Silver Linings

In times of great strife and unrest, there are always silver linings that can remind us that we are not really alone.  And that we can handle what life throws at us.

Because I'm not traveling to Texas for work tomorrow (because of the virus), I actually have some time in my teaching schedule that I can use to make up the week we gave up to prepare our classes for the move to online (because of the virus).

Because my husband can sometimes work from home, he's been able to support and help me with some of my issues with teaching online - both from a technology perspective as well as a philosophical one.  He's always been a sounding board, but now he can help me in real time.  We are both able to support one another as we figure out this uncharted territory.  It makes the days that I'm alone a little easier.

Because this struck in early spring, there has been so much wildlife activity outside my window.  My
home office is right in front of our big living room windows that look out on the yard and woods beyond.  Yesterday I saw a red-tailed hawk, a fox, numerous deer, countless birds at the feeders, our porch squirrels, and a flock of turkeys.

Because we are home more often, we are getting to see some of Ellie's antics.  She is the cat we rescued over a year ago who still flinches when we go to pet her and will not rest easy if we are in the same room as her.  But these days she seems to be coming out more into the rooms where we are.  Just today we got to see her

wrestling a little with Mattie, the fearless furball princess.

Because we are all worried about each other, we are more apt to express words of love and support.  Reaching out, checking in.  Sharing stories and sending virtual hugs.  These are all things that mean this is really about physical distancing, not social.  We need more social than ever before.

Because this is truly a singular event in our lifetimes, I have started a journaling project with Honors students at FLCC.  This Living History project will give students an outlet to explore their lives in the context of these moments and, as a result, we will have many voices of the pandemic in the FLCC archives.  History is truly alive when it is told in the voices of those who were there.

Because so many of us are home so much more than we have been in the past, we are spending more time with our immediate families.  Dinners being eaten together, school work being figured out together, time spent in one another's company.  We are baking bread and trying new recipes.  I don't have children, but I see so many posts on social media of these moments and they are truly heartwarming.  We are also spending more time with our pets - even if its while they are interrupting our meetings and sticking their faces in our cameras.  There is more laughter.

Amidst the fear and the worry and the sadness and the changes.  It will not all be laughter as the days grow into weeks.  It will not be easy or happy.  But it will have silver linings.

Flashes of Normal

Today, I sat on the front stoop of my parents' house as they stood inside.  We had a conversation about how strange all of this was and about what various public figures were saying about it.  It was the closest I felt comfortable being to them.  I had brought over some needed supplies for them so they would not have to go out.  In return, I picked up a number of things - perhaps the most important being homemade chocolate chip cookies.  Not for any real reason other than there is little that can top my mother's homemade baked goods.

Between his heart, the diabetes, and his age, my father has a trifecta of risk factors and we are taking no chances.

This is compounded by the fact that my husband works in health care...which means he is an essential employee by government standards and is reporting to work several days a week.  We have no way of knowing if he has been exposed.  Or if I have in the errands I have run or the chiropractor appointment I went to today.

None of us know.

My worries and fears are no different than yours, really.  We are all wondering if we've been exposed, if (or when) we will get sick, how badly we will get it, and the answer to the same questions for all of those we love.

So many little things are different.  Door guards in the form of health care workers who took my name, phone number, and temperature at the hospital.  From behind masks, their muffled voices asked me a series of questions before I was allowed to go  to my appointment.  There were only three chairs in the waiting room, set equidistant apart.  My chiropractor wore gloves and we had to forego the heating pad that loosened my bones before he did his adjustment.  As I sit here typing this blog, I'm in a different kind of pain than normal.  Sore.  Feeling the effects of difference.

But some things were the same.  He and I gave each other a hard time about things, as we always do.  The secretary was her normal smiling self as she greeted me by name.  So many of us are doing the best we can to make the best of it.  I will not discount the importance of sitting on the stoop in the sun and talking to my parents.  I have that much, and so much more, to be happy about.

