Things I Learned in 2020

 There has been sooooo much learning (and other spicy descriptors that I'll leave to your imagination) this past year. Let's get to it. 

In 2020 I learned:

- how incredibly naive our traditional New Year's Day meal of 'good luck' pork and sauerkraut felt as the months passed

- how to sew a mask, wear a mask, what makes an KN95 mask desirable, and what social distancing means

- mask wearing during a pandemic is good citizenship - period

- seeing crinkly eyes on an otherwise hidden face is heartwarming/reassuring

- social skills are not to be taken for granted.  They require practice   https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/style/self-care/feeling-socially-awkward-even-extroverts-are-a-little-rusty.html?searchResultPosition=1

- wedding ceremonies can be micro sized and continue to have macro impact

- elementary school students wear their face masks all day (even during outdoor recess) with little complaint b/c being in school with friends is very reassuring to them!

- hiking with my eldest daughter in Hawaii is a gift

- everything that includes Hawaii is also a gift

- Zoom

- Kahoot

- nothing - absolutely nothing- can stand-in for a proper hug

- 81,283,485 American voters chose sane, thoughtful leadership in wanting better for everyone in our country; 74,223,744 more voters need to find their way to this 

- losing 59 out of 60 lawsuits (and counting) is the sign of a colossal loser

- having my brother Joe stranded here for six months while awaiting entry back to his South African home served up the gift of connection.  Amen to all of it!

- the world now understands that teachers do whatever it takes, whenever it is needed, however it is possible, with relentless passion.  Ditto for all essential workers

- parents navigating life with school aged children during a pandemic are rock stars 

- livestreaming a cooking class via airbnb Experience with a South Korean cook/travel writer instructing from Seoul was a super satisfying and clever gift from my younger daughter - I feel seen

- kimchi has many, many uses

- makgeolli (milky rice wine) is kimchi's worthy sidekick

- black lives matter - no additional qualifiers needed

- white privilege means a lack of inconvenience.  It is blinding.  It has impact. It needs to be tamed

- having my mom on the planet for 93 years still wasn't enough time; ditto for my 90 year old mother-in-law and 89 year old father-in-law

- a weekly zoom date with four college pals is free therapy

- gratitude begets optimism

- with lyrics like ~ well you never know how far from home you're feeling until you watch the shadows cross the ceiling ~ John Prine's Summer's End goes to my core https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXbEFTv9zr0

 

- reading Circe ignited an unexpected appreciatation for Greek mythology.  Brava local author, Madeline Miller 

- my love for writing and my lack of results begets frustration

- using "begets" twice in a blog post makes me simultaneously chuckle and roll my eyes

- Sweet & Satisfying Tip: "Reminder that if you bought an advent calendar the day after Christmas when they were heavily discounted you can now count down the 25 days until Inauguration Day with chocolate." from @Kaitlin_Benz on Instagram

- democracy is a deliberate action - not a place

- the glory, joy, and humanity of all six seasons of Schitt's Creek (I came to this brilliant show so darn late!)  This clever "adapted for 2020" year-end video brings out the best of these memorable characters and makes me smile over and over

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTenLwKVlxc

Thank you dear, patient reader for indulging this year-end vanity project. May 2021 be satisfying. 

I'll let WH Auden have the last word.

 

How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.

from "The More Loving One" by WH Auden

Living While White

There's no lack of places in which to begin.

I am white.  I am neither celebrating nor condemning it.  I am more than ever examining what it means in a multi-racial world.  I am and will forever be a student and learning is my oxygen.  

The school of combating racism has always been in session for people of color.  While I condemn racism as a matter of course, I see how I am a back seat passenger on this journey. Words and deeds have been separate while my everyday life remains largely unchallenged by racism.  Even as I have participated in the women's march, and marches against gun violence, a march against racism and police brutality finds me at home. My mind says no to racism but my feet are passive. Until now.

Malvern PA 6/14/20

George Floyd's lynching, and all those before him, by a police officer sworn to protect and defend citizens and the rule of law may as well have happened in the 1800s.  A white man uses his limitless power/privilege along with other white men to literally squeeze the life out of an unarmed black man, in front of witnesses in daylight, as Mr. Floyd and others on his behalf beg for reprieve for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.  

Breonna Taylor.  

Ahmaud Arbery. 

Racism is a system, and the death of people of color at the hands of guns, police, and vigilantes, protected by laws that favor guns over common sense, has been an ugly American legacy.

