Allison Howard – Walking heart

You know what?!! I don’t know if I have perimenopause, reeling from a traumatised childhood, have undiagnosed ADHD, losing my mind or worse, slowly descending and transforming into a “Karen”. 

Oh… hang on, I have come in hot with this piece. Let me calm down a little………. Breath… in………exhale…out….

OK, I have to be honest, at 4:30 the other morning, I completely lost my temper and found myself screaming down the phone, arguing with someone about whether or not I actually live at the address I currently reside in. 

Usually I can control myself with this type of situation, however it was extremely early, I only had 3 hours sleep and I had been worn down by a week and a half long battle with big corporation incompetent buck passers and computerised voice machines that were insisting the problem I had was not existing, and that I lived in a completely different suburb than I actually do. So when I finally got to speak with a human and tried to correct the information and find out what was happening. The person on the other end of the phone had the nerve (stupidity) to say in an accusingly smug tone “Well, I have you listed at ——- on my screen.” Poor thing didn’t really know who she was dealing with. You see, after she said this, something inside my head snapped, my conciseness suddenly left my body; and as I screamed down the phone, giving this poor unsuspecting person my honest opinion of what her computer could do to itself, I began watching myself turn into the worst possible version of me. 

Now, for people that have known me for a very long time, they all would be quite familiar with this particular aspect to my personality. Basically, I have an amazingly volatile temper, and during different stages of my life this “quality” has appeared from time to time, creating stories that have sailed down through time, emerging like Viking legend. Now please believe me when I say, I am not proud of this part of myself at all, as it is exhausting for me, and if the person I am directing this energy towards is in any way timid, I can wreak havoc with in that person to the point of making them cry, and I HATE it. Over the years I have worked really hard at calming down and recognised when I get triggered, trusting my own inner peace to protect my inner child. But unfortunately for this phone clerk my inner teenager saw an opening and took over.

When the phone call ended, I was left with so much adrenaline pumping through my body, I was practically vibrating. There was absolutely no way I would be getting any sleep the rest of that morning, so I put on my walking boots, grabbed a torch and dragged my poor walking partner all the way around my beautiful hills in the dark. I am not sure how long I was out for or even could tell you where I walked, I just walked, and as the sky turned from dark to grey, then light, I found a sense of calm and headed back home. 

The whole time I was stomping (walking) I wasn’t angry at the phone clerk but rather at the lack of control, responsibility and ownership in today’s society. Forget about understanding, patience’s, and kindness, there is no room for these types of accommodations in this world of email trails and digital “evidence”. And believe me, being in hospital admin I have witnessed some mind blowing reasoning and blame dodging, that moves into the realms of circus acrobatics. 

Now, we all know todays “Karen” label; it is usually given to a middle aged white woman being recorded doing something incredibly insane or trantruming hysterically about something trivial or unreasonable, then this video being distributed all over the internet for ridicule and mocking. However, historically a Karen or a Miss Emma (this was her first incarnation) was a name for a white woman that used her status and power as a tool to hurt, viciously manipulate and control the enslaved African Americans. Now quite recently I have noticed the term being thrown around by anyone and everyone without regard to its history or correct application. (Exception is made for the woman and the dog incident in 2021, that was definitely a Miss Emma moment for that white lady.) 

However, I have started to notice white women of a certain age, are being called Karen for loads of little trivial things. I have heard women being called Karen because they got upset when someone physically pushed her out of the way – “Ha! don’t be such a Karen”. Woman cautioning a child to slow down near a swimming pool edge “Oh what a Karen”. A woman yelling strongly at a speeding car to slow down “Shut up Ya! Karen”. With this, it is starting to feel like the already small voice that some woman have, is being diminished even further. It is starting to feel that women of my demographic who are aged 40+ are not allowed to have a voice at all. And as I was yelling down the phone at the electricity company, my daughter entered the room rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and shockingly said “Cool it mum, you’re being a Karen.” 

This is what I was upset about, I wasn’t being racist at all, my frustration was from being brushed off and patronised by a massive company that really did not care about my situation one single bit, as their bottom line is basically stats, profit, cash. And as I was called “A Karen” by my very own daughter, my concern refocused, it was no longer about my house hold discomfort and the fact that I couldn’t boil the kettle. It became about my needs being reduced to a luke warm historically inaccurate title. This got me angry, I was not being a Karen, I was simply just not being heard. 

