
I was connecting this call for violence to one of the most dangerous crisis we face today, the fragility of white masculinity. And then to the groups of people targeting Islamic institutions in my city. Those who tear pieces of the Quran and spit and scream on its sacred knowledge to show us just how much they hate. It. Us. Fears. Anger. Insecurities. Frustrations muddled into emotional rants on the dangerous ideologies it  ‘promotes’ they say.

What does mothering look like in this context? We woke to an email from our school’s administration alerting us to the additional safety measures they were taking that day. We messaged each other, sharing our fears, comforting each other, encouraging each other to be brave, to trust in that ‘imagined good’ we are forced to believe every time we let our babies out of our grip. The school told us of their plans to monitor the situation closely. They would audit the security system and maintain rigid entry policies, and they had alerted the local police, who would increase their patrol in the area. Okay, I thought. They are taking it seriously. I pushed myself. I questioned myself, are you overreacting? I was thinking of how many mothers in the America have lost their babies to military grade assault weapons ripping through their children’s schools. I watched as male teachers and administrators paced the premises, on the look out for suspicious people or vehicles in the area. I had to consider the possibility. This fear is not unfounded I told myself. I could not deny the very real possibility. Is today the day a coward comes to an Islamic school to hurt our babies, to show us how much he has been taught to hate? How will I teach my babies about these people? They want you to know how much you are not welcome here, that you don’t belong here.  Hmmm. Peculiar premise. Remember when your ancestors rounded up Indigenous children, and ripped babies from their mothers and forced them into a system where they are stripped of their identities, and violently sexually, physically, mentally and spiritually abused, all under the sanction of the state, and will full support of the law? But you’ve reconciled that you say. The government apologized for God’s sake, and they don’t even have to pay taxes. Do you know how much free stuff they get? (lies.).

I was afraid to leave my baby. But I had to do that thing that all mothers have to do. I had to remind myself that even though I am apart of their story, I do not write it. I can not control everything that happens in their lives. Even though I will never stop worrying about them. Even though I will fight with every ounce of my being to protect them. As painful and fruitless as that may be, I cannot stop.  As I dropped of my baby, I thought of the police presence they promised. Where are the cruisers? Privilege. It woke me up.
How do Black mothers fare in these times? How have they survived generations of exclusions, in a system based on denying them their humanity, through institutions set up to segregate and police their bodies? How have they raised proud, outspoken, compassionate babies in the face of such immense historically embedded violence? How can they raise their children to respect these institutions, and to feel protected and safe in the presence of those same institutions who continue to senselessly murder their babies without any consequence? As I hugged my baby extra tight, but not too nervously, making sure she heard my “I love you”, I thought, what if every single time you sent your baby out into the world, wait, I take that back. It doesn’t matter where they are. It doesn’t matter what they are wearing. It doesn’t matter how educated they are. It doesn’t matter how much you warned them. They can not escape the ‘fact of blackness’ that leaves their bodies riddled with as many bullets as they have lived years on this earth for playing on their smartphone in grandma’s yard.

As I leave the parking lot, I scan for suspicious cars. My friend told me she drove by her daughter’s school four times that day. Don’t be so dramatic creeps into my mind. I admire the bravery of my Hijabi sisters. But at least it’s not America. But wait. No. What does that even mean? Isn’t this the country, the same place where a shooter open fired in a Mosque murdering people while they prayed? Quebec is five hours away, not an imagined, “this type of stuff doesn’t happen in Canada” distance away. Wait. Isn’t my city the place where a group of people stood outside a high school screaming at children for their worship of a God they claim instructs them to … wait, what is that again thing we are doing? Oh. It’s those dangerous ideologies they are being taught. Mamas, we are on the frontlines of raising our babies into those warriors they fear. Those beautiful Muslim babies whom we hope to raise into powerful, outspoken, humble, compassionate, dignified, just and kind heroes. I will do everything in my power to equip them with the relentless determination to exist, persist and triumph. And I will do everything in my power to love them with all of that ferocious and  frightening determination you imagine I am aiming at your ‘freedom’. And everyday I will send them out into the world, terrified for them, but never allowing them to be scared, only bravely holding their heads high as the bold warriors they are in my eyes. How are those Palestinian mothers raising those babies under occupation? Under  those not only stealing land, but rewriting history in their favour, and those mothers who must continue to endure, not only physically through the pain and force of occupation, but the psychological and spiritual struggle of those who face attempts at being erased, attempting to destroy their very will to exist. How do they raise those Ahed’s of our day, proud, firm, afraid but brave? How are they forced to raise these babies into fighters, in order to survive, from their very first breaths?

I think of my son. My sweet brown boy who will be raised in a world that is afraid of him, who believes him to be a threat. Because I can only hope with everything in my being that he will humble himself to prayer, he will give charity, and show compassion and free himself from the destruction power of ego and the forces of vanity and consumerism that will try to kill his spirit. What is that dangerous to? Who is that a threat towards? What kind of ‘freedom’ does that challenge? Today I stopped at a grocery store to grab some coffee pods. I passed by a locked case of medicine in the middle of an aisle. Behind the plastic shields and cold locks I saw Children’s Tylenol for cold and fever, Advil, and  Motrin. What about those mothers who have been forced into a situation to take Tylenol or formula for their sick or hungry babies. We have some very real problems we need to collectively face if this is our reality.

