bleeding heart's club
council for/from the contemporary crybabies
I was back in my hometown, sitting and chatting with my friend Louise1 on a deck at her property. There is an age gap between us, but I rarely feel it until she brings up being in her 60s, and even then, I only hear of it all going so fast that I am sure I will be there with her in no time. We were talking of the ordeals of being emotional in this age and I joked that we made up a “bleeding heart’s club”. We laughed and continued on our conversation wherein she probably gave me wonderful advice that I am failing to enact.
Later she sent me a text saying she felt she was from a “bygone era” (I heavily relate). These interactions with her have inspired my next stack - this one! So welcome and let me show you what I kind of put together.
Firstly, Jessie has contributed this gorgeous raw recording she made after a hellish day on the island, Paros. Feel to listen whilst you read.
I asked some friends if they had any images they felt represented a bruised/bleeding/broken heart and here are some submissions:
“The phrase bleeding heart is used to describe one who shows excessive sympathy for another's misfortune and is historically thrown as an insult toward more liberal politicians. Before this use, the term appears in literature describing sincere emotional outpouring, even taking on a literal association with the heart of Jesus Christ” 2
Firstly, there is nothing wrong with identifying or not-identifying as a bleeding heart, so don’t stress if you are/aren’t one. I’d like to reframe the negative connotation the term has - partially for the selfish reason of identifying with it too much - but also for more socio-political reasons. Human evolution has given us an extraordinary capacity for feeling and thought, yet we often ignore it, prioritising man-made constructs (like fucking “business casual”?) instead. 3
More submissions representing a bruised/bleeding/broken heart:
Thank you to Sasha, Justin, Greta, Tarni, Miles, Casey, Effie, Francois, Anjou, and Ella for your beautiful contributions.
I went on a friendship date with Sasha, and as we were wandering around the city we live in but don’t know so well, I began to question… “is this girl even a bleeding heart?! She is so good at getting by it is hard to tell - do bleeding hearts not get by?”…“no they do, they have to! they just have to compromise for the state of things”.
I’ve known Sash for most of our lives, and as our date went on, more memories were pulled from the archives, more reflections were made and I felt more and more confident in my diagnosis. Sasha is the MVP of bleeding hearts. She navigates this world with a softness on the inside that cannot always be read by her accomplishments and ability to overcome pretty much everything. If it is a safe space, she will release a heart, all bloodied, into your lap - each time I can’t believe I questioned it and am so glad to see it.
Greta on not identifying as a bleeding heart
“I guess I don’t really consider myself a bleeding heart - I see myself more as a crab; got my shell to protect the squishy bits”
“I would love to bloody my heart alittle there is so much to learn from sensitive souls”
In my opinion; the bleeding heart mourns lost potential, recognising the disparity between what is and what could’ve/should’ve been. A bleeding heart mightn’t think in the collective, but definitely feels in it, whether they know/like it or not.
It’s not all doom and gloom, and maybe everyone is a bleeding heart pretending not to be - I don’t know… but nearly everyone struggles with a bloodied heart at some point and very few of us know what to do.
I’ve created a little game if you happen to be on a journey of feeling/dealing/healing4:
I’d like to finish this stack with some quotes from Louise
The bleeding heart was - in recent historical usage - a label used by conservative social commentators and political figures to try to silence and minimise the voices of anyone passionately calling for justice in this messed up world.5
…Feminists in the 1970s coined a different phrase : the personal is political. The personal has been the starting point and the glue for all the long-lasting collective actions for change I’ve been part of. The personal is not the privatised realm of “me, myself and I” - this is individualism, a distortion of the personal. Instead it is a space where we bring and bridge and realise our differences and commonalities in an equal way in service to a shared project. The personal is a space where strong feelings are sure to surface, since a lot can be at stake, especially where people are struggling against injustice. Passion and strong feelings aren’t negatives in such a space, they are grist to the mill.
Being with others like this can be very intense, and sometimes “you just have to sit in the gutter and eat a Mars bar,” as a wise person once put it to me…
As for my individual feelings, all I can say is that they relentlessly come and go as I keep walking on through life. I have to think about feelings if they start to get a grip on me, in order to let them go…
thank you thank you thank you!
Louise has become one of my longest friends. She first entered my life as my piano teacher when I was 4 years old. She has become someone I admire and aspire to be like. Louise is extremely talented in many areas but most notably music. If you’d like to listen to some of her stuff just click HERE!
Additionally I feel we experience a lot of emotional baiting… like having our feelings sold back. Is this natural? to buy a magazine or movie ticket to feel shock or validation or whatever you decide you should be feeling?
If you feel like this doesn’t give you any resolution, it might be worth listening to this speech by Caroline McHugh. It wont fix anything but it was nice to hear.
so special grace, thank you for sharing. i love the footnotes! also the business casual part killed me hahahahaha - weaving in the personal is political towards the end really strengthened your musings. also, I learned a new word from reading this: grist !