Rejection Reroute
Mapping the ways Courage comes through
Waaah! Ackkk! Ooof! I want to hide my head in a bush! I need thicker skin, maybe even fur or porcupine needles! I shouldn’t have put that one part in! Why am I bummed—it was my first submission in eons, what was I expecting?! I knew the ending was weak! I want to read the winner and finalists! I don’t want to read the winner and finalists! I didn’t study the journal enough, nor the judge! I need to take a walk. I need to sit down. I, I, I. Ay ay ay (aye yai yai)!
It has been both funny and humbling to observe my thoughts in the wake of being notified I hadn’t placed in that essay contest (remember?). At first, I thought I was doing well by taking myself to the gym. Zumba + Yoga (in that order!) did help to move the physicality of my reaction rather than let it sink too far in or worse, get stuck. So, Yay to m o v i n g ! And. Oh yeah. The gym is three doors down from Smart & Final grocery store, so guess what?
Oh yes I did. I’m a small person but anyone who knows me will tell you I am some kind of Queen of Snackdom. I have the wrappers to prove it.
My (re)beginner’s confidence took a hit. It did require a lot to create, submit and risk . . . this . . . egads . . . piece. Though to be honest, every week I do receive listings of which lit mags are accepting submissions, who’s hosting what kinds of contests, and which agents are accepting queries for what literary genres. Things have changed so much since those big books, Writers Market and Poets Market, back in the day. Still, these ever so convenient delivered-to-my-Inbox updates didn’t quite touch that precise spot in my destabilized inner region called Confidence.
I think it was Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors who said, in a sweaty post-game on-court interview, “If you put in the work, you’re gonna have the confidence.”
Fortunately, there’s no work I love more than writing, or pretty much any form of deep listening. So I needed to pull my head out of the bushes, reassure my porous skin that—as a writer—I love and need it just the way it is while working to help it become bouncier (not thicker), and get back to putting in the work.
I needed perspective and purpose to do this. I realized it wasn’t necessarily Confidence I was seeking at this point. It was, is, and will likely always be Courage.
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These are the morsels, steppingstones, or (re)building blocks that appeared and helped Courage to start to replant Herself in me.
Two Obon practices in one week at Gardena Buddhist Temple! To be able to move from, with and for the Ancestors—in the bowl of intergenerational community—reseeded a necessary something related to courage. From my little corner of experience, I think I became more clearly legible to Great Mystery through the physical + spiritual gesture of dance. Afterward, I didn’t have to go looking for Courage. I don’t know how this works, but it felt like Courage then began to find me.
Between the two Obon practices, I attended a prayer circle held by the Friends of Wadi Foquin (FWF), a West Bank village that has become family to one of my spiritual communities, Buena Vista UMC. This is Yusef Manasra, elder now-ancestor of Wadi Foquin, which is five miles away from Bethlehem. The prayer circle included recent updates, by one of Yusef’s sons, on the people of Gaza, Wadi Foquin, and the Palestinian diaspora. Between tears that started spilling from my eyes and nose over the numbers of children and youth in Gaza now with no adult family members to raise them. Between my body lurching when hearing how hard it has become to find, or safely travel for work in the West Bank, to earn basic necessities of living. Between my heart bending as Yusef’s son described the death of a niece whose memorializing he cannot be there for. Between my memory tensing over the way the illegal Israeli settlement was constructed to send its human waste downhill into Wadi Foquin’s olive groves (their once-primary means of livelihood). Between all of this, This: The news of a book being born at the printers as we met. A book about the origins of Wadi Foquin with Yusef Manasra’s words. It was like something green coming through the cracks of settlement cement. A promise that their reality will not be degraded into utter loss. The energy of the FWF gathering brightened. The good news at this month’s prayer circle was Writing Coming Into Being. It was a sign of life.
One day after the FWF Prayer Circle, I then received this news:
I shouldn’t have been shocked (because militarization; my heart always with Okinawa), but I was, in addition to being disturbed and outraged. This has happened again and again. What infuriated me just as much as this yet additional example of military sexual terrorism—in this case, this soldier’s use of violent force upon the intimate body of an Okinawan teenager—was the fact that the central government in Japan chose not to immediately share this information with Okinawan officials and the people.
The U.S.-Japan security alliance sacrifices bodies: Okinawan girls and women. The islands and lands. The waters and creatures. The sacred ecosystem.
This is what I’d written about in the essay that didn’t place in that now-oh-so-in-the-small-rear-view-mirror competition.
Courage seems to have brought two qualities with Her: Perspective and Determination. Thank you Courage, Amen.
The day after the news articles came out about the soldier’s plea of Not Guilty, the Okinawan Association of America—just one mile away from my very home—hosted Okinawan Bon Dance practice. Before dancing commenced, I had the chance to place a pin with my maternal family’s name on their map: Toma & Sadoyama: Onna Village. Then I got to learn the dances, which were different from the Obon dances from Gardena Buddhist Temple practice—because despite the governances of colonization and occupation, Japan and Okinawa are two different ancient histories, peoples and cultures. I danced on behalf of the teenage girl. I danced on behalf of the 12-year old Okinawan girl assaulted by multiple servicemen there in 1995. I danced on behalf of all the girls and women there from WWII forward. I danced on behalf of Comfort Women throughout the Pacific Rim.
Friends, I will dance with my pen too. This body memoir book and Substack project has never, ever meant to be about a body (mine), solo’d and silo’d. It has always been about every body as sacred text, connecting Spirit to person to global family.
Martyred Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer who intentionally studied English Literature said, “ . . . my pen . . . the English language . . . as a tool for liberation.” May I do my part from this country and language of deep harm, responsibility and possibility. In art, there’s room for all of it.
I felt called to make something from that email of being unchosen. Here it is.
Cleave: Wed at table influx of gems as time here. Leave ID. Search thread. Center us.
In and between the words where courage and grace abound,
Coke
Your courage is large even when you don’t always feel it and remember it! Ancestors dance and write with you and your “heart-in-the-face-of…”
The things we make weave small strands in a big tapestry. Sometimes we aren't even able to see how they accumulate and make their mark on our own hearts and the pulse that transcends. Making and sharing. Making and sharing. Making and sharing. You are doing it, Coke, and I can see that you will persevere. You are courageous, aware and alive!