When asked what I think about the subsequent riots, looting, protests, the calls for defunding of police, the worldwide outcry for justice and humanity regardless of color, - my reply is, "I don't know what it is to be living while black."  It has been a truth since taking my first breath.  And when I don't know something, seeking knowledge about it is required.  Listening is required.  I have been on the static perimeter.  

Hearing some white people take cover behind the video of a charlatan's argument (I refuse to use her name) that offers the ultimate false "what aboutism" as she figuratively murders Mr. Floyd a second time because he had a criminal record shows how desperate we are to get permission to look away.  "Mr. Floyd was a criminal so why are we (black people) making him a hero?"  She seeks and receives attention for what activist/professor Dr.  Brittney Cooper calls "cookies" from white people seeking a reason to use his record as a cancellation of his worth.  Her form of opportunistic self-aggrandizement stinks like fish on the third day.  Shame on her and those who shield themselves behind her phony argument.  

Which brings me 180 degrees into the light to a most constructive event that occurred last week: Instagram's Share the Mic Now.

Dr. Cooper, @professor_crunk, and 45 other activists, professors, writers, community leaders, artists, and authors of color recently participated in this social media event.  They took over the accounts of their white counterparts to share the work they have been creating and advocating for years in supporting communities of color, feminism, education, and in fighting racism.  Via posts, Instagram stories and Instagram Live, many white audiences became the beneficiaries of this knowledge/opinions/research/activism.

School was most definitely in session.

Dr. Cooper, an associate professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, read from her current book, Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, specifically from the chapter titled, "White Girl Tears" in which she calls out white women/feminists on our failure to influence other white women in the 2016 election. In her words, "White feminists did not come get their people. Who are the people of white feminists? Other white women."   https://www.instagram.com/p/CBRMmTLh3ga/

 This message was echoed in 2018 during the Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearings when she tweeted: "If white women tears can't compel white men to do better, nothing will."   

Dr. Yaba Blay, @fiyawata, assistant professor, Africana Studies, Drexel University and author of (1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race, and creator of the web series Professional Black Girls spoke on racial identity and noted along with other event peers about some trepidation having a largely white audience for the day and acknowledged being tapped by some of her black friends/followers with concern over what she was opening herself up to.  She tempered the concern with a knowing that any opportunity to share the message is an opportunity to be taken.  

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBSAvIoAlNr/

Tarana Burke, @taranajaneen, creator of the #metoo movement in 2006 with her work with empowering black women and girls who have experienced abuse/trauma doubled down on the access to a wider audience as necessary.  She shared that having white women as accomplices in order for black women to have a conduit into the mainstream (which is another word for white world) is helpful and necessary because "our message needs to go to a broader audience."  Ms. Burke added that the goal is have access without a white conduit.  "My voice should count on its own.  I shouldn't need a surrogate but you give me any mic, I've got something to say,!" she stated. 

Miatta Johnson, @miattajohnson, President of the marketing firm MVD Inc., responded to being asked to comment on this moment this way:  "People are understanding that its not just black people who are upset.  People are understanding that its not just where we put a band aid on the problem; we have to actually peel back the layers of our own bias and do better.  This time feels different."  https://www.instagram.com/p/CBRdLnUB7Zp/

I have only skimmed the surface of women who participated in Share the Mic Now and continue to listen, read, and purchase books authored by these voices in my very small way of learning more and doing so much better. 

Malvern PA 6/14/20

Another activist whom I've followed on Instagram since last summer is Rachel Cargle @rachel.cargle. Ms. Cargle is concise and unforgiving as she offers historic perspective and challenges her followers to go deep with topics that make us squirm.  She numerically dissects comments on her Instagram posts to instruct readers on the importance of context and calls out specific double meanings.  Her Instagram posts are a worthy education. She offers free coursework along with subscription based courses via the Patreon platform. She is a teacher but I see her more as an alarm clock repeatedly urging us to awaken!  https://www.instagram.com/p/CBRrRpAnkmI/

Ms. Cargle's black history prompts steer the reader into areas of racism in American history that are regularly sidelined by white perspective/interpretation. She also curates, "The Great Unlearn" community where "whitewashed colonized understanding of the world" is addressed. She is also the founder and CEO of the Loveland Foundation which provides therapy support for women and girls of color.  What started as a birthday wish fundraiser morphed quickly into a sustaining provider of services. https://thelovelandfoundation.org/ways-to-give/

As I type this post, Breonna Taylor's murderers - police officers who wrongfully stormed into her Louisville KY apartment on 3/13/20 and shot her 8 times - have yet to be arrested.  She is someone's girlfriend, daughter, co-worker, - she is a young woman of color and her death must be reckoned with.  How are those officers still not arrested?   https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/06/11/us/ap-us-america-protests-kentucky.html

The planet is activated.   Now what?

