Jun
13
“It’s so hard to find my footing lately,” I said to a friend yesterday. It was the best I could do to describe the feeling: like being buffeted by waves, maybe, or forever caught in the heart-sink of that half-dream where you’re walking down a set of stairs only to find the next one has disappeared.
It is a time of self-reckoning in so many ways and I suppose it is only right and fair that I have been looking at myself and seeing how I have allowed myself to become so very complacent. I see a person who has chosen to believe I stand for many things that I don’t actually put action behind.
It’s much easier to think or say Well of COURSE I am not racist, of course I value this or I support that, than to delve deeper and ask myself what I really and truly believe, what truth lies deepest in myself. The ugliest stuff, the most shameful and immobilizing.
I care less about things that don’t affect me directly. That’s the real truth and I am ashamed to say it but if I don’t excavate it out into the open I’ll never face it.
I hate that truth and I wish it were not part of me but it is and it requires work.
I see so many people doing so much work right now and I feel overwhelmed by all the social posts of books people are reading or places they’re donating to or the protests they’re joining. I envy their clarity in many ways: I myself feel caught in place. I am full of media mistrust and weary of shifting groupthink and wholly uncertain what I stand for aside from the wimpy cop-out answers that come from some half-baked utopian fantasy.
Addiction recovery talks about the simpleness of doing the next right thing. Meaning that rather than getting caught up in the freakout of “I can’t do this forever!” you focus on the next right thing. Maybe it’s going for a walk, or talking to someone, or having a glass of water.
For me I suppose the next right thing is to sit in this stew of discomfort and confusion. It’s to keep myself open to learning and listening, and to take breaks when the message — whatever it might be — becomes lost to the noise.
Maybe feeling stuck isn’t a bad thing, however bad it feels. Maybe the point is to stop doing a halfass job of spackling over the buried garbage, in order to build a more solid foundation before moving forward.
Jun
5
Dylan and I have a saying, it’s something I keep telling him when he’s faced with the desire to give up when the going gets tough: We can do hard things. Whether it’s a pile of ignored homework or a hiking trail that takes a steep upward turn, sometimes you just have to set your jaw and lean into the hardness of a thing, because that’s what has to happen. The only way out is through.
I keep thinking of that phrase this week, as events continue to unfold across our country and we as individuals and as a nation react in our different ways. I had the great fortune to be at the coast for a couple days with my mom and aunt, and I could not have asked for a better environment for me personally — surrounded by people I love, whose opinions I value, with the opportunity to take ongoing breaks from processing and conversation to experience the great calming presence of the ocean.
I keep thinking of the quote that’s been going around which reads in part,
So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe. It’s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti-racist certification class. It’s a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. I know it’s hard work, but it’s the price you pay for owning everything.
The boat of my life is so heavy right now. It feels as though there are so many things I have had to keep scooping out of it in the last couple months to keep from going under. I feel such a soul-deep weariness, a desire to just set the paddles down and allow myself to be taken where the angry currents take me.
At the same time, I see with clarity the privilege of that choice, the shameful ease of deciding I am not fit for the fight.
On my last night at the beach I walked the long winding path from our hotel to the beach, and as sunset approached and the wind grew bitter I started running, just to stay warm. I ran and ran and ran along soft then packed sand, my footsteps sometimes sinking and sometimes supported. It was exhilarating and exhausting at the same time, my lungs burning but my breathing deep, my body aching but wildly alive. The ocean pounded in my ears along with my heartbeat, the sky and sand were like cupped hands that pressed the world in around me.
I don’t know how to find some sort of healthy balance between staying informed and spending nearly every waking moment of my day reading the news. I don’t know how to navigate a pandemic when so many of the people that I care about don’t believe the pandemic is something to be concerned about. I don’t know how to guide my children to stand up and fight racism when I myself have done such a poor job of leading by example. I don’t know how to conquer my addictive behaviors when I keep succumbing to the siren call of changing or muting my emotional channels with food, substances, doom scrolling.
I only know that I can do hard things. I have to do the hard things, I have to both live in my truth and work to improve myself. I have to keep choosing to stay in the moment and face the discomfort and educate myself on how to do better.
There’s no shortcut to anything right now. The only way out is through.
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