“Joy as resistance?”
I’m wrestling with this concept. Everybody’s saying it. Does that make it true? Does that make it right?
Once upon a time, in my thirties, I wrote the beginnings of a memoir. Mostly it was about a heartbreak of the first-cut-is-the-deepest variety. I vaguely remember one sentence said something along the lines of … “I was afraid to cry, because I knew if I did, the tears would not stop, they would flood the house, bust the windows, flow down the block and out to sea.”
I swear it was more eloquent and writerly than that, but that was the gist.
So I wonder sometimes if joy as resistance is more like a cover. Because what if I let myself watch the videos, and I can’t stop crying. What if I’m leaning on the joy to hold myself up.
