Thursday, August 17, 2017

Just 'cause you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there

I stayed up entirely too late reading If You Feel Too Much by Jamie Tworkowski.  We get up early to get the girl and her friends to volleyball practice and as we get into the car, One More Light by Linkin Park starts. It seems fitting, given the book I was reading late last night and into the new morning. I feel sad and happy and overwhelmed. I've been feeling heavy lately and Jamie's words lifted that for a bit and the song is, actually, doing the same. Chester Bennington's soft voice rides with us through the fog and teenage silence around me.  It's early and I wonder if today will be heavy or light. I can't quite feel it yet. The girls are off now, and I get a few minutes of being alone in the rain. I resolve to read more stories of kindness and struggle, of heaviness and light.  I think about my dad and my husband and the men in my life who would never wave torches in polo shirts and khakis. Who would never choose to intimidate and scare just because they can. The man who would be horrified by it all but who might know just the words to help me think it through and keep my faith that all will be well. I smile when I remember that a friend I've never met is sending a piece of art he created and thought I'd want to have. I think of the women who lift me and carry me and the times I've gotten to carry them. We take care of each other and challenge each other and put kindness into the world the best ways we know how.  I think of them and the words from last night and I am hopeful and grateful and light.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Freedom

There are people out there who can't be reasoned with.  Huge revelation, I know! These are the individuals who are so entrenched in willful ignorance that no amount of talking or facts presented will sway them.  There is always a countering that defies logic and often involves me wondering if that glint in their eye is, in fact, the wheel of insanity turning, turning, turning deep inside them. Discussing politics has ceased to become a mere difference of opinion and has moved into hateful rhetoric and lies versus facts and inclusiveness. I can have a healthy exchange over a difference of opinion.  What I can't abide is the spreading of misinformation, outright lies, and divisive speech. I won't react well to someone lying, and then trying to sell me on their lie. I won't react well to someone trying to defend abhorrent behavior as "no big deal." The fact that people I know are buying into the fear and hysteria is sad and disturbing and has been a point of great stress for me lately.  People I have to see on a semi-regular basis are being awful online, then acting like all is well in real life. People I haven't spoken to in decades, people who haven't "liked" or commented on a post in the entire time we've been social media friends are coming out of the woodwork to spread misinformation and bigotry. One "friend" even deleted comments that pointed out (with actual facts!) that the meme this person posted was full of false information after the comment got liked and had positive support (from the poster's own friends, not exclusively the commenter's friends.) This follows right along with the new administration's policy of silencing and belittling anyone with a differing opinion, so I'm not sure why I was surprised. Anyway, all of this got me to realize that I, in fact, do not have to put up with those who choose to wallow in their own willful ignorance.  I don't have to be pulled into the swamp with them! I can unfriend them! I know, another huge revelation. I don't have to care what their misinformed opinion is, or whether they even notice or are offended by the social media unfriending. I don't have to care if they gloat that I "just couldn't handle them."  *I'm laughing as I write that* I don't have to justify why I marched. (Oh boy. That's an entirely different ranting post.) 

Here's what I do have to care about: that I'm informed about the issues up for a vote, that I call, write, or email my representatives, that I donate my money to good causes that are doing wonderful, life-affirming work in this world, that I volunteer in my community, and that I set an example for my girls that while I will be kind, I will not, and do not have to, put up with anyone's ignorant shit. Especially if I've tried to kindly point out that the rhetoric they're listening to and repeating is hurtful, exclusionary and divisive, and they insist on defending it. I will wish them well, and move on from them. 

This is probably pretty self evident to most of you, but it took me awhile to come this conclusion, and to be ok with it. I hate confrontation, and we live in a very small town.  I don't always have a choice as to who I will be standing next to in line, or sitting near at a volleyball game, or sharing snack bar duties with at the next basketball game. I can, however, be polite and not engage.  That's the game plan for now and, fingers crossed, it works. 

Carry on friends, and hold the line.

Thursday, January 19, 2017

I'm back!

It's been a little while since I've posted.  I've been thinking about the year to come and mulling over the healthiest ways to make it through. I love to read, so one of my goals for this year is to read more diverse books, books to help me understand other people's perspectives. Our experiences shape who we are and how we function in the world, so this year, I want to read about others' experiences (especially those who grew up in a different way or place than I did) and how they see the world. I can't travel the world and speak to all of the fascinating people I'd like to learn more about, so I'll have to settle for reading their words. I hope to find others who've read their work, too, to discuss the things we've learned from them. I started with Caitlin Moran's Moranifesto, and loved it.  She is a feminist writer from the UK and is witty, thoughtful, and, I discovered, a lot of fun to read. She writes with what I found to be a sensible voice on topics of poverty, feminism, and what it means to be a responsible person in the world.

The next person I got to know was Trevor Noah.  His book, Born a Crime, is a series of essays on his life growing up in South Africa, both pre- and post-apartheid. I can't recommend these two authors enough. Moran is hilarious, and covers topics of feminism, politics, and raising girls with a sense a humor that made me laugh out loud as I was listening to it. Noah was raised in a system meant to keep him down, and does a lovely job of describing why apartheid held for as long as it did, and how difficult a job his mother had in raising him to be a good man.  He has one paragraph that resonated with me:

In society, we do horrible things to one another because we don't see the person it affects. We don't see their face. We don't see them as people. Which was the whole reason the hood (this is how he refers to the areas of South Africa that blacks were forced to live in) was built in the first place, to keep the victims of apartheid out of sight and out of mind. Because if white people ever saw black people as human, they would see that slavery is unconscionable. We live in a world where we don't see the ramifications of what we do to others, because we don't live with them. It would be a lot harder for an investment banker to rip off people with subprime mortgages if he actually had to live with the people he was ripping off. If we could see another's pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place. 

Wow, right?! And it's only January! I'm looking forward to finding some voices that I wouldn't normally read, and learning from them. Anything you've been reading that I should know about? Next up for me is March, Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. (Thanks Bev!) It's the National Book Award winner for Young People's Literature. John Lewis is that guy who's "all talk, talk, talk, no action." *sigh*

Tomorrow I am off to D.C. to join hundreds of thousands of other people for the Women's March on Washington. I'm excited and apprehensive, and wishing I didn't have to go. More about that later :)

Until next time, carry on and hold the line.