In the hours before I picked up my baby I thought of all those mothers who have to make the choice of filthy water, or none at all, sending their children to school under bombs, letting their babies play in the street where they could be killed by police for being the wrong colour, in the right or wrong place, for having something or nothing in their hands, for covering their heads or not, for speaking back or not being able to speak, or God forbid having a mental health issue. Where mothers must persevere when their children are committing suicide at crisis levels because of generational trauma that they can not escape, or where our babies can be killed by military weapons in their elementary schools, or families who live in fear of being ripped apart because of their ‘status’, or for our turban wearing brown bodies who can be beaten for reminding them of our otherness, or all of our babies who are judged, dismissed, bullied, erased in their everyday lives. Oh Mothers. I pray for you. “May every tear that has every fallen from your tired eyes become a river for you in Paradise”. That generational trauma, those inheritances we have to choice but to face. I feel it. I am anxious for all of these realities for our children, but I also feel the painful loss of our fathers, brothers, husbands, friends, our men. I mourn the generational trauma that forced my father, a child of internally displaced peoples on the move courtesy of colonial division, to drop out of school and find ways to survive. To migrant for that ‘better live’ that he suffered and drank through, everyday except Sunday, my mother’s favourite day of the week, she tells me. And who beat the mother of the children he loved more than anything, relentlessly. And who died rotting and decaying surrounded by the vile filth and vermin we allow to trample the people most vulnerable and desperate amongst us. But wait. Those newest government funded research projects that have created innovative programs to help. We can help! They cry. They fund. They study. They fail so many of us. Maybe we need to ask why so many of us are ‘falling through the cracks’… How can we rely on those same institutions that were created through our exclusions? To be more direct.  I am fed up with waiting to be saved by the very same institutions set up to kill us. I don’t know what comes next. But I know that we need to start showing up for each other. As mothers we know the struggle of feeling each ache and pain alongside our babies, and we cry in pain over having to entrust the world with our children. Knowing they were never meant to thrive under these conditions, and hoping and fighting for them to survive. But. We can teach our babies to stand up for what is just. To take responsibility over leaving the world in a better state than we received it. To live righteously, honestly, compassionately, especially towards that which they do not understand. If this is radical then so be it. I have no other choice. I am a mother, I can not stop believing. “Whosoever of you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then [let him change it] with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith.” (Sahih Muslim)

Whosoever of you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then [let him change it] with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart —

and that is the weakest of faith.Sahih Muslim

(I have been informed that in fact this locked cabinet is due to Health Canada regulations on the sale of medication without a pharmacist. I still think the idea is significant, even if as an analogy. Plus, this same idea exists in relation to Formula, and that has been linked to theft).

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Welcome to a project close to my heart.

An intersection between academia and the everyday.

Follow me through the telling of a living story.

One of being and becoming, dreamt through tears and pieced together with love.

Overwhelming and empowering.

Infinite

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Without pain. Without memory. Without fear. Realizing you are still alive.

That you can or have laughed again.

A suspension of time and place towards the divine.

When your smile, laughter or silence comes not only from your mind but from deep inside, not even from your body, but from a deeper, spiritual, and compassionate place.

There is beauty in suffering.

At first the statement may elicit detest. For what beauty could possibly be found in or through such tremendous pain and suffering? But to those who have felt the depths of such an experience, and have been brave enough to face it (even if you had no choice), you have gained something so unbelievably rare that no amount of money, no amount of fame, no amount of envy, or ego can ever compare… this is found in a particular kind of knowledge. By knowledge here I mean a deep set of realizations, feelings, intensities, blissful moments, however fleeting, of a deep meaning and purpose.

Bravery is a huge aspect of this knowledge but not all of us are able or equipped to feel the weight of this intensity equally, at all, fully. However, for many of us, we are often left with no choice. Which makes it no less brave. And for some us, it is too much to bear. And for those who are still struggling, we offer some light.

Shit gets real.

This series will explore the insights from a diverse range of experiences and people who share in this sense of realization. They will share in their honest experience of what certain events have meant for their lives. They reflect back on the instances at hand, explore feelings in present moment that overwhelm them, and share their fears for the future. Overall, they will explore the journey to realizing their pain, and how this pain may have remained hidden in their lives causing them harm in their daily living. It is therefore what is being called a ‘living story’. A set of realizations occurring at the site of reflection. For many of our writers, this is the first time they have written, or in some cases, reflected so purposefully on their experience. What is the goal then? Well mostly obviously to seek the embodiment of the sentiment, “do not mock a pain you haven’t endured”. And, also to allow the writer to share their ‘experience’/knowledge with others. This is not for us to consume the pain of Others, but to empathize in a deep, critical way.

The goal for the reader is to experience the writing. As something that transforms us,

not just entertains us. 

An experience that forces to confront uncomfortable truths in our lives and in our worlds, and then simultaneously asks us to question how our own individual suffering can be used productively to improve our lives, but also our collective conscious.

Who?

The writers of The Living Story do not yet know each other and their individual work will be shared anonymously, unless they should otherwise choose. This will be an ongoing project and the first set of writers have been asked to participate given their knowledge, suffering, experience. They have bravely endeavoured to write through their pain to share their insights with others.