Like chocolate chip cookies.

Practice Humanity

I have not written a blog in four years.

Many things have happened in that time.  We moved.  We rescued pets and let other ones go.  I've said hello and then goodbye to many students.  I've had a lot of challenges and a lot of celebrations.  I could have written about any of them...and may, still.

But it was none of those things that got me to come back, as it were.  It is a combination of three things.

The first is a student-turned-friend who has their own blog.  Yesterday, they said to me, "Never stop writing!" and it struck a chord.

The second is an invitation I am shortly going to be sending out to all the students who have chosen Honors Studies or who are in an Honors class this semester - an invitation to journal their experiences during the third reason.  It seems odd to invite others to do something that I am not doing myself...so I am going to do a version of it.

The third reason, as you might imagine, is the pandemic.

There are so many things I could talk about and probably will as the more-uncertain-than-ever future unfolds.  We don't know how long we will be asked to shelter in place.  We don't know how many will grow sick, how many we will lose.  We took too long to mobilize, but now that we finally are, things are moving so quickly.  I'm grieving, it is true, but that's not what I want to talk about here.  I'm angry and sad and uplifted all at once.  I'm anxious and scared.  But what I would rather talk about is something that the governor of New York said today.  This is not about politics or how I see him now or in the past.  But he said something that is really important that we all remember in times like these.

Except who am I kidding - there have not been times like these in my lifetime, in the lifetime of my parents.  This is uncharted territory...but his words ring true nonetheless.  In the face of the hoarding and the con artists, the ones spreading false information and the ones trying to capitalize off the lack of others - in the face of all of that, his words ring true.

Practice humanity, he said.

Practice kindness, practice compassion, practice gentility, practice patience.

We may not be able to greet others with a handshake or a hug.  We may have to resort to greetings via technology or through a window... but we have the chance to make this easier on us all.  We have the power to make things harder for our fellow humans or to make it easier.

Practice humanity.

We can't return to normal after this, because 'normal' is what got us here in the first place.  But maybe, we can learn something from everything we are going through.  The only way to get better is to practice.

Practice makes perfect.

Practice humanity.

Uniting, Not Silencing...

It was a gay club.

It was an American club.

It was a human club.

These are not competing statements; or, rather, they should not be.  They are each true and they each carry weight that needs to be acknowledged and respected.

First, and perhaps foremost, the events in Orlando hold special significance to an often persecuted group – a community that often struggles with acceptance from the world around them, including their families and friends.  It was a direct attack on a group of people who – despite recent legal advancements and social acceptance – struggle every single day to feel safe and accepted.  A group that cannot show affection for a loved one in public for fear of becoming a target.  A group that loses so many of its members to violence and to suicide.  Victims of bullies and hate-mongers, conservatives and busy-bodies, people who use their God as a reason to judge and degrade.  This group has a claim on the violence that erupted in Orlando and they have a right to cry out in anguish and fear and anger.  In a sacred place where they should have been safe to be themselves, safe and comfortable and secure in their own skin, free to love and be loved, they were gunned down.  So yes, they will raise their fists and plant their rainbow flags and demand answers.  That is their right, because it is THEIR club.

But that same event in Orlando holds special significance to Americans.  It is the worst mass shooting to take place on American soil.  I do not say that lightly, because although I acknowledge the atrocity of Wounded Knee (which I have seen connected to Orlando as a correction), that moment in history was a whole other ugly and violent beast.  It did not technically happen on United States soil and it was not a lone shooter.   It was something else – something equally horrifying and something that deserves acknowledgement as a chapter in our history of which we should be ashamed and aware.  But this shooting – this moment in Orlando – belongs in a different category.  The category of events where one single American decided that others must die for reasons that are beyond the understanding of good-hearted people.  Those who died were Americans.  They were doing what Americans do – celebrating time away from work, listening to music, dancing, and fellowshipping with others.  They were enjoying a night out on the town, letting go of obligations and responsibilities.  They were spending hard earned money, laughing and dancing and being alive.  And they were gunned down.  Torn from life, torn from those who loved them, robbed of what is promised every American – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.   And so, yes, I will cry and raise the stars and stripes and plant it next to their rainbow flag.  I will demand answers.  That is my right, because as an American, it is OUR club.

