The Taunting Cursor

What does it mean to be human?

Photo by Maxim Kotov on Unsplash

Haunted by a blinking cursor. Seriously, that thing shows up in dreams and startles me awake. I keep half expecting to be followed around by a giant bar that just keeps taunting me. 

Such is life when I can’t get the words out. 

I’ve been staring at the screen for an exorbitant amount of time. My eyes are crossing now, which isn’t hard to do because I have astigmatism in my right eye, or at least I did when I was a kid. The dreaded continuously blinking cursor. Daring us writers to bare it all and/or make you feel something.

Every writer I know does their writing differently. Almost every writer I know can offer up advice about how to write, where to write, what to write, when to write, and why to write.

Which tells me that no one has it all figured out. Everyone just does what they want and then says it works. And little bits and pieces from all of everyone’s experiences are helpful. And what we all have in common — we want to write.

My advice to myself has always been to write what I know, but I also think I heard that from someone somewhere at some point.

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What do I know right this moment?

I’m hungry. I’m tired. And my heart aches.

I have been watching the horrors being carried out in Gaza. I move between horror stricken, numb, heart shattering pain, anger, rage, and sobs that get stuck in my throat. My husband worries about me, when I burst out sobbing yesterday he told me to stop watching, he couldn’t stand to see my pain. I can’t stand to see the children burned, buried, blown to bits, and shell shocked. I can’t stand to hear the mothers and fathers screaming. I couldn’t turn it off even if I wanted to, they are imbedded in my psyche. They wake me in the middle of the night.

What I know is that no one earth deserves to go through what is happening right now. This very moment as I type this refugees who were promised safety are not and have never been safe.

What I know is that neither are we.

I didn’t intend for this to come out, but I took my own advice and decided to let go.

What I know is that this world, seemingly so vast is actually quite small, we are not as separate as we’ve been led to believe. What we do, what we witness, what we are part of ripples out from wherever we are, binding us to one another. We are not separate.

I wish more of us understood this. I wish the harm doers understood this. I have had these same wishes since I was a child, watching the war unfold on my living room tv in the early 90s. I still have journal entries lamenting about things my child mind could not truly comprehend, other than that the war was over oil. My midlife mind now is trying to comprehend and I cannot. I cannot understand what these innocent children did to have such a fate.

And there is nothing anyone can say that will justify it.

What I know is that nothing is normal, and yet here I am, sitting at my desk, plunking out these words while thousands of miles away, people only want to be free.

What I know - None of us are free until we are ALL free.

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What does it mean to be human? I keep thinking about this question. I keep asking where has our humanity gone? It’s there underneath the rubble of this life. I have seen it. I keep looking for it. I am sorely missing it today.

Thanks for being here friends. Stay human. Don’t look away. Love you.