Finding One's Voice

 By Marilyn Moore

"I am Ana.  I was the wife of Jesus of Nazareth.  I am a voice."  These are the closing sentences of Sue Mond Kidd's recent novel, The Book of Longings.  You may have stopped for a moment at Ana's identification of herself as the wife of Jesus of Nazareth, as that's a picture that most of us don't have.  That's what novelists get to do.  But the book is much more about Ana as a young woman, and then a maturing woman who persists in developing her voice, and who resists all societal and governmental and religious efforts to quiet her voice.  At the end, she asserts that she is a voice.

That's a powerful statement for a woman of any age or station in life to have made in the Greek and Roman and Egyptian empires some 2000 years ago...and frankly, it's a powerful statement for women to make today.  I've been thinking a lot about voice, finding ones' voice, speaking once's voice, in the past several months, and especially this first month of 2021.  I read Ana's story as my first book of this year, and her story and those words have lived with me since then.

It's one of those things that once lodged in my brain just jumps out at me everywhere.  Subsequent books in January were about voice - or at least, that's the lens through which I read them.  One Person No Vote by Carol Anderson is about voter suppression, the very real action of denying citizens' voices in this country's governance.  Anxious People by Fredrik Backman is a story of many layers and complications....I read it as the bank robber's search for voice, and the banker's search for voice, and the psychologist and the widow and the police officer, and, well, you get it.  The Home Place by Drew Lanham is the narrative of an African American naturalist and birder, uncommon roles for African Americans, and his efforts to find and speak his voice, bringing together race and identity in the outdoors.  And That's the Way It Always Is, by Laurie Frankel....the story of Claude, who becomes Poppy, finding his voice and becoming her voice, while yet a child.  For courage when speaking my voice, I'm reminded of this advice from Ruth Bader Ginsberg, "Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes."  I think all the characters in the books that I've cited experienced shaking voices, but they spoke, anyway.  And in so doing, they claimed their voice, and their story.

The whole nation, and much of the world, heard the voice of Amanda Gorman, speaking truth and power on Inauguration Day in "The Hill We Climb."  Those wonderful closing lines, "For there is always light...If only we are brave enough to be it."  That is voice, found and spoken.  As we heard her words, then learned more about her, we knew of her persistence in finding her voice and speaking her voice...and the world is richer for it.  I remembered the story of Maya Angelou, finding her voice after silencing herself at an early age in the aftermath of trauma.  I think of others who may have also silenced themselves, or who were silenced by the times or circumstances in which they lived, and who were never able to speak their own voice.

I frequently hear leaders and writers talk about speaking for those who have no voice.  I have said that, when speaking for care and support for young children or for education for immigrant and refugee students, for food and shelter for those who are hungry and homeless.  My intention was noble, I believe, trying to use a platform or a microphone or a situation to advocate for persons who are often not heard.  Perhaps more noble, however, would be to work for changes in systems so that all voices are heard directly, so no one has to depend on others to speak for them, so that all, like Ana, may say with confidence and conviction, "I am a voice."

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Why is Gilligan lurking in my COVID dreamland?

By Mary Kay Roth

First, I need to make something crystal clear: I never really liked the TV show, Gilligan’s Island.  Nonetheless, over the past ten months I’ve been meeting up with the S.S. Minnow castaways in my once-peaceful slumberland, always hearing the infamous theme music jangling in the background (“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip…”) 

My first shipwrecked dream involved the Howes, “The Millionaires,” demonstrating the proper way to set a fancy table – as I dropped and broke nearly all the coconut dinner dishes. Another dream starred The Skipper, spinning me around as we danced a waltz on the beach. In my latest midnight adventure, I bounded into the ocean to save a drowning Gilligan, but the waves were made of green Jell-O and I couldn’t manage to paddle through the muck.  

Eventually, of course, I wake up bewildered and puzzled over why dreamland has – once again – shipped me off to Gilligan’s Isle. Do I feel hopelessly marooned?  Am I feeling desolate and lonely, lusting after The Professor?  Perhaps the pandemic has left me just plain nuts. 

I definitely know I’m not alone in my late-night meanderings. COVID-19 has apparently invaded our dreamscape as well as our landscape, impacting how much we dream, how many of our dreams we remember and the nature of our dreams themselves.

One of my friends shared this recurring plot line for her lockdown dreams: “My mask keeps morphing into odd things like animals, pet's paws or flowers – or it just dissolves off my face. Strangely, it never feels threatening, just odd.”

Another friend’s story:  “In my creepiest dream, I am on a flight headed to Saturn, or Jupiter, somewhere in the galaxy, but the spaceship is filled with zombies.  I don’t remember feeling afraid.  I just figure everyone else on Earth has died.”