And that same event in Orlando holds special significance to humans around the world in our global community.  The same people who wept for the bombings in Paris will now weep for the shooting in Orlando.  They will shine the lights on their buildings, hold their signs, and pray that we, as a race of beings, can find a way to stop killing each other, stop hating each other, stop blaming everyone else for whatever ails us. 

That same event in Orlando holds significance for Muslims, American and foreign.  It holds significance for the Latino community because of the special event at Pulse that night.  It holds special significance for the first responders and investigators who tried to do their work while blocking out the desperate, unrelenting sounds of cell phones that would never be answered. It holds special significance for those who are still – and always will be – reeling from Sandy Hook, from Virginia Tech, from the theater in Colorado, from the church in South Carolina.  It holds significance for those who will never hear the voices of their loved ones or erase the images of violence and destruction from their minds.  It holds significance for the people of Orlando, who now join the ranks of cities and communities that have seen the blood and tears run in their streets and feel helpless to respond, react, or recover.  It matters to all of us, for a thousand reasons, some of which we cannot voice.

We do not need to take away from one another’s claims to plant our flags with theirs.  We do not need to erase one community when we declare membership in another.  By saying, it’s an AMERICAN club, we should not say it is NOT a gay club.  It is both.  The intent is admirable – to claim the LGBQT+ community as part of US….but we cannot do so in a way that silences the unique struggle that this particular community goes through every single day in a thousand ways, each more painful than the last.  They are our brothers and sisters, but their struggle is one that we can only imagine and while we can unite, we cannot silence even as we try to combat.

It is a significant event for all of these people, for all of these communities, for all of these reasons.  Not one should silence the others.  Not one needs to be or should be forgotten.  They all wish for the same thing – an end to the violence, an end to the hatred, an end to the suffering.  Let our flags fly together and let our voices unite.  Protect the LGBTQ+ community, protect Americans, protect humans.  Protect us all, and let us all be who we are.  Let voices be heard.  Tolerance is not enough - we must listen, respect, accept, and love.  Love.

Trailhead This Way

On Friday, January 22^nd, I went to my parents’ house to have lunch with them and help work on a rather annoying jigsaw puzzle that I had picked out for them to do when they finished the last one.  After lunch and some time at the puzzle, dad asked if I wanted to go on walkabout.  I love walking in their woods even in the winter, so I said sure.  I borrowed some boots and a warmer coat from my mom, adjusted my hat and scarf and off we went into the wilderness. 

We were almost back at the house sometime later when my dad, who was surveying the brambles down in a gully asked me if I ever thought about that time we got lost at Limekiln Lake.   My mind immediately went back to that afternoon in 2014…

…it was a gloomy, wet sort of day even though it was July.  I was up camping in the Adirondacks with my parents and my aunt and uncle.  Dad and I decided we were going to go on a hike.  We had a map, walking sticks, some granola bars, and we dressed in layers so we could adjust to any changes in temperature.  We had on good shoes and yet for some reason, we did not bring any water.  Nor did we have a compass or even my cell phone (since there was no signal up there anyway).  It was a good hike – there was lots of cool things to see.  I took lots of pictures as I trudged behind my dad.   It’s one of my favorite things to do, really – camp with my parents and hike with my dad while there.  The trail seemed a little sketchy in places, but we kept relocating the markers and so were more or less doing alright.  I didn’t think too much of one of the bridges being under six inches of water and was more fascinated at the amount of tannin in the water that was making it turn a fascinating shade of orange which made my feet look funny.  I had taken my sneakers off to cross and rolled up my pant legs in an effort to keep them dry.   This would become more significant later.

