This is terrific, Robin. And I appreciate the way your narrate your own budding understanding, starting with a 7-year old imagining the president was receiving his innoculations.
That budding understanding really wasn't an imagining--at that age, it was an indelible memory of how I understood what I was hearing in that moment. All of us of a certain age have in common an answer to this question: Where were you when Kennedy was shot?
It was in the zeitgeist in a way our more complicated and fractured social and media landscape today does not replicate. And where there are too many daily earth-shattering events to remember in ways shared mouth-to-mouth.
Robin, thank you for sharing this powerful prose-poem here. I registered each one of the shocks as I was going through your timeline--and realizing that each tragedy has lodged somewhere deep inside of me, the memory held in my body, my dream-life, sub-consciousness--each tremor, each quake, informing me on how to approach my own relationship with vulnerability and art, how to think about geopolitics, how to manage loss and grieving. But your last line here haunts me still: "Guess I’m too old to be stunned any more. Just counting shots in the dark"
I'm recalling the last years I taught in Chicago at the university--it was nearly impossible to talk about the unrest in the world with students, to make sense of it, process it, let alone have a dialogue about it. But what I realized too was that most of my students (along with myself to a degree) had become "shocknumb"--nothing was reaching the level of being "stunned" anymore, the atrocities and violence had sadly become "normalized" and somewhat "routine".
I have always stood for peace and compassionate negotiations--and I've never been able to hold a thought of unrest or violence for too long. But what is happening now to us as a whole--as humanity-- if we are all "counting shots in the dark"--
I don't have an answer but I refuse to give up. I believe we all show up here on Subtack to make something beautiful in the world. Robin you continue to inspire me to always go deeper and to find the stamina, and joyful purpose, in standing up for beauty, for family, for nature and for testifying to resilience and love. Thank you for sharing this incredibe piece.
You've moved me to tears, Gerry. For taking the memory in deeply and holding it. For being willing to open up to vulnerability. For trying to make sense of it with your students.
I don't have any answers either, but I keep asking questions. Once upon a time I worked for a government contractor for an NIH client who once and only once took me out to lunch. She said: "The client says you're too curious and ask too many questions."
I was stunned (again, that word!) and couldn't help but wonder: When did that get to be a bad thing?
For the rest of my tenure with the contractor and the client I had to button my lips and will myself not to question. In group meetings, I asked a sympathetic co-worker to kick me under the table if she saw me ready to ask.
To be "shocknumb" was excruciating.
So I will say, for myself anyway, I have no choice but to stand up for beauty, family, nature, resilience, love and memory. It is the only way I know how to survive in this world, even when it gets me in trouble!
Wow! This left me breathless, Robin! Your words carry the weight of time with such clarity and grace, woven with memory, motherhood and the quiet ache of witnessing history repeat itself. Thank you so much for bearing witness, for threading your personal stories through the seismic ones, and for reminding me that even in shock, there’s still space for reflection and deep meaning.
My heart sank when I heard that America had bombed Iran last weekend. I kept asking myself, but what do the American people think about this? What might the repercussions be for them, for all of us. "Shots and shocks over a lifetime" says it all. Thanks again for holding space for those still reeling in shock all these days, weeks, months, years, even decades on.
I know--such a feeling of deja vu. Where does it all end? Brings to mind Rabbi Hillel's famous quote: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”
That last question especially keeps ringing in my ears: If we don't end this seemingly endless turn and return to violence to solve humanity's problems now, then when?
A paradox in these horrific events is that they give us shared memories and thus bring us together. Thank you for your moving poem, Robin. The future generations need us to be poets, activists, earth defenders, and peacekeepers. I love the tree of life in your photograph.
This is terrific, Robin. And I appreciate the way your narrate your own budding understanding, starting with a 7-year old imagining the president was receiving his innoculations.
Thank you, Jeremy.
That budding understanding really wasn't an imagining--at that age, it was an indelible memory of how I understood what I was hearing in that moment. All of us of a certain age have in common an answer to this question: Where were you when Kennedy was shot?
