There’s No Poetry Here

There are times in your life when you can do nothing in the face of pain but laugh. And there are also times when the bravest thing you can do is stare at pain and see it exactly as it is, and know that there will never be anything to make it better.

I visited a concentration camp last week.

I knew it would be bad. You don’t have to think and struggle with the concept of going in there and knowing that you will be shocked into silence, and will not be able to leave without feeling like a little piece of you died in there in memory of what happened. This is perfectly natural, and healthy even, to see such horrors and feel like you need to go home and scrub off whatever just shrouded you in darkness. It’s not unusual to be standing in the middle of those places and not want to move, not want to breathe, for fear of touching what they touched, breathing where they breathed, and disturbing their memories with your modernity and desensitized touch. For the first few minutes, you believe that you have been prepared enough by school and those documentaries about World War 2 that every dad watches, to understand what you are about to see. You let yourself be comforted by the knowledge that whatever despicable people made this happen, they received justice in the end.

This does not last.

I don’t regret going. Genuinely. What I do regret is every moment when I would take my own happiness for granted, as though it is a basic human right to be comfortable, and that that right will never been impeded on by other people. The entire tour reminded me of the nightmares I had when I was smaller; how sometimes I would be awake enough to look around at the fear and think to myself, “it’s okay, it’s not going to hurt me, not really. I get to leave”. But then, how could I justify that to everyone who wasn’t able to leave?

This entry was written in two parts. The first part was before. The second part is now. 

It had been half a day since we left, and since I wrote the first part of this entry, and I felt better. Not completely better, just yet. Imagine those syringes you used to have to fill up with medicine when you were a kid and you were sick, and it’s completely full of medicine. I felt like that when I first left the camp, only the medicine wasn’t medicine, it was a desperate need to understand what all I just saw. 

After I wrote that first part, I could squeeze the syringe a little, and now most of the medicine is out. There is still some I need to get out, but it isn’t so much that my stomach twists at the thought of swallowing so much discomfort. I am slowly feeling better.

That night was dotted with light and laughter and warmth, and yet in the back of my vision, almost out of sight but never quite, loomed the darkness of what could be. People could be despicable, the world could be cruel. My first instinct was to curl into a ball and accept my fate as someone who just couldn’t handle it (life I mean), until I remembered a piece of writing that was in the museum, on a wall next to a drawing one of the survivors had made in memory of his pain. It was talking about how the prisoners would always pause to enjoy the beauty of nature in the middle of their suffering, because that was the only real beauty they had left in their lives. 

No matter where you are or what you’re doing, an alternate reality will follow. Whether you’re trying to have a drink with your friends and suddenly are confronted with an endless history of everything bad that has ever happened, or whether you are in that badness right now, and only have the birds and their song to keep you company. It is not in our job description to decipher which moment we are in. It is our hope to see what reality is brightest, and to run towards it without inhibitions. I am not smart enough to tell you if that will lead to good results, but hey, it’s worth a try.

So try. For everyone who couldn’t. Don’t trick yourself into believing that there will not be dark mixed in with the light, but understand that for however long you have it, this life could be beautiful. Whenever you can, for however long you can, make it the brightest star in the sky: fill it with love and joy and the comfort of yourself and others. Try not to let people feel like they are the only ones fighting against the evil that does come at night. And when you yourself are in your home and the lights go off and the fear stalks back into your life, know that the ones you loved will be there to fight for you this time. Light moves out in waves and bounces in every direction, so it’s impossible not to be hit with your own brilliance. 

Laugh at the pain when you need, and stare it down when it does not shrink. Listen to the birdsong, when you need, and until then, know that at least one person loves you with a heart that knows just how dangerous that can be, and does not care.