And who is this group? They are a collective of diverse backgrounds, genders, statuses, faiths, races, and similarly diverse are the experiences they have chosen to reflect on. The trauma spans from life threatening accidents, to living with chronic illness and pain, to suffering from mental health issues, dealing with post-partum depression, experiencing extreme trauma, such as physical or/and sexual assault, dealing with diverse types of loss, suffering as a child from violence, and there is more… and as you can imagine this is incredibly difficult for some to share so we ask you to humbly accept our work. I will be doing the work to edit these pieces alongside the writer to get them ready to share. You will find as you read along that in the same way that trauma and difficulty happen in a non-linear way, so to do memories, and the process of understanding, realizing, awakening jumps from the present life we are in to the past, or into an uncertain future. The journey ventures through wondering, hoping, fearing, dealing, remembering, overcoming, absorbing, organizing…

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feel. deal. heal.

heal. feel. deal.

deal. heal. feel.

“There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt” (Lorde, 1984)… and so my wish for us all is that beyond the lie of coincidence, we may see how it is both written, and simultenously, waiting to be realized.

I am finishing this from a place I have not been before…

I can not stop counting my breathes.

I can not stop thinking of each one I exhale.

It feels as though I have let it out so far that each new breathe comes in a panic.

a little too late, but just in time.

Each breathe I exhale feels as if it will be my last.

and so with that, I remind us, “do not mock a pain you haven’t endured”.

IT IS WRITTEN.

One afternoon two years ago, on the way to drop off food and money for my D.A.D., a friend called asking for the title of my blog which he was helping to create a website for. I did not yet know the audience for which I intended to write. I hadn’t much imagined it. How to come up with a title, for a purpose I consciously knew little about? Still, I spoke it out loud,

“What about ‘drowning in dreams’?” I nervously joked, “ I know it seems dark, but does it make sense?”

He replied, “It’s perfect actually. It is the right kind of weird”.

Neither of us knew what exactly it meant, or what this project would be about. We hadn’t discussed its subject matter. The intent. The purpose. But we both knew it made sense. Somehow, in some way, we knew it was right. And so, in a sense, it was conceived before I had ever typed a single word. 

FEEL.

I hadn’t given much thought to what drowning in dreams might actually mean. I knew I felt uneasy referencing drowning in a time of tremendous suffering for those being swallowed up or washing up on the shores in their last attempts to flee ongoing violence and displacements, but as I see it, none of us are outside of these realities. We are embedded in the making and unmaking of violent ongoing realities, which shape diverse experiences. We are complicit in upholding systems that continue to support and make possible the senseless violence which continues to bleed our planet. Perhaps, this is best considered through the ideas of ‘genealogy’. Those genealogies, histories, legacies, processes, that accompany geographies of migration, through which we may all be merely trying to survive. So many of us are drowning from the legacies, and ongoing violence of colonial and imperial conquest. So many of us are just trying to stay afloat.

DEAL.

The first few posts I wrote were also from a place of tremendous pain. They were extremely difficult to write and experience together simultaneously  But it had to happen. I felt as though I was drowning from the weight of so much loss, at a time when I was so terribly needed. This is the unaccounted, intangible work of caring that so many mothers feel. The fact of being needed so incredibly much, and the inability to escape it. Your heart beating outside of your body, forever. Vulnerable and attune to each ache and possibility. The overwhelming love of it all is also an unbearable pain and immense weight to carry. In the midst of all of the pain, it began happening.

HEAL. 

‘Drowning in dreams’ is dominated by ideas of overwhelming sensations. Dream interpretations center around the fear of being overwhelmed, whether by difficult feelings, emotions, anxieties… possibilities. Additionally, it has been conceptualized in relation to struggling to survive as a person. In this sense, it is simultaneously about the anticipated ‘fear’ of/or the potential of a feeling, set of emotions or anxieties, and also about trying to exist alongside these ‘fears’. Some have suggested that dreams about drowning can also be productive in offering the dreamer hints to search their waking life for what can be seen as threatening or burdening. It is beyond ironic that I chose this as the title of this project. Actually irony seems to imply happenstance. Which this is not.

IT IS WRITTEN.

For as long as I can remember, the most frightening nightmare I have had, on numerous occasions, is related to drowning.

It is the image of a building on the shore of a vast ocean where the waves are growing and growing at such frightening depths to engulf all that is in their wake. The infinite height, depth and weight of the water is terrifying, and the fear is two fold.

It is first centered on the sheer magnitude and potential of the waves/water themselves, and secondly, about the fear of being completely engulfed, immersed, powerless. I have had this reoccurring nightmare for many years of my life, never able to grasp the meaning. Until now. The signs were there all along, but it is only now that I am able to start piecing it together. I couldn’t have known what I know now, then. 

HEAL.

In January my daughter, four years old, starting piano lessons. It is absolutely fascinating to put this in conversation with my academic work. I find myself reflecting on the power of the mind to balance and oscillate between, amidst and through multiple levels, layers, mediums, aspects. Learning music involves so many layers and levels of understanding, so much simultaneity and multiplicity. Students first begin by numbering each finger, matching these to notes, developing this through repetition and reimaging them through notes and connecting that to their fingers. Reading music while engaging their bodies to physically play. Balancing tempo. Counting beats. Playing in unison. Learning notes. Reading notes. Writing them. Composing them. Linking the body to the mind with conscious intent, all with children who cannot yet read a complete word. It is unbelievably beautiful to see them engage in such complexity at such a young age and it begs the question as to why as adults we seem to have such limited cognitive or imaginative abilities most of the time. It is as though the more we know, the less we can envision. It is as though it may only be one or the other, not both, not all, not a lot, at once for conflicting reasons, embedded in genealogies, histories, geographies, simultaneously in the past, present and future. Not to say, everything and nothing. But to encourage us to think in multiplicity, complexity, nuance.

Concentrate. We sung.

People are dying.

Children are crying.

