Moms Rage
It started because Jaime put out a call on Instagram. I don’t remember the exact words of the invitation - something about a dance party to raise money for gun violence awareness - but I remember raising my hand immediately.
Here’s a twisted fact: there’s a website that archives all of the mass shootings in America. I had to go to that website to remember the date of the shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, because there are shootings every day here, sometimes multiple times a day, and it’s hard and painful to keep up. It was March 27. On that day, six people were murdered and many more were forever traumatized. Hundreds of miles away, I am on the phone with my brother who lives in Nashville, who I had called to confirm that my niece and nephew were not at that school and were still safe, and he tells me that he knows one of the victims.
That night I sent Jaime a follow-up message: “Go for it. We need this”.
She invited me to her house a couple of weeks later where I met Elena. She shared a beautiful vision with us, a vision of joy and rage dancing together. I stepped right into it, and it became mine too. It was a Sunday afternoon, and all of our children were there. They played with Legos inside while we sat on the porch and started pouring ideas into a Google document. We kept pouring for the next several weeks.
We poured into the planning. Initially, it was supposed to be around Mother’s Day but for a number of practical reasons, we landed on June 2. We didn’t know it then, but that was National Gun Violence Awareness Day. There were late-night calls after our kids were in bed where we worked through logistics and details. Staying up till midnight on a school night making graphics and pulling photos and quotes to create the visuals that would collect everyone into the same time and space and intent. We compiled and checked off lists of what we needed to get (volunteers, a bubble machine, and snacks, to name a few) and what we hoped would happen as a result of our efforts (women moving mountains, to start).
We also poured into each other. First, by listening to each other express our hopes and fears, eventually through hugs and squeezes, and endless encouragement and affirmation.
A couple of days before the event, Jaime witnessed a fatal shooting just a couple of blocks from her home and from the venue where our event was to be held. What an American horror story. For the next 48 hours, I was afraid that something would happen to us. I was afraid someone angry would show up and try to kill us at our event because that’s the kind of thing that happens here.
To cope with the fear, I turned to art - meticulously creating posters that would hang around the room at the dance as reminders of why we are here:
“Joy Rage Dance”
“Dreaming of a Future Without Violence”
“Moms Rage”
Turning fear into love with a paintbrush and some neon sharpies.
We arrived at the venue at 6pm on June 2. In an hour we transformed the majestic empty space of the Delta Athenaeum into the neon, metallic, disco party hall of your dreams. Volunteers showed up to decorate the tables and prep drinks for the bar. We tested the music and microphones and turned on the bubble machine. The balloon arch went up. The disco ball came down. The ceremony began.
We opened with purpose setting: we are here because we are tired of having panic attacks on the way to school drop off, and we feel such rage that we have to live this way. We asked people to write to the senators who have the power to ban assault weapons, pointing to the “Protect Kids Not Guns” postcards and pens available all around the room. We shared aloud our sources of rage and listened to the reading of a powerful poem:
Then Elena led us in a primal scream (if you haven’t done one yet, you’re overdue). On the count of three, I covered my ears and opened my throat and let it out, and by the time everything had gone, I was doubled over, my body bent in half. I stood up and gasped in the energy of every other woman in that room. There was a pause, a signal that the ceremony was complete and the ritual dance was to begin.
The floor was full and vibrant, pulsing with life for 2 solid hours.
I recently heard the term “church hurt” in conversation Rev. Dr. Yolanda Norton, founder of the Beyonce Mass, and immediately thought, “I have that”. Church hurt describes the pain, sadness, emotional scarring, or abuse experienced in a church context, inflicted either interpersonally or institutionally, or systemically. It sucks, and the source of the suck for me is that I am deeply enriched and anchored by the collective, ritual, ecstatic expressions that I first encountered in the church. I have been unmoored from that experience and so desperate to find it or create it.
The dance at Moms Rage was a salve to my hurt. There was a moment when we were dancing (“I Wanna Dance With Somebody” was playing, bless Queen Whitney) and I was in the middle of the room and I saw all joy, all smiles, all pure expression. It was glorious. THIS is the spiritual experience that I crave: pure, un-self-conscious, purposeful expression unfolding and unfolding deep layers of joy.
Towards the end, I looked out at this group of joyful and angry women, the strongest most beautiful collection of women who had just given everything they had, and thought: “I believe in this.”
I believe in this protest, in this power, in the purpose and possibility. I believe in our rage; as Jaime said: it makes people uncomfortable when women are angry, and that’s why it is so effective. A reminder not to hide from it. Not to be afraid of it. Not to try and get rid of it. Hold its hand and ask it to show you something.
When we hold space for each other, make room for one another to feel every dimension of every feeling in the most embodied ways – we transform. We become different. I felt like Moses descended from the mountain after that dance. I saw God in every woman gathered.
