How to Carry a Storm

I am on my knees on cheap astroturf. My knee pads cut into my skin. The stage lights flicker red. The audience watches, attention focused, as we near the end of The Wolves. My character - a precise, perfectionist goalie -  is about to break.

She’s kept it together for the duration of the play, tight-lipped and stoic. She’s kept it together her entire life, pushing her emotions aside in service of her parents, her team, her pride, until she physically can’t do it anymore. She finds an empty soccer field and runs drills until her legs give out. She falls to the ground, rips off her jersey, and screams.

I know this scream well. It lives between my ribs, fiery and alive.

There is a storm inside me. Perhaps it’s inside you, too - a raw and electric charge of lightning that surges when the truth hits your chest: the system wants us weak.

When the rage first comes, it almost feels good. It feels liberating to rip off your shirt and scream into the night. But rage without action devours everything in its path.

The cage builders know this. They are counting on it. They stoke the flames, waiting for you to burn out. They know fire alone can’t rewrite laws. It leaves you smoldering and exhausted when the real fight is still ahead. 

This is not new. This is the story of the Erinyes, the Furies - Greek goddesses of vengeance. Born from the blood of Uranus, their wrath is relentless and all-consuming. To be hunted by the Furies is to be swallowed by a rage so fierce it shatters psyche and soul. 

Alongside them are the Fates, the Moirai - three sisters who hold the thread of life. Clotho spins, Lachesis measures, Atropos cuts. Their power is cold and absolute, marked by control. They do not rage; they sever with purpose, indifferent to mercy. Their justice is inevitable, but it is detached - a fate delivered without passion.

These two forces - the vengeful Furies and the cool Fates - hold the ancient blueprint for how we relate to justice. To surrender to fury is to risk being consumed by a fire that destroys everything, yourself included. To defer entirely to fate is to submit to a cold finality, without heart or hope. One threatens to consume us; the other risks leaving us checked out and empty. 

And so we must learn to integrate the storm inside - to walk the path between fire and ice. We must find the balance between righteous anger that fuels change and measured control that guides it: a careful alchemy of charged action and lucid choice.

Of course, this alchemy is easier said than done. When George Floyd was murdered and the streets filled with fire and mourning, I was angry in a way I had never been angry before. That summer showed me what happens when fury has nowhere to go but out - when it spills through cities and bodies that have had enough. It was a catalyst. It shook me awake. But it took something out of me, too. I am proud of the work I did during that time, but I was undone by my own ambition. After calling and posting and protesting for months on end, I felt exasperated and burnt out. 

It taught me a powerful lesson: if you’re not careful, rage will eat you alive you before it ever touches the systems that need to burn down. 

I am learning how to carry the storm differently. How to sustain my activism so it doesn’t swallow me whole. To channel both fate and fury so that the true objective is not lost. 

And we desperately need objectivity right now. The cage builders want us distracted. They want us numbed out, or screaming into the void, or both.

They don’t want us paying attention to the horrifying “One Big Beautiful Bill” that just passed, which does not reflect the people’s will.

This is the cost: ~17 million people will lose their health insurance. Hundreds of Planned Parenthood clinics forced to close - cutting off birth control, cancer screenings, and infection testing. Medicaid gutted, ripping care away from low-income families, seniors, and people with disabilities. Tax breaks for billionaires and corporations who need them least, adding trillions to the national debt while rent climbs. Inhumane ICE detention centers will expand. Books banned. Voting rights restricted. Identities erased. Families torn apart, all while the rich hide profits offshore. It’s all part of a plan to hollow out public services, keep people desperate, and siphon power to the top.

This is not about protecting people. This is about control.

It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

But we are the storm, and we know the truth. We know real change takes time, and we will hold our ground. The cage builders will say we’re overreacting. Will call us hysterical - from hystera, the womb - a word twisted to shame and silence the source of life itself.

They know exactly what they’re doing when they use those words. They want you small and second-guessing the storm alive inside you.

Carry the storm anyway. Summon it as you need. Wield it when you call your reps, when you cast your vote, when you stand for the oppressed, when you teach your children what freedom means - and what’s at stake if we keep electing people who give it away. 

Your voice is your power. Do not be afraid to use it. Do not be afraid to crack the sky, like the howl of a goalie who’s let it all go. Like the blade of fate, and the flame of fury, and a thousand myths that all ask the same thing: who do we choose to be?