Concentrate.

FEEL.

“IF WE FEEL THAT THINGS ARE CALM, WHAT MUST WE FORGET IN ORDER TO INHABIT SUCH A RESTFUL FEELING?” (PUAR, 2007).

Are we living a dangerous dream, which we might only hope to be awoken from?

I remember a time about four years ago after I had my daughter where I exhausted to a breaking point dealing with my dad after having become a mother for the first time. I sought the help of a professional… we weren’t vibing enough to build a relationship, but within fifteen minutes of speaking she said,

“Why do you feel so guilty for loving him? It’s okay you know. You are allowed to feel that way. The first thing you need to do is stop feeling guilty, or bad about this feeling you have”.

Just as the all encompassing wave cries. Show compassion. For your pain. For yourself. For Others. It’s okay to feel. There are so many of us, trying to survive our lives while suffering greatly, in largely unconscious ways. But giving ourselves space to feel might be that first step, necessary in order to deal. To dream of a time where you may in fact, heal. Allowing compassion to guide you to a knowledge, made possible through pain, into a world which you are connected to profoundly. And so they say, the end is simultaneously the beginning. But healing does not erase. It is not something emerging out of nothing, of complete newness. You retain roots, connections, linkages, depths, and… maybe these are the threads that allow us to know the true beauty that anyone who has been brave enough to feel their suffering, knows.

Mogahed writes about the ocean as “breaktakingly beautiful” (45), but notes, it may be just as beautiful as it is deadly. “Water, the same substance necessary to sustain life, can end life, in drowning” (45). She connects worldly life as the ocean, and our hearts as the ships. She explains that we can use the ocean to lead us to our final destination, but the ocean is only a means, it is a means of seeking a higher purpose, “Imagine what would happen if the ocean became our end – rather than just a means” (45). Thus,  she explains, as long as water stays outside of the ship it will continue to float, but if water starts to enter into the ship, it begins to sink.

In my reflection on my recurrent nightmare, the waves can be apart of that ocean which reflects this worldly life. It is those very real painful realities that torment the swimmer. Perhaps it was a message all along to fight the very urge to be consumed by worldly matters to which you lose control to and are ruthlessly at the mercy of.

DEAL. 

So what are these dreams in which we may find ourselves drowning? Dreams represent in many ways an experience beyond our waking consciousness, ‘imaginary’, or ‘imagined’, beyond our reality, without boundaries. We are ‘free’? While this idea of freedom is largely located in spaces of the subconscious mind who is able to unless in the safety of a dream state, a la Freud and Jung. In popular culture, dreams have been considered aspirational or motivational and as part of imagining more, better or different worlds.

Traditionally conceptualized (in Eurocentric accounts) as related to the ‘subconscious’. Beginning in the psychoanalysis, dreams have been dominated by thinking that views them as part of unconscious desires (Freud, 1913). In another way, neuroscientifically, dreams are considered as mere responses to changes in brain activity (Hobson and McCarley 1977), while in popular culture, dreams are understood as imaginative experiences of waking life that feel like a dream, a state of mind that represents a release from reality, a vision resembling a dream life state, something notable for its beauty, excellence or enjoyable quality, a strongly desired goal or purpose, something tied to the fulfillment of a wish. And before this, for centuries before, dreaming has been linked to spiritual, supernatural, Godly forces. Often seen as divine messages, as spaces for the divine to communicate. And interestingly, today, in the most contemporary work on dreaming, scientists argue that ‘dreaming’ which is linked to sleep, is productive and necessary at many levels, and has implications for conscious, waking life.

Despite the many interesting ways that dreams can be conceptualized, the power of dreams in general cannot be denied. As many have argued, dreams have no boundaries and this makes them significant worlds of influence, allowing us to imagine things beyond our current realities, and inducing desires towards future attainment. Sounds important to retain, but also significant is the possibility of what ‘productive’ work dreams may provide. To consider this we can ask a basic, yet profound question as to why we dream. Some scholars note that there is no one reason but rather a number of theories that span many disciplines such as psychiatry, psychology and neurobiology. For some, the idea that dreaming is linked to memory processes, and can be seen as an extension of waking consciousness such that we may reflect on experiences of waking life as constituting a space where we can work through difficult, complicated or unsettling thoughts, emotions or experiences. Even more interesting is dreaming as linked to sleep. This is conceptualized as a cycle, culminating in Rapid Eye Movement (REM), the space where the most vivid, ‘real’ dreaming occurs, and as it happens, where modern science has erased the divine, we find connections in current work on dreaming. In which many cultures understood dreams in profoundly different and more significant ways for living. They have been considered as spaces for healing and for understanding the future (Patton, 2004). As Patton explains, ancient cultures saw dreams as part of “enigmatic parable”, highly valued, and often see as potentially divinely sent “fraught with meaning about the future, and having the potential to heal or offer solutions to life’s biggest problems” (Leddy, 2013). Thus, dreams were understood as spaces of healing and had the potential to impact waking life. From these early conceptualizations, explanations for dream content formed the basis of most, early theoretical insights on dreaming. For the most part, psychoanalysis dominated this thinking (which occurred well before the discovery of REM linked to modern brain science), explaining dreams as part of repressed desires (Freud), and complex reasoning in relation to mythic narratives (Jung). This thinking is seen in opposition to contemporary brain science which largely challenges the idea that dreaming is “meaningful, privileged, and interpretable psychologically”, and rather argues that dreams are the “simple reflection of the sleep-related changes in brain state” (Hobson, 2002, 1-2). BUT. since the discovery of REM sleep, researchers such as Winson (1990) have explored the neuroscientific aspects of REM sleep and memory processes together. For Winson, dreaming was very meaningful and significant and related to memory processes, a process through which we form survival strategies and evaluate current experience in relation to these strategies (Winson, 1990). Thus, dreaming here is a reflection of an individual’s strategy of survival, where the “subjects of dreams are broad ranging and complex, incorporating self-image, fears, insecurities, strengths, grandiose ideas, sexual orientation, desire, jealousy and love” (Winson, 64). Winson therefore argues that the characteristics of the unconscious and associated processes of brain functioning however are very different from what Freud thought. Rather than being solely about untamed passions and destructive wishes, he argues that the unconscious is a “cohesive continually active mental structure that takes note of life’s experiences and reacts according to its own scheme of interpretation” (Winson, 1990, 67). Thus, rather than disguised consequences of repression, their unusual character is a result of the “complex associations that are culled from memory (Winson, 1990, 67). Dreaming can therefore be understood as a form of consciousness that unites past, present and future by processing information from the past and present as part of preparations for the future.

