Patricia Harrelson

              Today is Blog Action Day. Bloggers around the world are writing about water as a global issue.

The graduate program through which I earned an MFA claimed “writing for social change” as a foundation principle. I found myself surrounded by politically savvy activists, feeling like I hadn’t an activist cell in my body. Then, in seminar on the feminine narrative, I read Carol Hanisch’s 1969 essay “The Personal is Political.” The essay generated a seismic shift in my understanding of political activism as I came to see that many personal problems stem from systematic oppression.

The article is controversial and often linked with radical feminism, and there is no doubt that part of the shift I experienced was in suddenly noticing many, many small ways in which I’d been oppressed as a woman. But that’s not why I’m referencing the essay here. I bring it up because of the shift I experienced from feeling hopeless and helpless in the face of gigantic and painfully challenging issues, such as homelessness, poverty, child abuse and neglect in the United States not to mention war and hunger and THIRST in far away nations.

Suddenly I saw that if the personal is political, then I as an individual can take personal action to change the tide. Since I wanted to write, was in fact training to be a better writer, then writing was a way I could take action.

If I wrote about my dyslexic grandson, I was taking action to raise awareness and potentially promote change regarding readers’ responses to dyslexic people. If I wrote about the trials and triumphs of women inventors trying to get their product to market, I generated inspiration for readers to pursue their dreams. If I wrote about my own confusion when after more than 30 years of marriage I fell in love with woman, I could let readers know that tumultuous emotion might lead to unprecedented action and reaction.

What does all of this have to do with the world’s water problem?

In order to manage facts like these:

African women walk over 40 billion hours each year carrying cisterns weighing up to 18 kilograms to gather water, which is usually still not safe to drink;

Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions;

A report commissioned by the UN found that in the 21st century, water scarcity will become one of the leading causes of conflict in Africa;

It takes 24 liters of water to produce one hamburger;

People in the US drink an average of 200 bottles of water per person each year. Over 17 million barrels of oil are needed to manufacture those water bottles, 86 percent of which will never be recycled.

I have to move up close and personal because otherwise such facts drown me in hopelessness. I can take small actions, such as joining the call for Blog Action Day. I can write about the problem on my blog, and though I have only a few readers, I know that by writing about the issue, my thoughts crystallize into a manageable form. I see clearly actions in my small sphere that speak to the problem :

• recycling plastic;
• choosing tap water over bottled water;
• using water consciously, e.g. not letting water run indiscriminately,  short showers, judicious gardening with regard to water use.

And here is the biggie for me: Facing the problem. That means paying close when the issue is addressed on TV, radio, or print articles. Instead of turning away from the pain with a feeling of hopelessness, I need to open my heart to the issue, let the sorrow fill me, breathe out compassion to those who do not have easy access to healthy water.

If I don’t turn away, I can make the water issue part of my heartfelt consciousness.  For me, writing, even in my personal journal, keeps me present to the gravity of the problem and directs my compassionate energy toward change.