Author Roxane Gay's recent opinion piece in the NYTimes wearily reminds us: "Some white people act as if there are two sides to racism, as if racists are people we need to reason with.  They fret over the destruction of property and want everyone to just get along...they offer no alternatives about what a people should do about a lifetime of rage, disempowerment and injustice."   https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/06/11/us/ap-us-america-protests-kentucky.html

I'll close with Dr. Blay: "We need a boot camp for white people to learn about white supremacy because this is not about how you feel.  This is not about being seen as nice...most folks have never been required to learn about race, let alone racism.  Most woman have not been asked to look at the intersection of their gender and their race." 

The great learning AND unlearning is here.  Let's get to it and stay with it.  Instead of being afraid of change blowing our way, let us only fear the already known catastrophe of not addressing it.

There is too much at stake. 

"Knowing" in Three Parts

The wind howls, the rain pounds against the windows, tree branches slap wildly, tornado warnings beep on my phone, the sun bursts through, and the rain returns in torrents.  This April day's weather screams of uncertainty and change - a metaphor for a planet in the throes of Covid19. With more questions than answers, I offer thoughts on my small world during a pandemic, each through a lens of "knowing" for yesterday/today/tomorrow.

What I thought I knew:

1. The day of the week and the calendar date

2. A love for reading books

3. A love for cooking

4. How to eyeball what six feet apart looks like on local walking trails and maintain it
5. Medical professionals perform jobs that include many stomach churning parts 
6. My failings
7. Creating my food shopping list in the order of the store layout
8. The cost of offering a smile - nothing

9. Pets are comfort
10.We have a childish, self-absorbed, career con-artist president who couldn't lead a horse to water
11. Face Time
12. A disinterest in making sour dough bread
13. Bleeding heart plants in my garden bloom in early May 
14. The definition of an Optimist: someone who sees the bright side and that things will work out
15. Teachers create worlds for all types of learners every day in the classroom
16. Standing shoulder to shoulder at concert venues brings the communal music experience to its fullest
17. Boxes of memorabilia in the attic and various closets bring comfort.
18. Meeting friends at a bar or restaurant is casual and easy
19. "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone"

What I now know:

1. Morning, Afternoon and Evening

2. A pandemic finds me struggling to read books

3. I still love to cook

4. Most fellow walkers who travel two, three, and four abreast on local trails reliably do not eyeball what six feet apart looks like nor do they seek it
5. Medical professionals have bravery that exceeds my imaginings
6. There are more than I thought
7. Entering the store from a different doorway and beginning to shop on the opposite end of the store using one way aisles tosses me into the "away team" category
8. A smile has immeasurable value
9. I regret not having a pet
10. Ditto, only worse as he uses daily briefings during a pandemic for personal ego rallies
11. Zoom
12. I am still not interested in making sour dough bread
13. Bleeding heart plants in my garden bloom in early April 
14. An Apocaloptimist: someone who knows it's all going to s*%t but still thinks things will turn out okay (credit to @mesa.fama)
15. Teachers can create these worlds virtually in the span of mere days
16. How did we ever stand shoulder to shoulder in crowds for anything?
17. Boxes of memorabilia in my home attic and various closets take up a lot of emotional and physical space
18. Meeting friends at a bar, restaurant, or anywhere should NEVER be taken for granted
19. Joni Mitchell is right

What I hope to know:

1. To trust my calendar

2. How to find my way back to reading books

3. To rely less on recipes and more intuition when I cook

4. Patience with myself and others in the social distancing world
5. People will continue to train to be and choose to work as medical professionals
6. Improvement and acceptance are always possible
7. Even infinitesimal change - such as feeling like the away team -  is growth
8. A smile translates well through crinkly eyes while wearing a homemade personal protection mask
9. Pet memes and photos still bring comfort
10. A November change in presidency
11. Up close and personal conversation minus a computer/phone/any device
12. Appreciation for all sour dough bread bakers (especially you hardy first timers!) 
13. Electing leaders who give science its due re: climate change and other crises
14. More new words to describe this current world
15. Teachers will forever be held and paid as high value workers
16. Our gatherings will once again be full, robust, safe
17. An appreciation for the past with fewer memory boxes
18. Meeting friends anywhere casually and easily
19. Every darn day - good or bad - is the gift

Peace, safety, good health to all. 

Two Weddings and a Funeral

The first wedding was in early March - when we were moving freely about the land, yet the yellow caution flags were beginning to wave.