Interestingly, during REM sleep, the state in which the most vivid dreams are experienced, the inhibition of spinal motor neurons by brainstem mechanisms that limit motor abilities is also simultaneously experienced, and thus REM sleep is also defined as “an activated brain in a paralyzed body” (Carskadon and Dement 2011, 19). While in REM sleep “motor neurons are inhibited, preventing the body from moving freely” (Winson, 1990, 59), “eyes move rapidly in unison under closed lids, breathing becomes irregular and heart rate increases” (Winson, 1990, 59). Thus, when we dream, we feel our freest, when in fact we are paralyzed. Building here, some scholars argue that REM sleep in fact constitutes a may constitute a proto-conscious state, “providing a virtual reality model of the world that is of functional use to the development and maintenance of waking consciousness” (Hobson, 803). As he explains, waking consciousness is defined by awareness of the external world, our bodies and our selves and the awareness of our awareness, however, “When dreaming we are also consciously aware; we have perception and emotion, which are organized in a scenario-like structure, but we erroneously consider ourselves to be awake despite abundant cognitive evidence that this cannot be true” (Hobson, 2009, 803). Thus, when we dream, we wrongly think that it is real (lived), as they are abstractions from fully lived conscious reality. Dreams are thus, both lived and imagined simultaneously, but we all face the problem that all dreamers and dreams face, which is the “failure to recognize its own true condition, its incoherence (or bizarreness), its severe limitation of thought” (803). Thus, dreams conceal and potentially ‘hide’ aspects of their reality. However, as Hobson highlights, dreams also can reveal and have implications for full consciousness. He explains that some argue that the connection between sleep and psychology is tied not only to the mere deprivation of sleep, but the denial of dreaming (occurring in REM sleep). Specifically, he argues that this is the most detrimental force in triggering cognitive deterioration (Hobson, 2009, 803). Dreams, are therefore understood as a necessary counterpoint to our conscious state, whereby as Hobson argues, the “integrity of waking consciousness depends on the integrity of dream consciousness” (Hobson, 2009, 803). Thus, “what we may need to navigate our waking world is an infinite set of charts from which we may draw the one best suited to an equally infinite set of real-life possibilities” (803). Hobson asks, if REM sleep precedes dreaming, what happens before dreaming appears? He argues that the brain is preparing itself for consciousness, “a lifelong process, an innate virtual reality generator, the properties of which are defined for us in our dreams” (Hobson, 2009, 803). Thus, dreams are both a necessary component for our conscious state and are implicated in our lived realities, and are simultaneously, inherently limited in their inability to recognize their state for what it is. Significantly though, dreams are as much preparations for waking consciousness as a reaction to it. “We are as much getting ready to behave as we are getting over the effects of our behaviour” (Hobson, 2009, 803). 

Interestingly, just like sleep, dreams are also vulnerable to disruption from mental and physical health related problems, seen at times, in the form of nightmares. At once, that which seems outside, the nightmare which can not possibly be the dream, is in fact both outside and within at once, embedded into our everyday, expressed in our anxieties, manifest in our relationships to each other and to spaces.

In addition, as we can see in popular culture, for individuals dreams have been tied to values and conditions of possibility, as escapes, as aspirational, as powerful motivations, as goals, and as ambitions, but they may be simultaneously nightmarish, stressful, disturbing, frightening, recurring, haunting.

Understanding our connections to ongoing pain in the world and violence in our everyday realities, fear and suffering in our lives, we need a deep, nuanced, historically grounded genealogical approach that allows us to uncover the dependencies and relationships that shape the everyday realities of a diverse people. Dreaming therefore is significant as it is the most “universal, enduring aspect of being human” (Breus, 2015), and thus we might ask about the influence of dreaming in our waking lives, and whether there is any way that dreams might help us live better. There are views that support the idea that dreaming is a creative portal and new studies argue that dreams may assist in daytime functioning, whereby “… dreams may be fertile territory for influencing and enhancing our waking frame of mind” (Breus, 2015). Therefore, dreams are not only abstractions but have real, lived consequences in our daily lives (Hobson, 2010). “dreams provide us with insight about what’s preoccupying us, troubling us, engaging our thoughts and emotions. Often healing, often mysterious, always fascinating, dreams can both shape us and show us who we are” (Breus, 2015). Dreams can show us who we are. They can expose us to our most vulnerable. The dream of drowning was a necessary nightmare for me that was waiting to be realized. And in another way, it is important for us to consider how to survive in the year 2017 with compassion and dignity, to expose the many ways in which the dreams of some are built on the nightmarish realities of others.

