Lorraine Devon Wilke

Let me start with an admission: I’m a photo curmudgeon. I admit this fact. While some people LOVE having their picture taken, whether by their own hand or that of another, I do not. Some friends find this trait annoying. I often garner frowns of annoyance when I respond with a frown of annoyance at the demand to pose for a yet another selfie, but I don’t care. It’s who I am… a photo curmudgeon.

It has been an interesting journey since, being someone who doesn’t drink. In a culture, a country, a time when drinking is so prevalent, so accepted, so every day, it appears in most TV shows and films, is de rigueur at dinner parties and gatherings, and largely expected at any celebration or ceremony, I’m an anomaly. I’ve learned it can actually trigger anxiety when you say, “No, thanks,” to a drink.

I recently saw a picture of a very famous pop star (who shall remain nameless because this is not about shaming anyone), and I only knew it was her because the caption said so. Had it not, I might have guessed anyway but with fairly significant dollops of incredulity, because this particular pop star looked so completely alien to me, to her former self, that she was nothing like the sassy chick she’d been in the olden days of our mutual young adulthood. And not because she’d gotten older, but...

Janis Joplin told us that “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” but odds are good the majority of adults living in the world today, both those old enough to get that reference and those who aren’t, embrace a more expansive, complex view of our most valued of human rights: personal freedom. Yet beyond hippie poetry and ingrained notions of entitlement, we of the western world are so accustomed to the ease and permission of the First Amendment or the Human Rights Act, our codified protections to be and do what we choose...

I don't have to name names; we've all seen one famous face after another tumble down the rabbit hole of peer pressure, cultural expectations, show business demands, sheer vanity, fear of death, revulsion of aging and the simple miscalculation -- pummeled and propagated by the media and culture -- that the only beauty is youthful beauty. It's a heavy burden.

Oddly, we seem only to ascribe the concept of legacy to those who are famous. We speak rarely in those terms about the uncelebrated, the not-famous, the every-day folks unknown beyond their small circles. They are, or were, after all, just “regular people,” certainly not meritorious enough to bear the burden of legacy... right?

I don’t think so. In fact, I think the misassignation of “legacy” as a responsibility only of the famous and celebrated has done a grave disservice to our human race.

I know you, Karen. You resonate. Not just because you’re loud, obnoxious, and sometimes inexplicably hysterical. But because of what you represent: the worst of us white women. The most caustic, hateful, dangerous example of thoughtless white privilege. It’s not a good look.

“Aren’t you worried that stating your political opinions so freely might alienate potential readers?” ~ unknown female on Twitter

Certainly, it was a worthy question, especially coming from someone who didn’t appear to agree with my stated opinion of that morning, likely something to do with the folly of a certain wall or the joy of a particularly qualified woman advancing in her career. But I’d guess the questioner wouldn’t have abided by Ms. Simone’s opinion either; there were several “mad-face” emojis stuffed into the tweet.

We live in a time when history is made by Tweets, when what happens there can instantly be known here. A time when anyone with a digital device can express views, publish opinions, or comment on news within moments of it unfolding, making the (somewhat dated) concept of “information superhighway” never more accurate…or glutted.

We want to be informed, we want to keep our awareness sharp, or maybe we just want some good old chatty entertainment, but...

We look and we feel something human and compassionate, and we wonder: who was this person? What happened here? Who left this memorial with its tableau of sorrow and windblown plastic flowers?

“My daughter is being bullied at school for being ugly. Nothing I say is helping and it’s breaking my heart. Please retweet with a message telling her how special she is,” a father desperately posted on Twitter, sharing a school photo of his perfectly average-looking and undoubtedly lovely daughter. So, people did. Kind people. Compassionate people. People who wanted his daughter to not feel ugly. To not feel bullied. And what did most of them say?

[Awarded in Rocky Coast Essay Contest sponsored by The Maine Review]:

Tucked in her lift chair, chilled and uneasy, she waits for tea and dry toast to calm her daily quarrel with queasiness and hunger. With a raised eyebrow and sardonic grin, she remarks, “It ain’t easy gettin’ old.” I commiserate, but she dismisses my empathy; tells me I’m too young to understand. I don’t bother to correct her.

They can want to. They can try. They can watch it, read about it; talk about it, blog about it. They can weep over its injustices, march in solidarity with its victims; use the right phrases and hashtags, even show homage for its music and culture. But just as non-parents can never fully understand the experience of actually being parents (forget the "my brother has kids" thing... it ain't the same), so, too, can whites never fully grasp the day-to-day, can't-turn-it-off, always-there experience of being black in America.

For a little white girl growing up in the cornfields and cow pastures of the deeply homogenized environs of Richmond, Illinois, a tiny northern Illinois farm town biking distance from the Wisconsin border, it may seem anomalous that Aretha Franklin would be one of my greatest influences and inspirations… but she was.

Authors' Chat | indieBRAG-- Let’s face it: bad reviews suck. We can get hundreds of good ones, countless accolades and acknowledgments, but regardless of the applause that accompanies our endeavors, we tend to hold onto the words that pierce our creative skin, hurt our fragile sensibilities; shake our sense of who we are as artists. Frankly, even with their potential for destruction, we need them. We want them. We seek them out; promote, push, and pander for them.