The couple moved ahead with their original plans and we found ourselves in place at the wedding venue at the appointed time.  All the elements one would expect at a wedding were also in place creating a easy, albeit tenuous, sensory backdrop:  little flower girls swooshing about in layered, cream colored dresses, sweet scents from floral bouquets, burbling water cascading over a decorative fountain's edge, the rapid, soft click, click, click of the photographer's camera.

The fresh feel of approaching Spring filled the plant dense venue.  Missing were the usual hugs, kisses, and handshakes that I, as a wedding officiant, would normally share with the couple and their folks. At that point, physical touch was a no-no but "social distancing" wasn't in our word bank yet.  

The ceremony included a reflection on how luck played a significant role in this couple finding and dating each other and eventually arriving at marriage.  Reading these sentiments written months before felt a little unbalanced given how this earlier, carefree certainty seemed blissfully naive in a COVID-19 world.

Yet, the moment contained all the precious joy and, a bit of relief, as two lovers made their marriage promises to each other as planned.  

In the hours and days that followed, it was becoming all too clear that this wedding ceremony would be my last for a while as a Journeys of the Heart officiant.

Days after the wedding, I found myself and my 92 year-old dad in a hospital emergency room watching my 93 year-old mother's health collapsing as we sat vigil by her side.  Hours later, she died.  

The mental ping pong of accepting the fact that her body could fight no more, comforting my dad's (and my own) fear and grief, communicating with siblings and children near and far, digesting how we arrived at this crushing moment, making mental calculations about the many surfaces we were touching in an ER environment, and perpetually hand sanitizing, proved to be a tsunami of circumstances teetering on unbearable. 

Marvel Comics has it all wrong with their hyperbolic imaginings of who is a superhero; the health care professionals in service to all three of us that evening earned that top billing then and every single day before and after.  

When we mortals are falling apart under the weight of an emotional onslaught such as a loved one dying, the EMTs, ER clerks, nurses, and docs are the voices of calm, reason, rational thought, and compassion. Layer on the current pandemic, the woeful lack of needed supplies, and a host of other larger than life scenarios and it becomes incomprehensible how they rise up and do this work every day.

They are human marvels. 

A few days later a second wedding came to the fore.

photo credit: Christian Nachtrieb

My daughter Alison's college roommate had a late April wedding planned in upstate New York. Alison is one of two maids of honor. The couple, Bridget and John, live in Boston and, like so many other engaged couples, they postponed the big celebration and took matters into their own hands as a pandemic encroached on normal life.  

On a clear, bright, breezy early spring afternoon, the couple decided to be wed, at a city park, with a couple of local friends surrounding them in a social distancing tableau. Out of town family and other close friends watched via Instagram Live. 

Dressed in wedding finery, with flutes of prosecco in hand, those family and friends  dialed in from across the miles and oceans to the precious, homemade moment. Bridget's mom even made a tiered wedding cake to celebrate, albeit from PA.  

The sweetness that emerged from this pared down, full-hearted ceremony was yet another reminder of how the power of love and the capacity for joy conquers.   

Days later, my mom's funeral took place.  It was a simple, private Mass arranged for my immediate family as the limitations on churches and funeral homes became increasingly stringent. (Thankfully Mass was live streamed so family and friends out of town and down the street could watch.) 

And on another warm, sunny, springtime day we closed the door to outside world issues and focused on the woman who gave our lucky family her finest work as mother, wife, grandmother, and great-grandmother.  We gave Love its due because it is our fuel and was never to be denied.   

We humans have an incredible capacity to hold love, sorrow, fear, gratitude, jealousy, compassion, wonder, grief simultaneously. It isn't the easiest juggling act but it is essential.   As long as we can keep some balance, remembering to switch off our rudder control from one powerful emotion to another, we have a shot at sanity.  And, a little peace. 

This moment is the one we have.  The only thing certain about the ones to follow is that they are unknown.   

What a world. 

Best Advice?

What's the best advice? Probably to not give advice but, predictably,  I often do not take my own medicine.  It's my "sideline sage" conundrum and it takes grit-like self-control to listen without trying to tell someone how to fix their problem.  I've slowly learned to first reach for empathy but it can be a challenge. 