Collectively, we are witness to atrocious levels of violence on a daily basis, in its balanity, as a permanent feature of our lives, and sadly, in order to survive, many of us believe that we must distance ourselves. But dreams have something important to teach us. As dreams connect the past and present for futures, so to do we hold in our existence, genealogies. Dreams, both imagined and lived, in their multiplicity and diversity, implicate historical genealogies that undergird contemporary, present, lived realities, and these shape the possibilities for futures. Perhaps, we must accept the painful anxieties, which torment us as part of a process of both implicating ourselves in the atrocities of today, and simultaneously understanding our pain as part of our journeys, as part of the genealogies, which accompany us, and as apart of the journeys that may heal us.

And to those breathes…whose count I can not stopping keeping. the weight of which feels impossible to escape. thank you. for the reminder of the burden and blessing. Of the dreams which we must be held to account and for the breathes without which we can could not exist.

And so, as the innocent rhyme shows us,

ALLOW YOURSELF TO FEEL.

PUSH YOURSELF TO DEAL. 

WORK TOWARDS BEING ABLE TO HEAL. 

But don’t forget that sometimes you must also,

CELEBRATE MOMENTS WHERE YOU HEAL.

EMBRACE WHAT IT MEANS AND JUST FEEL.

AND WITH THAT STRENGTH, MOVE TO DEAL.

And one day,

ONCE WE DEAL.AND COLLECTIVELY HEAL.

WE JUST MIGHT FINALLY FEEL OUR DREAMS COMING TRUE.

But, we will be written into history one way or another, so in order to survive the year 2017, we must remember…

“The truthfulness of dreams is related to the dreamer”.

 Coming next… “A significant thing: it is not the head of a civilization that begins to rot first. It is the heart” (Cesaire, 1955).

The post How to Survive in the Year 2017 appeared first on Drowning in Dreams.

I meant to go somewhere else a few weeks ago. I thought I knew the direction I was going, but life took me down an unanticipated path. I imagined that I would be able to present a less dramatic tale that considered the power and impact of dreaming. I imagined that I would be writing about the irony of drowning in dreams, which is thought to represent a ‘spiritual rebirth’. Instead, the wind grew stronger and the waves got bigger and I once again found myself drowning, but this time…he was there, asking for my hand, and I could not help him. I will eventually get to the other place I intended to go. But for now, it is important to stop here and realize for a little while. Follow this detour and the reflections it induced.

Dear D.A.D.,

I begin this in the name of love, and love alone.

I am sorry. I am so incredibly sorry.

Something appeared to me a few weeks ago. It presented itself as a ‘choice’. It seemed as if there was a decision that had to be made. The presenter of said ‘choice’ asked it in the form of a question, so there began the confusion.

 “Are you going to come?” She said very matter of fact.

When I hesitated, she barked,

“Is there anyone else?”

I was in shock. I could barely get the words out,

 “No… no there is not. It’s only me”.

She didn’t have to let us see you. She didn’t need to let us love you. She could have made us hate you. But she took us to you. I am not sure what she really felt but I know that she always told me the same words, “He is still your father. He still loves you”. She never ever doubted it, and because of that, neither did I. We watched you rebuild a life over and over again. We always knew when you started again. We imagined how hard you were trying. We watched you build it slowly, piece by piece. And then… we watched it all crumble…. again and again…and again. Even when we would see you, I was always on the lookout.  I knew the signs. The slurring. The changes in tone. The quiet breaks where you would disappear for a moment. The anger. I never gave you space to realize your mistakes because I acted before you could hurt yourself by mistakenly putting us in danger. I could never be relaxed. I was never just a child. I was always anticipating. I was always waiting for it and sadly, it always came.  

“Mama, can you come pick us up. It’s time”.

Before I got the call, I thought myself getting Stronger. Braver. Healing. And that is still very much true, but this phone call challenged that. In an instant I was drowning again and my world was filling with darkness. How can someone command so much power over you? The harsh reality pushed me back under. As the waves came crashing over me, my head reached out for a breath and I was pushed back down again.

It was not a choice. She presented in front of me what deceivingly seemed as a question, but no options were given.

The officer described the living conditions as uninhabitable. “The stench of urine, alcohol and rotting garbage was so strong that we could not enter the room. Cockroaches were so pronounced that no space on the floor or walls could be found without. He was heavily intoxicated and could not stand. He has no recollection of the events that transpired”. And so they say, “He has no memory. This is not the place for him. He needs family. He needs someone to care for him”. They attempt to induce guilt, but they fail acknowledge that the system is broken and needs serious changes.  We need transitional support for those who want it.  Hospitals and jails cannot be the only options. 

As the waves come crashing over you for the moment that you are under, the weight of it all pushes you so far down that the beauty of feeling nothing tempts you to just give in, but then simultaneously, it pushes you towards the shore and you remember again that you must persist.

You must survive. Instinctually. But also consciously. You deserve to exist.

At this point in my life, I am not even trying to get to the shore. I just want to be able to tread water for long enough to not to go under.

I looked up towards the sky for the answer.

I searched for the meaning. For an explanation.

Why is this happening? Why does it have to be so? Why is all of the weight coming down on me now? It was two days before the first birthday of my son, which was marking a significant milestone for me. A year of so many realizations. A year of painful awakenings. What should I do? What choice do I make? Do I go? There must be a reason for this I thought. What does it mean? Why now? Why in this way?