In fact, well over 400,000 people in the United States have now died of COVID-19, almost 2,000 in Nebraska.  So, perhaps, it’s no wonder our brains are scrambled and the sandman is leading us to the strangest of places.  

A few more dream tales from friends:

• “Since I live alone, I’ve gotten into the habit of watching TV while I eat dinner.  What I’ve realized is that I have been dreaming about the people in the television shows… using them as family substitutes. That seems crazy, but they are the people most in my life right now.”
• “My worst nightmares are related to loved ones and dear friends who are dying alone in the hospital … or are whisked away in the ambulance … and not knowing whether I will ever see them again.”
• “I have a repeating dream about ants crawling all over me … and I wake up, trying to swipe them off my body. I read somewhere that since the coronavirus is often referred to as a ‘bug,’ lots of people are dreaming about bugs. I don’t know, makes sense, sort of.” 

Makes as much sense as anything else right now. Apparently, when stay-at-home directives were first put in place last year, society quite unexpectedly experienced a dream surge: a global increase in the reporting of vivid, bizarre dreams.

One explanation from researchers is that many of us are now homebound, resulting in changed schedules and often lengthier snoozes. Since dreaming generally occurs during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – most often timed during the second half of the night – the longer a person remains asleep, the more likely they will have longer and more vibrant dreams.

Another explanation is simpler: Because life in the time of corona is largely one endless panic attack, it logically follows that our dreams are a reflection of that chaos. Indeed, many people I asked had experienced nocturnal narratives directly related to COVID. 

• “I dreamed I was waiting in line for a vaccine, waiting and waiting.  And when it was finally my turn, they ran out of doses – and told me to come back another time. I was devastated.” 
• “I’ve had a couple of dreams where my surroundings are under a UV light that shows any COVID lingering in the air and on surfaces. Depending on what's going on in my life (or mind), it’s either a nightmare that shows COVID is everywhere – or a dream that provides relief because I am able to see and avoid any COVID.” 
• “I keep dreaming that I forget my mask and feel as naked as I would without clothes.” 

Personally, my only dream during the pandemic – that was specifically about COVID – was just as strange as my other ones. In a very weird storyline, I was having dinner with a guy who kept snarfing down snacks – mountains of snacks. When I finally asked what was wrong, he revealed he was pregnant and explained he was involved in research to see how the vaccine might impact pregnancy.

Yikes, I’m in dire need of slumber salvation soon – and counting on a rescue from that very vaccination. My daughter is a Lincoln nurse who had her second dose earlier this week. And when my turn comes, I’ll roll up my sleeve (my daughter says offer the dominant arm) and do my civic and public health duty. I’m keeping the faith it will also vaccinate against nightmares.

Meanwhile, I am heartened by one more dream I had – a modest dream – a dream that a wise, compassionate man was elected President and immediately began developing a solid, scientific and reasonable plan to address this nightmarish pandemic.

Sounds far-fetched, I know.  Still, I can tell you this: Since Wednesday, Inauguration Day, I’ve slept like a baby – not a single castaway in sight.   

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WANTING A DIFFERENT THEME

by Mary Reiman

I had great plans. I was going to have a new theme for my 2021 maven posts. It was going to take a different twist. I would write about all the words and phrases I'm going to focus on this year. I love words and definitions, and this year's writings would be framed in a lighter tone, because we deserve a lighter tone. And then Wednesday happened...and although I don't have time for this...I really don't...I realized it must be addressed before I can move forward. 

I still can't articulate my thoughts other than the three words I  shared several times in 2020: a moral compass. A need for it, the importance of it, especially for our politicians, and being appalled (yes, truly appalled) by the actions of our president. That's the president of our nation, not the president of a bank. He can be the president of a bank because I can choose not to share my funds with his bank. But inciting violence because he did not win the election. I can't wrap my head around that behavior. I can find no words to explain or understand that action. 

I'm guessing the president might say I may choose to move to another country if I don't agree with his agenda. But I am a citizen of this democracy and I have a right to live in this country and have my vote count, as does everyone in the United States. And on Wednesday afternoon we had the right to hear, peacefully hear, the final results of a fair election.

So there. I did what I was not going to do. I addressed this sadness from the week because it's hard to get those images out of my head. I've been to the U.S. Capitol and stood in many of those spaces that were sanctimoniously desecrated. For me, being appalled has nothing to do with being a Republican or a Democrat or any other party affiliation. That's not what matters. What matters is being a good human. 

What matters is having a moral compass.