We are not done yet.

Tonight, at 8 pm We Are Not Done Yet, a documentary film about ten veterans who came together to heal through poetry, airs on HBO. I’m so so proud to have been involved with it. But this was one project, with ten veterans. It’s not the first performance we’ve done with a group of talented, motivated veterans (maybe some of you reading this remember being a part of some of those beautiful nights in the past eight years), and I promise you (and myself) it’s not the last.

At the beginning of this week, I led writing groups with 29 separate service members who are at a pivotal place, at the beginning of a lifelong journey of deep thinking and healing. Some of them read such searing, honest work that lines are still playing in my head. There were so many tears, cleansing, and heart-wrenching and difficult. Most of them haven’t ever read their work beyond the four walls of the clinic yet.

So yes, the film, directed by Sareen Hairabedian is stunning, stunning, stunning. The score, composed by Wytold, will play in your ears forever. It’s beautiful, and the stories are courageous. Jeffrey Wright is a generous, thoughtful, insightful producer and collaborator. But there’s work to be done. And I’m eager to figure out how to keep it growing. And figuring it out means lots and lots of thinking. Collaboratively and independently.

For me it also means overcoming the Who do you think you are? That comes from all corners when you are a woman, of color, with the wrong degree, doing effective things in a radical way. When people feel entitled to your time and your attention. Because we have taught people to feel this way about women, especially women of color (sorry if that hurts your feelings or offends you, but I assure you it hurts my feelings and offends me too). Today’s poem is about the answer to that question. Who do you think you are?

Indira Gandhi Speaks to Nixon
by Anne Champion

It’s unpleasant, talking to men about war—
like a visit to the gynecologist, when you want
to ask, Is there a woman I may speak to about these matters?
But I am stuck with him, quipping about
the gray streaks in my hair, joking
about Frankenstein’s bride, and I say, yes,
Mr. President, I was not made by God:
a political woman is always made by man.
Don’t think I don’t know what a man like him
says about me behind closed doors.
He’ll call me a witch, maybe worse,
but witch is my favorite. If only
I had such power—I’d curse them,
give them all vaginas and let them fumble
as they try to rule with such a handicap.
To see Nixon in a dress, his looks under careful
scrutiny, what a fantasy. I admit it,
this is what I think of every time
we meet. I stare at the wall and imagine
Nixon painstakingly applying lipstick
to meet with me and I think,
Not this old hag again, nagging about Russia.
It’s a shame we have to run the world this way,
under the fists of men with egos so frail
they start a war. Nixon will call me
a cunning fox, he’ll say I suckered him again,
but we’re both cursed: he’ll ruin himself,
I’ll rely on men to protect me from ruin,
and we know how that ends for a woman.
And when the men who loved me grieve
my death, they’11 shed blood and not tears.
I scribble in my notebook, never meeting his stare,
and his voice finally stops, waiting
for me to fawn at him, and I look up:
How much longer must we speak, sir?

And from this week’s annotations:

I just finished listening to Alan Weisman’s How to Think. I think a lot about thinking, and read a lot about thinking and write a lot about thinking. It’s the business I’m in. The word essay means to think. It’s each of our responsibility, before we act in small and big ways in the world.

It wasn’t world-changing for me, but it was interesting. And there are some anecdotes that will stick with me. Here are some notes from the checklist in the Afterword:

            The Thinking Person’s Checklist

1. When faced with provocation to respond to what someone has said, give it five minutes. Take a walk, chop some vegetables–get your body involved, your body knows the rhythms to live by and if your mind falls into your body’s rhythm, you’ll have a better chance at thinking.
2. Value learning over debating. Don’t talk for victory
3. As best you can, on-line and off, avoid the people who fan flames.
4. Remember that you don’t have to respond to what everyone else is responding to in order to signal your virtue and right-mindedness
5. If you do have to respond to what everyone else is responding to in order to signal your virtue and right-mindedness, or else lose your status in your community, you should realize it’s not a community but rather an inner ring
6. Gravitate as best you can, in every way you can, toward people who seem to value community and can handle disagreement with equanimity
7. Seek out the best and fairest minded of people whose views you disagree with. Listen to them for a time without responding. Whatever they say, think it over.
8. Patiently, and as honestly as you can, assess your repugnance (intense disgust).
9. Sometimes the ick factor is telling. Sometimes it’s a distraction from what matters.
10. Beware of metaphors and myths that do too much heavy cognitive lifting. Notice what they are directing your attention to, and what they’re directing you away from. Look closely at hidden metaphors and beware of the power of myth
11. try to describe other’s positions in the language that they use, without indulging in “in other words-ing”
12. Be brave.