“A tribute to the silent work of ordinary people” — an approach that, aims to “show the interconnection between public events and private experience.”
                      Laurel Thatcher Ulrich,
                      Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

December 10, 1937, Oviedo, Asturias, Spain

A simple list of names: seven men; one woman. The first two names on the list were a married couple, I know a little bit about them, not enough. I know nothing about the other six men on the list. They are all, however, joined in eternity. A married couple and six other humans they probably did not know and never met. But they were, in a very real sense, brothers and sister. They may not have known each other but their voices are still linked and shout loudly from that very large and deep grave they share.

On this day, 77 years ago, these men and woman were all killed, by a firing squad. Because they dared to speak up, to fight for freedom at a time and a place where wanting freedom was deadly. That day their lives and their bodies were buried. That was tragic enough, but not the worst of what was done to them.

For another 40 years or so, their voices went unheard, their stories forgotten or buried just as deep as their bodies. Their final place of rest was avoided – as if it did not exist, as if they had not existed – by those who knew them, loved them even, for fear that they might be next.

These men and women were among the first wave of what would end up being an ocean of lost voices, just 8 of 1,500 or so humans buried together in one plot of land, thousands of miles away from where I live now, but only about 30 kilometers from where I was born and grew up.

Their final resting place is now a place of celebration, a place where freedom and courage can once again be honored and acknowledged. Their names are no longer just a list on official journals that were kept secret, they are engraved on marble walls so that the world will never forget who they were, how they stood together against the tyranny of a few men who would not tolerate resistance and the silence of millions who were too scared to join them in that fight.

The woman who died that day was one of only 7 women buried in that mass grave who would die for wanting freedom, social justice and equality for all. She thought people should be free to speak their minds, to have convictions and to stand for them. She thought people should be free to point out where society, government and religion failed us and how we could do better. She was an unlikely source of such radical ideas. And she was warned, often, how dangerous her ideas were. In the end, her critics proved to be right; her ideas were dangerous, so dangerous that only death was acceptable to her enemies. Not only did she lose her life but so did her husband, who apparently was guilty by association. And it seems as if her influence led to two of her sons also dying in battle for these dangerous principles and her eldest daughter imprisoned for 8 years at the age of 18. Pretty heavy price to pay for exercising what should be a basic human right. A right we in the United States of America take for granted, not important enough, it seems, to exercise in those “unimportant” elections.

That woman was born about 100 years too soon; she was way ahead of the time, way ahead of just about everyone else in her life. Her world was not ready for her; they could not tolerate the truths she spoke. Her kind is still not very well regarded; her type not well accepted. We say we are for the things she lost her life for, we say people like her are “heroes” but when most of us encounter the real person who represents this ideal, we tend to do everything in our power to negate them, to silence them, to punish them for being too outspoken, too passionate, too angry, too relentless, too radical, too much of everything we want only in the abstract, not embodied in the real flesh of a human body.

I never met that woman; she died 20 years before I was born. Most of her story was buried with her, lost forever, only a very small part of her life is known to me and that little bit has been passed down through the filter of a few people who did not want to say too much, who did not want me to know too much because they recognized in me something familiar, something that needed to be discouraged and extinguished. I never saw her face in life, she never held my hand, I never had a chance to know her as the woman who I am sure had faults and failings. I have never felt truly connected to another living human being but I have always felt connected to this woman I never knew, whose ghost has always pushed me to transcend my limitations and dwarfed me all at once.

From a very young age I heard about her strength, her intelligence, her courage in the face of what would have crumbled a lesser human. And I heard about how I reminded people of her, how much I resembled her, both physically and temperamentally. How could a little girl live up to that? Especially since at every turn, anything that was “too close” to reflecting her was repressed. It was being done for my own good I was told. Small consolation to a very confused child.