Please God, give me the answer.

“He is your dad right?” She said mockingly.

“So you are not coming then?”

I searched and asked and prayed. And then, I finally realized it. Choice implies an option. And without that, it ceases to be a choice. It only is, as it is. This was not about choosing, but about facing the reality that I have been fearing all along. The necessity. The need for survival. So the real question is not, will I be there, but would I let you use me to keep yourself afloat? Sink or swim to save myself. The illusion of choice presents it as if it is you or me, but it is not. It would be both of us. Using myself to save you doesn’t help us. It doesn’t save you the way ‘choice’ suggests. It actually just replaces you or me with both of us… and then there is nothing.

I remember the first time I saw you after so many years. It was at the funeral of your brother, your partner in addiction and suffering, your only friend. I searched the rows for your face the way I remembered it. It had been so long. Suddenly, my mom nudged me and said, “He’s there. Do you see him?”. I looked ahead but could not find you. I was so confused. Where were you? And then it happened. Our eyes met. It was so shocking that I gasped. You were a shell of a person. An emaciated body with a dark cloud hanging over your head, tears welled up in your eyes as you caught my glance. I could hardly breathe from the overwhelming tears pouring from my eyes. You were nothing of what I remembered.  You were barely there. Completely broken. Physically maligned and emotionally drained. Afterwards you walked over, ever so slowly and reached out with your hands… head down… and we cried awhile. 

I have so many memories… Of broken down windows and doors. Of packing up quietly and trying to leave in the middle of the night. Of scarred wrists and desperate performances. Of broken noses and bruises. Of cockroaches and landlord disputes. Of trepidation towards police and fed up doctors. Of packing up and setting up. Of hoarding and purging. Of losing it all and helping you find it again. Of fighting for you. Of feeding you. Of calling you. Of listening to you. Of turning my back on you. Of crying with you. Of laughing with you.

Somewhere I know that you would not want me to sacrifice myself. Somewhere I have to believe that you want more for me. I have to tell myself you are hurting. It is like the wounded animal, who when approached by what may be a helping hand, may attack in defence. You are afraid, you think you need someone to do this for you, but you will only hurt me and in turn harm yourself further. 

“You should come see him”, said the nurse. “He would really like it if you could bring him some hot food…”

I will never forget the day I came to visit you at the hospital. I was so afraid. You begin by picking up the phone beside heavily locked doors. The nurse asks who you are here to see and informs you that you will be met at the end of the hall by a security guard who will escort you into the facility. Inside it was both loud and eerily quiet. I walked past the nursing station and turned in my bag. She rummaged through the bag and took out the plastic cutlery, leaving me with the styrofoam box of food and a few napkins. I walked to the entry of your door and saw the figure of a person laying in the fetal position, crying softly with only a thin sheet coving a blue hospital gown. “Dad” I said timidly. You did not even turn around. You stayed lying there until I approached you and put my hand on your shoulder. “Dad. It’s me”. You turned around slowing…crying faintly… to face me. “How are you?” I asked. “Beta. I am not okay”. “It’s okay Dad. I am here now”. What that must have meant for you then I cannot even begin to understand. To know you are not alone in the darkest of your days…in the most isolated and sad moment, to feel the warmth of a familiar presence. “I am hungry. They only have cold garbage they give you”. We sat while you took slow bites of the hot food I brought you until a loud alarm sounded and the doors locked behind us. I went to the small window of the heavy metal door to see a rush of nurses and security guards going to the room next door. When I left you that day my heart was heavy. Was this the place for you? I didn’t think so… but what was the right place? I fought for you to get help there, to get support. But like I said, the system is broken, and so you and me were back on our own in a few days. The day I picked you up, you had only a bag with old clothes soaked in urine and the bus ticket they gave you. I remember thinking, “Really world? We can do better. We must. This cannot be all we have to offer the people who need our help the most. A bus ticket.”

I continuously tell myself that the only way I can be satisfied is by knowing that I have done as much as I could possibly do. That is supposed to make it okay. It has to be enough.

But it never ends there.

“It is not my job to convince you” she exclaimed.

“He is your Dad right?”

Yes. He is my Dad.

Yes. He has no one except for me.

And no, my heart is not black.

I am sorry. I am grieving. It is pouring out of my eyes. It is suffocating my breath.

It will not go. It will not fade. It remains.

But I can not go with you this time, as much as I want to.

As much as it hurts.

As much as I wish.

As much as I dream.

For the first time in my life I am truly at a crossroads where I know that I have no choice. This is a matter of survival and there is only one path left to take.

I have to decide to live…even if it means that you may not…

There is something about loss that will never make the pain any less. The event, experience, memory, or person. It does not get easier. You just find new ways to exist. You just hope to get stronger. You cannot pray for it to fade, for it to disappear, for it to just stop. It never stops. It never leaves you.

But somewhere you have to believe and trust that You deserve to survive.

That you deserve to not go under.

It was August 2010, the day before you were leaving to go ‘back home’.   I took you to Swiss Chalet. We were greeted, seated and approached for our order.  You did not look him in the eye. You kept saying what a nice, ‘fancy’ restaurant it was. You were embarrassed and anxious, but also thrilled. I realized in that moment that you had likely never been to a sit down restaurant like this before. It was so unfamiliar to you. You live in your own poverty ridden, isolated and lonely world. The only thing you hold on to is your memories, and even those are barely there anymore. So if your memories are slipping away, then all you have to hold on to is loss. Of possibilities passed. I wonder if you ever dream anymore? I don’t think you can. But, you do not have nothing. You have regret. pain. suffering. Much more than any one person can, or should bear. After we left the restaurant we were driving and a song came on. You started to cry. I did not understand the words then but I could feel how sad and beautiful the song was…“Kabhi alvida naa kehna” . 

