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silence is not golden. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

“if what one has to say is not better than silence, then one should keep silent.” (confucius)

and then there’s the other side of the coin – the side where silence is not golden.

silence doesn’t stop injustice. it doesn’t stop bullying. it alludes to apathy and indifference, even complicity. it is a ship in a harbor. it is safe. it is spineless.

speaking up – of truth – is not babbling. it is not the proliferation of lies, of the made-up. it does not propagate agenda nor does it perpetuate a culture of the unquestioning. it screeches falsity to a halt; it brings focus to ambiguity; it stands up.

we choose our course. we choose what is or is not important to us. we look to others for wisdom and the ability to sort our path. we make errors in judgment; we keep quiet. we learn. we find our voice.

for me, cousin jerry’s t-shirt said it all: “SPEAK UP!”

because:

“silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.” (mahatma gandhi)

“if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. if an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” (archbishop desmond tutu)

“we must always take sides. neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” (elie wiesel)

“each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.” (maya angelou)

“in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” (dr martin luther king jr)

“you own everything that happened to you. tell your stories. if people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” (anne lamott)

“each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” (robert f kennedy)

“do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (the golden rule)

“speak your truth quietly and clearly.” (max ehrmann)

with a modicum of tact, with compassion for those who have been wronged, with courage and vulnerability and timidity holding hands-hands-hands, standing in the fire of what is truth-telling, there is hope.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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a visit with RBG. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

she was out on the deck, momentarily. stopping by to give me words of wisdom and courage, former u.s. supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg stood in the sunshine. she leaned over, in emphasis, and the sun streamed through her collar, reflecting through the window onto our dresser. i held her words close to me. she reminded me, “but when i talked about sex-based discrimination, i got the response, ‘what are you talking about? women are treated ever so much better than men!’” then we both laughed, her eyes gleaming with the intelligent fight of a strong woman.

ruth continued, her sage words a repetition of something she had said, quoted back in 2020, “it’s an unconscious bias. it’s the expectation. you have a lowered expectation when you hear a woman speaking; i think that still goes on. that instinctively when a man speaks, he will be listened to, where people will not expect the woman to say anything of value. but all of the women in my generation have had, time and again, that experience where you say something at a meeting, and nobody makes anything of it. and maybe half an hour later, a man makes the identical point, and people react to it and say, ‘good idea.’ that, i think, is a problem that persists.”

her parting words, before she vanished from our deck, before her tatted collar no longer formed a sunlit shadow on our dresser, “whatever you choose to do, leave tracks. that means don’t do it just for yourself. you will want to leave the world a little better for your having lived.” i nodded. it’s our responsibility as women (and yes, as men) to make sure that we leave to those behind us a place that is better for those who follow, a place that is transparent and that rebels against agenda, a place that treats all fairly, a place that is dedicated to the resolution of conflict, a place of compassion and truth. her gaze was steady before she disappeared, encouraging me to stay grounded, to “breathe free,” to “speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.”

“i would like to be remembered as someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability.”

hell yes, RBG!!!

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


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bullied. as a woman. [flawed wednesday]

“never be bullied into silence. never allow yourself to be made a victim. accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” (harvey fierstein)

“to thine own self be true,” my sweet momma would say. she and harvey fierstein would have been pals. heck, i should be pals with harvey.

there is a cost. we all know that. coloring outside the lines requires sisu, gumption, chutzpah. speaking up, speaking out, speaking for, speaking against. a cost.

like you, i have been bullied into silence in my life. i have been harassed and i have been victimized. i have been liquified and poured into molds that don’t fit. i have been vaporized. i have allowed it. i have not allowed it.

i am a woman. and with that comes bullying, harassment, victimization. with that come molds, generalizations, inequalities, assumptions.

i am not naive enough to believe that were i to be a man i would never face any of these crushing blows. but i do believe that i would have faced seriously fewer.

it is not as likely, were i to be a man, that i would have been sexually assaulted at an innocent 19. it is not as likely, were i to be a man, that, in reporting the abuse of many underage young women, i would have my life threatened at 21. it is not as likely, were i to be a man, that i would have been scarily pursued by a man-with-a-foot-fetish at 35. it is not as likely, were i to be a man, that i would have been terrifyingly stalked at 50. it is not as likely, were i to be a man, that i would have been verbally and professionally assailed at 60.

were i to be a man, the men who wielded the power in each of these might have tucked his superman cape away, might have had a second thought, might have played out his control-game-fantasy somewhere else.

but i am a woman. and, for some reason deeply embedded in society, that changes the rules and empowers the mongers.

i have been silent.

for too long.

read DAVID’S thoughts this FLAWED WEDNESDAY


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count on you [k.s. friday]

count on you song box copy

i drove back and forth and back and forth to nashville when i recorded this album, each time returning with a cd of the work we had done on the album.  i’d play it numerous times, taking notes to share with my producer, re-writing, practicing, sometimes sharing the songs-where-they-were-at-the-time with others.

joan was the one who told me i needed a “strong woman” song included on this album.  so i walked across the street home, directly into my studio and wrote one.

now, this isn’t my favorite song – it’s a little kitschy if you ask me – but i have had many tell me how much they like it and one of my favorite performances of it was when beth’s students sang it.  (i was long-term-subbing for her. she’s a dear friend and an amazing choir teacher in a middle school in our district.)  those kids really rose to the occasion and kitschy fell by the wayside in favor of strength and power and belief in themselves.

recently d and i listened to some of my first recordings.  they were from 1979-80 and recorded in a studio in a town called port washington on the north shore of long island.  i had found a cassette (now isn’t that retro word dating me!) and we have a boombox (another retro word) that plays cassettes so we settled in to listen to the three songs on what would now be called an EP.

one of the songs is called leaving and is a song i wrote for my parents as they retired and moved from our long island home to florida.  i remembered that song well.

the other two?  well, it’s funny.  i could sing every word, but i didn’t remember the intense emotion behind them.  THESE were my #metoo songs, i discovered (rediscovered?) as i listened.  one of these days i might share these songs, not because they are great songs but because they are truth and every artist has songs that are life-defining.  not the ones necessarily that chart (although those are lovely, indeed!) but the ones that speak from deep inside, with lyrics or music that must be spoken.  these two songs were written by a vulnerable (and pretty angry) young woman who wanted to unleash the power of her crayon and live out loud, who definitely wanted to live without fear, who tried hard to break away from an experience i still would rather forget and who prayed – alone at the time – beseeching words.  all this is what i wrote about in this week’s melange.

my heart goes out to all those women who are also card-carrying #metoo survivors.  the out-loud ones and the silent ones.  my wish for each of you: unleash your crayon, live without fear, break away, pray with another, count on you.

from this song of today’s melange post COUNT ON YOU, which may be more #metoo and less kitschy than i thought,  “just move forward and then believe – you gotta trust…in you.”

DOWNLOAD the song COUNT ON YOU track 12 AS SURE AS THE SUN on iTUNES or CDBaby or purchase the CD on kerrisherwood.com

read DAVID’S thoughts on this K.S. FRIDAY

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COUNT ON YOU from AS SURE AS THE SUN ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood