Showing results

Some days recently, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. It's not just the fact that the proposed budget slashes just about everything that I care about -- the welfare of women, children and the elderly, education, the arts and humanities, science and the environment -- it is the fact that these areas are considered by some to be ineffective because they don't show "results." 

I am the Queen of many things, including showing no results. I know all too well the punch to the stomach of being dismissed because your life and gifts are not important, and do not bring financial gain to your community. I mean, I am a woman with no children. I was a music major at Smith, an organist, and have my master's in historical musicology from the University of London (early Christian chant.) But my real passion is English cathedral choral music and I have played a tiny role in opening up the field to women. I've written two important articles on English composer Herbert Howells, taken care of my dying mother and other sick friends, and helped people through a variety of other transitions. I've painted several hundred excellent paintings, and taught hundreds of students important writing, art and critical thinking skills. I love this crazy old world of ours enough that I now write about it in this blog with my unique multidisciplinary "take" on things. And yet I have been expected to pay for most of my accomplishments myself, do my work on my own time, or have been paid only the tiniest salaries. I am not of value. I do not show results. Welcome to my "queendom."

I've been over this ground before, so I won't belabor it except to say this; I have survived. And this outsider journey has afforded me an almost unmatched opportunity to gain wisdom. To the people and institutions who may be most affected if this budget goes through, please remember something. Just because a single group of people thinks you are unworthy of financial support, doesn't mean that it is true. It doesn't mean you do not exist. It doesn't mean you are not valid. Quite the contrary. It says more about them than it does about you. In upcoming months and years, those of us who "do no harm" and engage in peaceful, creative or helping pursuits must try against all odds to keep doing what we do best. Give anyway. Feed people anyway. Create anyway. Sing anyway. Paint anyway. Think anyway. Teach anyway. Explore anyway. Protect the environment anyway. Love anyway. There will come a time when our "results" no longer need justification. They will be society's reason for being.