This is the song that played…and not by coincidence.

Kabhi alvida naa kehna/Never say goodbye

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NwClbGLT3E

 chalte chalte mere ye geet yaad rakhna /While walking remember this song of mine

kabhi alwida na kehna / Never say goodbye

rote hanste bas yoon hi tum gungunate rehna/ Crying or laughing, keep humming like this

kabhi alwida na kehna/ Never say goodbye

beech raah mein dilbar bichhad jayen kahin hum agar/ If we ever get parted from each other in the middle of a path, my sweetheart 

aur sooni si lage tumhe jeevan ki yeh dagar/ You will find that the path/road of life is more lonely/empty

hum laut aayenge tum yoon hi bulate rehna/ If you keep calling me like this, I will come back

kabhi alvida naa kehna/ Never say goodbye

“Honestly. You are either coming or your not. Court is a busy place. I have ten other people to call.” 

I could not even speak. I could barely hear anything over my breaking heart. I was reminded in that moment of the reality of a drowning person. When you are told never to approach the person in the water without something for them to hold on to because if you put out your hand they will use you to stay afloat, they will do whatever it takes. It will not be a choice. It will just happen out of instinct, out of the necessity for survival.

The following is an excerpt from a letter I wrote you that day in 2010, after dinner. In a sense I have been writing this letter to you for my entire life. So much was there but I could not see it then, and surely there is so much more I will realize later. 

Dear D.A.D. 

I can’t even call you Dad because I feel guilty for allowing myself to love you. 

The one who I am being protected from. The one I am not supposed to love. The one I am supposed to hate. But the one I love so much. You are leaving tomorrow and I am not sure how to feel. 

My immediate feelings are sadness. I thought I would feel relief. But I feel sadness. Not just for your departure in this moment, but for a lifetime of feeling the pain of goodbye. I was never able to let go of you, or forget the feeling of love that I know you have for me deep in your heart. Even if your actions have not always shown this, I know that your life is full of losses. And losing us if your greatest loss. 

It will always haunt your life, just as you haunt me. 

Now I feel I have felt your heart as my own. I am a deeply affected person. I feel feelings intensely. Sadness deeply, love infinitely and unconditionally. And while the power of evil in this world is strong, love is always stronger. So much so that despite it all, I still love you. Your life has lasted longer than anyone could expect, and I often feel that your life has been prolonged so that you might feel the pain that you caused others. Death would be too easy. But I can’t help feeling sadness for your sickness, your struggles, your pain. It brings me back to you every time…Sadder still is that the poisons you have consumed, have consumed you and have overwhelmed your spirit. I don’t know if you really understand what you have done. Maybe you don’t remember. Maybe you do. Maybe you can’t. Sometimes we have to find ways to exist and we might consider, what would it mean to really accept the weight of all you have done? You would surely drown from all of those tears… I doubt you could  face it all… I hope that you know that I have done everything I could do to help you, with all of my love and all of my strength. I finally feel as though I have done everything I could… I can never say goodbye.  No one will know how I feel for you.  I hope that this sadness will haunt my life. I never want to forget how this feels. To feel this guilty love… this conflicted sadness for what could have been. For what never was. For what can never be. For what was. This love is a gift, and for that, I am thankful. 

Please always remember that I am of you, and so, you will always be with/in me.  

 Please don’t ruin what life you have left, and remember… never say goodbye.

“He is still your father”

Sometimes people question why I help you. Why I have put myself in such dangerous and difficult situations.  The reason is because I always knew that you loved me, and because of the truth that I am now starting to understand. Despite how much pain you may have caused others, you have suffered more. Despite the promises you have broken, you have lost the most. And, despite the nightmares you have created, you no longer even have the capacity to dream.

Today is not easy. I want you to know that as much as I might want to drown with you, I can not. The choice is no longer as such. It is no longer simple. I am not waiting at the shore watching you struggle. I am not equipped to assist you myself. I am already in the water just trying to stay afloat.

I wish I was stronger.

A friend once told me, “you have to just ride the wave”. I have to stop fighting the current because it is a losing battle. Instead, I am trying to exist alongside it.

I must begin by acknowledging and believing that some things are deceivingly presented as a choice even when there is no option. So often, you find yourself endlessly searching for meaning in an attempt to explain away the pain. But this is a moment of realization. There is no simple or easy way to face it. Some things just do not have a clear explanation and that has to be okay.

There is nothing left for me to do. There is only space for me to know. 

realization. acceptance. being okay with trying to swim to save myself.

‘choosing’ myself.

I now have to accept the painful possibility that one day I hope to be swimming back towards the shore and I will look back on you. struggling. maybe drowning. and that will have to be okay.

Please know that even though this is not a choice, it is no less painful.

So Dad. I end this in the name of love, and love alone. I am sorry. I am so incredibly sorry.

“You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have” (B. Marley)

Never say goodbye.

*** Writing often involves much more than just words. #respecttheprocess ***

*HBD to mother. Dedicated to the women who let me love you, despite it all. There truly is no one more selfless. There is no trace of hate in your heart, only love.* 

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