Look At Me

Last Friday, at the Look At Me opening at Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, ten veterans read their writing in front of an audience of 75.  No two stories were the same–and yet all of the stories were familiar in some way.  By naming their specific experiences of the world, they challenged any external labeling, challenged the ways they are expected to be heroes or monsters.  They exposed themselves to be people, complex and varied, flawed and gleaming with beauty.  Telling our individual truths may be the simplest and most formidable act of resistance available to us.

We each have the right to define ourselves.  It’s something that most of us struggle with continually–there are certain ways we are told we are supposed to feel and behave based on our gender, the color of our skin, the places we have been, the things we have survived.  Equally stifling–and perhaps more difficult to overcome–there are the ways we want to feel and behave based on who we think we should be or wish we were, or on a version of ourselves that we’ve grown used to but ultimately have grown out of.  It takes a really conscious effort to separate the things we believe we are supposed to feel from the things we actually feel.  And when we take the time to sift through and find the truth, it can be jarring.  It is almost always a call to action.

If you missed the opening, there’s artwork on display, including a multimedia presentation of poetry films, until July 27th.  Go check it out.