 And as I stomped around in the darkness I came to the realization that machines have already taken over the world. There is no need for a violent war of AI domination, they have already won, by slowly twisting us into insanity and oblivion. Phrases such as “Not on me” or “The computer says no”, accompanied with a grimace smile and click of the tongue, are thrown around like confetti, and this scares me. Lies, twisted truths and one sided reasoning, being distributed in the aid to cover over someone else’s mistake and ignoring an easy solution, just so you don’t get the blame. 

It’s not only electrical companies or office admin that are the culprits. The worst of these ownership dodgers are our politicians and heads of state, all dressed up in front of the camera in puffer jackets and pale blue silk ties, looking concerned about something that in their mind was “Not their problem” and actually stopping them getting their 11am soy latte. The problem is, there is no safety anymore, there is no security, people are continuously ducking for cover. But where are the heroes in the battle for honour and integrity?

This was all rolling around in my head, and as I felt myself sliding deeper into the “Swamp Of Sadness/ Karen”, I suddenly realised that this is what some of the “Karen’s” of the world are reeling against, this invisibility, the trivialisation of an individual’s voice, a cry for help blatantly being ignored under the digital red tape of bureaucracy, social media and then laughed at. It is not a tantrum it is simply pure desperation and fear. 

“People have begun to lose their hopes. Emptiness, despair, destroying this world and I have been trying to help it. People without hope are easy to control and whoever has control has the power” G’mork (the wolf), Neverending Story, Michael Ende, 1979

I am no angel, I watched and laughed along with everyone else as a bunch of angry “Karen’s” railed against COVID restrictions and mask regulations, as lock down took hold. But thinking back now I am wondering why didn’t anyone stop and ask if they are OK, and let them voice their fears, regardless of how incorrect they may have been. It was clear they were incredibly distressed. But instead of calmly holding space, and hearing them, we shoved a camera in their face and posted it on social media faster than they could take off their own homemade sock masks. 

You know what? It seems that everyone is moving through life with their speakers on mute, no one is actually listening, and with this, common sense evaporates into a selfish discord of ” How can this happen to me?” And “This is everyone else’s fault”. So what can we do about this? I honestly do not know. There is a sickness that is slowly seeping into society and slowly blacking out, eradicating all notions of care and truth, which is frightening as these elements are the very foundations of humanity and love.

“The Nothing is spreading,” groaned the first. “It’s growing and growing, there’s more of it every day, if it’s possible to speak of more nothing. All the others fled from Howling Forest in time, but we didn’t want to leave our home. The Nothing caught us in our sleep and this is what it did to us.”

“Is it very painful?” Atreyu asked. 

“No,” said the second bark troll, the one with the hole in his chest. “You don’t feel a thing. There’s just something missing. And once it gets hold of you, something more is missing every day. Soon there won’t be anything left of us.” Michael Ende – The Neverending Story, 1979

Look, I know I could be getting a bit dramatic here, but I truly believe this is what we are facing. A “Nothing” of guidance and integrity. Now, The Neverending Story was written in reflection of the despair and loss of childhood imagination and play. But maybe this is what this Karen phenomenon is, maybe this this the “Kareness” we witness in people of a certain age. Is it simply the result of lost childhood, abandoned or sacrificed dreams and invisibleness. The realization of your own agency and control fading into the “Nothing”. Could these temper tantrums, including the one I had with the phone clerk, just be the final cry before the “Swamps Of Sadness” goes above our heads?

These thoughts have inspired my latest illustration, titled “The Nothing” Water colour on paper. This is apart of my Chasing Pippies series, not so much dealing with trauma directly but the result of this build up of sadness that can work on the inside of a person until they become unrecognisable. 

You see these thoughts have actually been rummaging around in my mind for nearly 4 years now, and it took my own “Karen” moment to understand what had been bothering me this whole time. So as I reach out for something to grab onto, for anything to stop me sinking further into this abyss, I am beginning to wonder, if there is actually freedom under the first layer of mud? Am I struggling against an inevitable fate, and if I stop panicking will I sink down and find clear water bliss? Will I find my calm and realise my control is not in the hands of inept policies and inadequate bureaucratic systems? My control is my own, it can never be diminished. My calm is the one thing I can have for myself in-spite of what is happening around me. This something I will always try and remember.

I hope everyone is having a great March and keeping safe in this crazy journey.