There are easy-to-grab pieces of advice that straddle the helpful/not helpful line.
On the practical side, I believe these nuggets hold up:

~Don't drink and drive.   ~Buy low; sell high.  ~Neither a borrower nor a lender be
~When in doubt, out       ~Know thyself          ~You can't always get what you want

In contrast, these don't:

~Everything happens for a reason     ~What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
~It could be worse   ~Time heals all wounds   ~Just be strong 
~God (or some deity) doesn't send you what you can't handle

I am more intrigued by the question of why do we give advice?  What's in it for the advice giver? Or for the receiver?  Is it the desire to help or to inject a tried and true fix? Are we careful/thoughtful enough to sense if advice is not what the situation needs? And on the receiving end, what are we really seeking?

The first rule of advice is that when someone brings us a problem, they may just want to hear themselves describe it aloud.  Perhaps they are looking for a friendly listener. However,   offering a fix is usually a first response, predictably employed by men.  I believe instead of defaulting to empathy, men instinctively go to the toolbox.  Why else would someone be sharing a problem with them? The logic is simple: problems need answers.

I have to admit, this has been part of my nature as well because: 
a) I want to help; 
b) I really think my advice fits as an answer to the problem; 
c) It's a comfort to feel I have the ingredients to create a nourishing answer that will fortify and be digestible.  

Oh, the sweet arrogance of it all.

Parents suffer this character flaw, often with good intent, because we frequently see ourselves as the answer holders - advice givers - for our kids.  It can be an act of love but it is so often encased in control.  Glennon Doyle (warrior, author, humorist, life guide) recently noted in one of her talks that she reluctantly has come to learn this from her  former relationships, "I thought I had very good ideas about how people should behave" and would advise them as such, all in the name of love.  

What she has since realized is that control is the opposite of love. In her words, "Love implies trust.  We only control things or people we don't trust fully."  Hmmm. I gave this thought a moment to crystallize, took a quick cerebral inventory, and whispered to myself, "This could be true." For now, I am mentally road testing her premise. 

Advice columnists have had the best jobs because they are paid to advise. Reading their meanderings is a sort of sidelong glance into other people's problems. Who doesn't enjoy reading a good old fashioned question/answer volley with nothing to lose?

While notable past newspaper columnists/advice givers - Dear Abby, Ann Landers, and Erma Bombeck - enjoyed immense popularity in the print world heydays, my favorite modern-day prescriptive provider has been author, Cheryl Strayed. Strayed cut her advice teeth as "Dear Sugar" on the writer focused Rumpus website in 2010.  

Selected letters and replies were compiled from her column in 2012 to create her book (and an eventual stage adaptation) tiny, beautiful things. My dog-eared copy of her book looks like a crazy first try at an origami project.  So much of what she writes resonates.  She shares chunks of herself in service to the problem presented.  This speaks to the irresistible power of her empathy while she holds the pain of her letter writers. 

This winter, my daughter and I saw the stage presentation of tiny, beautiful things. Upon arriving home, I reached for my book and thumbed through favorite parts gladly slipping into the comforting rabbit hole of Strayed's wisdom and love.  She lets the writer/reader know I see you; I hear you.  She keeps us whole while nudging us to consider what she offers.   
                               

My mental image of her is that of a virtual disaster aid volunteer; before she types one word in reply, she is draping our weary shoulders with a protective blanket while handing us something warm to sip. Then we take teensy steps from our emotional fortress and head across the tenuous bridge she builds to consider what she has to say.  One thing is certain:  we are intact all along the way.

Almost a year ago I came across a NY Times article asking readers to share the best advice they've received. Readers submitted their "best of" offerings and the author categorized them: Life Advice; Parenting Guidance; Work Life; Lightening Round.  My favorite of the bunch?  Take a breath. The article sat all those months in an "ideas" folder waiting for my consideration. No great light bulb moment was born from that idle time but little glimmers emerged.  

I decided to play along and share what I've read/been told: 

• Best life advice?  Feel the fear and do it anyway.  
• Parenting Guidance?  Your child will find who and what they are looking for.  Pay more attention to who your child is. 
• Work Life? Try something new every day.
• Lightening Round?  What we know matters but who we are matters more. (thank you Brene Brown)

When I sometimes hear a friend say, "I remember some advice you gave me when you said..." I cringe the cringiest cringe.

And then I take a breath. 

Dear Reader: What advice have you given? Received? Was any of it of value?  Why? Why not?

                                ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Link to a "10 best Sugar Columns" from tiny, beautiful things: 

https://www.vulture.com/2014/12/10-best-dear-sugar-columns-cheryl-strayed-wild.html

Link to NYTimes article asking readers to share the best advice they've received:   https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/smarter-living/best-advice-youve-ever-received.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR0Hn610_LDJ9Jk9GP_zqdg676Yymk8d0fXALQI2y9-tge3ZxaKWRYEJo1Y