It was in the zeitgeist in a way our more complicated and fractured social and media landscape today does not replicate. And where there are too many daily earth-shattering events to remember in ways shared mouth-to-mouth.
Robin, thank you for sharing this powerful prose-poem here. I registered each one of the shocks as I was going through your timeline--and realizing that each tragedy has lodged somewhere deep inside of me, the memory held in my body, my dream-life, sub-consciousness--each tremor, each quake, informing me on how to approach my own relationship with vulnerability and art, how to think about geopolitics, how to manage loss and grieving. But your last line here haunts me still: "Guess I’m too old to be stunned any more. Just counting shots in the dark"
I'm recalling the last years I taught in Chicago at the university--it was nearly impossible to talk about the unrest in the world with students, to make sense of it, process it, let alone have a dialogue about it. But what I realized too was that most of my students (along with myself to a degree) had become "shocknumb"--nothing was reaching the level of being "stunned" anymore, the atrocities and violence had sadly become "normalized" and somewhat "routine".
I have always stood for peace and compassionate negotiations--and I've never been able to hold a thought of unrest or violence for too long. But what is happening now to us as a whole--as humanity-- if we are all "counting shots in the dark"--
I don't have an answer but I refuse to give up. I believe we all show up here on Subtack to make something beautiful in the world. Robin you continue to inspire me to always go deeper and to find the stamina, and joyful purpose, in standing up for beauty, for family, for nature and for testifying to resilience and love. Thank you for sharing this incredibe piece.
You've moved me to tears, Gerry. For taking the memory in deeply and holding it. For being willing to open up to vulnerability. For trying to make sense of it with your students.
I don't have any answers either, but I keep asking questions. Once upon a time I worked for a government contractor for an NIH client who once and only once took me out to lunch. She said: "The client says you're too curious and ask too many questions."
I was stunned (again, that word!) and couldn't help but wonder: When did that get to be a bad thing?
For the rest of my tenure with the contractor and the client I had to button my lips and will myself not to question. In group meetings, I asked a sympathetic co-worker to kick me under the table if she saw me ready to ask.
To be "shocknumb" was excruciating.
So I will say, for myself anyway, I have no choice but to stand up for beauty, family, nature, resilience, love and memory. It is the only way I know how to survive in this world, even when it gets me in trouble!
Wow! This left me breathless, Robin! Your words carry the weight of time with such clarity and grace, woven with memory, motherhood and the quiet ache of witnessing history repeat itself. Thank you so much for bearing witness, for threading your personal stories through the seismic ones, and for reminding me that even in shock, there’s still space for reflection and deep meaning.
My heart sank when I heard that America had bombed Iran last weekend. I kept asking myself, but what do the American people think about this? What might the repercussions be for them, for all of us. "Shots and shocks over a lifetime" says it all. Thanks again for holding space for those still reeling in shock all these days, weeks, months, years, even decades on.
Thank you, Deborah, for your kind words.
I know--such a feeling of deja vu. Where does it all end? Brings to mind Rabbi Hillel's famous quote: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”
That last question especially keeps ringing in my ears: If we don't end this seemingly endless turn and return to violence to solve humanity's problems now, then when?
This is so beautiful!
Thank you, Betsy. So glad you found it meaningful!
Powerful poem, Robin. The expression “end of innocence” comes to mind. No wonder so many of us find ourselves in mourning.
Truly, Janeane. An end of innocence. We are waking up to a new season and a new story—it is incumbent on all of us to rewrite the script.
Ooof this one I could feel to my core. Thanks for sharing…powerful.
Thank you, Makenzie
Been watching your Movement Maker stack starting to gain a foothold. Takes awhile. You're doing good stuff--keep going!
Thanks for your words of encouragement!!
A paradox in these horrific events is that they give us shared memories and thus bring us together. Thank you for your moving poem, Robin. The future generations need us to be poets, activists, earth defenders, and peacekeepers. I love the tree of life in your photograph.
Thank you for this, Robin:
"The future generations need us to be poet, activists, earth defenders and peacekeepers."
Truer words were ne'r spoken.
I'm with you in all of this.
Where’s my comment? “Your best.” ❤️
Thank you, Judy!