I spent a lot of time weeping this week. Apparently when oxygen is not flowing to your brain because you’ve been holding your breath, as I had been since Wednesday January 6th, the in-and-outtake of air begets big emotion. (I mean, honestly, I’ve been breathing pretty shallow for the sake of humanity since January 20, 2017, but that’s no surprise to anyone who knows me or has shared in the sense of emotional WTF-could-he-possibly-say/do/bully/defile-next defensive crouch we’ve been living with since January 2017.) Sooo, as soon as the door opened on Lady Gaga coming down the Capitol steps to sing “The National Anthem” on the morning of January 20, my breath caught and I just knew I’d be ugly-crying in relief and happiness within seconds. Then, when she dipped the note and swept her hand back toward the Capitol flags during “…that our flag was still there” I was a goner. By the time my new in-awe-of person, Amanda Gorman, stepped up to the podium and spoke her poem “The Hill We Climb,” I might have been a puddle on the floor. And I’m not gonna lie, I’ve watched and re-watched her speak a half-dozen times, including this Ted Talk. I’ve also learned a bit more about her in general, which has grown my astonishment exponentially.

Ultimately, what I loved about Inaugural Wednesday 2021 was the power of voices, of words, how we honor them and the people who speak them. Also the fierce unyielding power of women (but more about that later). And while there’s no doubt at all about how much work needs doing, if I’ve learned anything from the last four years, it’s to not take anything for granted. A silver lining: because of the emotional cruelty delivered by the last administration, I started supporting people and organizations beyond lip-service because I had to do something. I felt impotent watching families separated at airports in the first month, kids put in cages soon after, white Supremacists emboldened in Virginia and elsewhere throughout, and on (and on). So where before I lifted up causes and groups in a “you’re great, I believe in you, please carry on” kind of way, I was spurred on to spend more time, money, and attention because of T’s administration.

Feeling the deep despair I did after that election, I became involved with Girls Write Now because I knew without a doubt that these were the voices who would be speaking far into a future where I no longer existed. I didn’t know what to do with the fear and cynicism that had crept into my soul and while I didn’t want to lay that at the feet of the high school girls in the program, I selfishly wanted to see what they might have in mind to get us through the next years. Sure, I was brought on board as a mentor, a noun that according to Merriam Webster means “tutor/coach/trusted counselor or guide” but I gotta say that in the two years I spent with the young woman I’ll call A., she guided me as equally as I her. We explored our fear together. It was real and palpable and wanted owning. There is never a place for darkness to be hidden and we were lucky enough to bring it out, cut it open, marvel at its smallness and hugeness, then we washed with some light in the form of words. Drip-dried and started again. I was also able to understand that cynicism is an old game, and I’m not talking about age, I’m talking about attitude. Cynicism is poison because it’s an emotional shrug. The inner version of whatever. A giving up because there’s fear of going deeper. A refusal to do the work to see something differently that will open up some emotion. I found that out because by being around A. I saw that it was a fool’s game I played by slipping into the cynicism pool. It was not helpful to her or me and that meant neither of us could move forward. How can you talk about the future if you already think the future is doomed? I couldn’t sit with her, listen to her, and hope for any amount of joy in her future if I thought it was all darkness and damned. She didn’t want that and even in the challenges she’d been through, there was a movement toward personal and collective agency she absolutely expected to happen. She’d gone through middle and high school doing active shooter drills. She learned how the earth would be altered drastically, horribly by the time she reached my age if huge measures weren’t taken now. At one of our sessions I actually apologized for the mess that my and past generations had made for her and hers. She laughed, then said something to the effect of “Yeah, thanks for that, but we’re smart, we’ve got this. We have to.” Broke my heart.

Amanda Gorman was a part of a similar Los Angeles–based group called WriteGirl and as I listened to an interview with her mentor, I heard the same sense of respect and role-sharing. The she-got- something-from-me-and-I-from-her mentality. These are our ladies of the future. And on the Inaugural dais last Wednesday, the women did shine. The different generations taking my breath away. I’m all for the men accompanying those fierce women, but that’s not where I’m shining the light in this piece. There is the most fantastic essay in the NYTimes, “What Is a Teenage Girl?”. In it, the writer Samantha Hunt just aces it. Gets to the heart of the feeling, or rather, Feeling with a capital F. Why that emotion has been so shamed in the teenage girl. I won’t do any summation justice here. Just please to click on the link and read it! But I will quote one line: “Feeling things is an act of bravery.” And to that I say yes, I’ll keep trying to do that. I’ll not hide the tears of relief and the hope for what comes. The grit of work yet to do and the need to keep coming back, away from the abyss of cynicism. There’s no doubt I’ll be returning to the words of inspired young women whose bravery in being is ongoing and that I need to be active in supporting. In that, there is no question.