This ability to exist in pieces is what some adults call resilience. And I suppose in some way it is a kind of resilience, a horrible resilience that makes adults believe children forget trauma.
Interpretation
Resilience is the ability to endure and navigate through trauma, not forgetting it but carrying it in pieces.
In this quote, Lynda Barry explores the concept of resilience as it applies to children facing trauma. The idea is that while adults may perceive children as forgetting their traumatic experiences, they actually carry these experiences with them in fragmented forms. This 'horrible resilience' suggests that the coping mechanisms children develop are not necessarily healthy, but instead highlight the complexities of how trauma is processed and remembered.
In practice
In a discussion about mental health, this quote can illustrate the hidden struggles of children dealing with trauma.
In my writing class, we never, ever talk about the writing - ever. We never address a story that's been read. I also won't let anyone look at the person who's reading. No eye contact; everybody has to draw a spiral. And I would like to do a drawing class where we could talk about anything except for the drawing. No one could even mention it.
When you start to think of the arts as not this thing that is going to get you somewhere in terms of becoming an artist or becoming famous or whatever it is that people do, but rather a way of making being in the world not just bearable, but fascinating, then it starts to get interesting again.
The radio was on and that was the first time I heard that song, the one I hate. Whenever I hear it all I can think of is that very day riding in the front seat with Lucy leaning against me and the smell of Juicy Fruit making me want to throw up. How can a song do that? Be like a net that catches a whole entire day, even a day whose guts you hate? You hear it and all of a sudden everything comes hanging back in front of you, all tangled up in that music.
The groove is so mysterious. We're born with it and we lose it and the world seems to split apart before our eyes into stupid and cool. When we get it back, the world unifies around us, and both stupid and cool fall away. I am grateful to those who are keepers of the groove. The babies and the grandmas who hang on to it and help us remember when we forget that any kind of dancing is better than no dancing at all.
The minute you understand racism, you're responsible for being racist. It's like eating from the tree of knowledge.
I believe a kid who is playing is not alone. There is something brought alive during play, and this something, when played with, seems to play back.
Obsessed people are more concerned with obeying God than doing what is expected or fulfilling the status quo. A person who is obsessed with Jesus will do things that don't always make sense in terms of success or wealth on this earth.
The world does not require so much to be informed as to be reminded.
Rising early and scorning laziness, remaining calm in time of strife, faultless in conduct and clever in actions. One like this will be praised.
At this age, I should be leading a quiet life.
That there is something in advice very useful and salutary, seems to be equally confessed on all hands; since even those that reject it, allow for the most part that rejection to be wrong, but charge the fault upon the unskilful manner in which it is given; they admit the efficacy of the medicine, but abhor the nauseousness of the vehicle.
Child, you have to learn to see things in the right proportions. Learn to see great things great and small things small.
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