And still I try to make sense of why she still calls to me, why my soul and my voice both feel buried deep in that grave so many thousands of miles away, with hers. Her bones must be dust by now but her voice is as clear and as compelling as if she were sitting next to me, holding my hand, encouraging me, reassuring me that I will find the courage, the strength to find my voice once more, to follow her lead, to honor her legacy.

The people who knew her best could not do that; it was too dangerous. She died for her convictions, for her truth. It is time I pick up that flag. To the very end, she stood by it, she would not surrender, she would not repent.

A rebel to her last breath.

Am I made from the same dust as she?

“My first impression though was that she was … she was in tremendous pain. But I think she was an individual, and I think that’s brilliant. She was a total one-off. To be so unlimited as to be able to actually go onstage and say … Here! It’s all here; there you go! This is how people feel. This is how I feel. I’m a normal person. Do you feel like this?”
        Toni Halliday (Curve) talking about Janis Joplin

Whether you like her music or not, it is hard to argue that Janis held anything back, and that is something pretty special. If you watch any of her live performances you have no way to deny it, no way to turn away from the raw emotion and nakedness that came through her singing to connect with everyone who was willing to listen, to watch, to feel along with her. She put it out there for everyone to see, in all its messiness.

That takes guts, it takes the kind of guts most of us wish we had. It takes strength most of us cannot summon; it takes the willingness to let another see where you are most vulnerable, no protection, no safety net. And that’s fucking scary. That leaves you wide open to the kind of pain that needs to be dulled from time to time if you are to continue living to do it again and again. And she did it in front of not just one person at a time but thousands; all the time. No wonder she was in such tremendous pain.

I can see how someone like Janis would have a difficult time finding another human being who could handle being, really being with her, loving her. That kind of passion and intensity is not for the faint of heart, you have to be made of pretty sturdy stuff yourself to not be sucked up and drowned by the sheer force that lived inside that tiny little body.

I can’t help but wonder where that force, that intensity, that overpowering brightness (that easily becomes imploding darkness) comes from? Was she born with it? What happened to her that caused that kind of pain, that despair that could find no solace? That restlessness that led her down the path of destruction, even against other forces within her that wanted to live, wanted to succeed.

It’s supremely frustrating to me that I cannot answer those questions, that I cannot know why. And why does it rule some while it never even touches others. That’s an even bigger mystery.

Is it that some people are that much better at managing the internal rage and keep it in check? Or is it just not there to contend with? Why do some of us feel so utterly alone and disconnected, so certain we can never change our separateness and can never feel whole, can never feel at home in our own skin? How did we get so broken?

In most cases, it doesn’t seem to have any correlation to the actual events of our life, our childhoods even. So where does it come from? Some internal defect, some missing or deficient chemical as so much of pop psychology and neuroscience tells us? Some irreparable lack of nurturing at some critical moment in our development? Is it fear? Is it inability to love another because we cannot love ourselves? Is it that some of us cannot accept the delusions that make life bearable, that we cannot fool ourselves into believing the little white lies we tell ourselves and each other that then become our escape from the pain, the unbearable pain that only death promises to heal?

I cannot, of course, know how Janis really felt. She offered us a glimpse at it but ultimately only she could feel that pain completely. No one could take it away; no one could make it better. Not even her, although it sure does seem as if she tried her best. “On stage I make love to twenty five thousand people, and then I go home alone,” she said.

But somehow, I think Janis was the kind of person you could go to in your very darkest moments, at those times when you are barely hanging on and she would pull up a chair and sit with you in that place, with no reservation, no discomfort, no attempt to talk you out of it. She would just sit and let you be, let you ride it out, hold your hand and just be there to let you know you were not totally alone.

I wish I knew someone like Janis. I hope someday I can be someone like her.

Someone who can put it all out there and be OK with the danger that brings, without fear, knowing that I can handle the pain, that I don’t have to hide from it any more, that I can live with it as if it is my very best friend and there is no other place I would rather be.

“You got the mind like a child girl. You got the fight like a woman.”
              From Blow My Mind