“Yep,” I said.  He started walking back towards the house again and I took up my usual spot behind him.  He was quiet for a moment and then said, “That was scary.  I have dreams about it sometimes still.”  We trudged through the snow up the rest of the embankment towards the lawn and the house beyond with its burning fire and cozy jigsaw puzzle.

Every once and a while we would stop to figure out where we were on the map and everything seemed to be going well.  Except that we eventually would come to realize that the map and the trails marked on it did not seem to match the trail that we were actually walking.  It was becoming harder and harder to find the trail markers – though we never completely lost them for long.  What should have been a forty five minute walked turned into an hour, and then two, and then three.  We shared a granola bar and the talk that had sporadically drifted in and out of our hike stopped almost completely.  We unconsciously took turns going first, trudging through heavy flora that was thick with rain and mud.  Sneakers and pants could not be kept dry and were drenched up past the knees.  I stopped taking pictures.  We kept checking the map.  We heard dogs in the distance, but they never seemed to get any closer and we dared not stray off the path we seemed to be on.  It felt like dusk was coming.

I didn’t really reply that I can recall, or if I did it was some sort of offhand comment about how it had certainly been memorable.  But his comment started line of thinking that I’ve been mulling over since.  At the time we were hiking, I knew that this was not how the hike was supposed to go and I knew that the map and the trail were not aligning in a way that made any sense.  I had heard stories of people becoming lost in the Adirondack Wilderness, so it wasn’t as if the enormity of the situation was lost on me then.  I knew that our growing silence meant that we were focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and getting to more familiar ground.  But there was something else going on as well…

When we finally came out of the vast wilderness that is Adirondack State Park in a completely different part of the campground from where we had gone in, the normalcy of camping seemed to come rushing back.  It was almost culture shock.  We were filthy, soaked, exhausted, and an evening chill was starting to set in.  My legs ached from pushing through ferns and branches and ankle deep mud.  I kept alternating between warmth from exertion and cool from the sweat drying and the cool breeze kicking up.  We walked slowly back to our own campground to find my mother, my uncle, and my aunt all somewhat frantic.  They had already been to the ranger and were trying to figure out what to do.  My dad’s brother had driven around the campground a few times hoping to see us on some path or coming out of the woods somewhere.  We had been gone a long time.

I know my dad well enough that his comment about dreams and actually saying that the hike was scary was no small thing.  This is a man who had been a soldier.  It took a lot for him to admit fear because it was always easier to keep it inside and do what needed to be done.  What I don’t think dad realizes is that while I respect the enormity of what we experienced, there was only one thing that caused me fear that entire afternoon.  The only thing that kept crossing my mind had nothing to do with not finding our way out or that we wouldn’t reach civilization again.  My only concern was that we would not make it back out before dad became sick.  He’s diabetic, see, and that much physical exertion with little more than a couple of granola bars was the only thing that I felt was out of our control.

Correction.  It was the only thing that I ever felt out was out of dad’s control.  I trudged on step after step and only two things ran through my head beyond how tired I was and how much my back was upset with me…. 

My legs hurt.  My back hurts.  I’m tired.  Watch your step.  Don’t be a klutz, this is not the place for an injury. I’m tired.  Please don’t let the diabetes cause a problem out here.  My legs hurt.  My feet are wet and cold.  I’m tired.  Don’t be a klutz. Please don’t let the diabetes cause a problem out here. Please don’t let the diabetes cause a problem out here. Please don’t let the diabetes cause a problem out here. Please don’t let the diabetes cause a problem out here.  Please don’t. Please don’t. Please don’t. Please don’t. Please don’t. Please don’t. Please don’t.

You see, I knew we would get back to the campground.  I knew it would be okay.  I never had a single doubt that it was just a matter of time.  I didn’t have to worry or be afraid.  I was with my dad.

I was with my dad.

The Fourth House...

I love my job.  There are aspects that I could do without, of course; and even the best of jobs has the worst of days.  Sometimes it is frustrating, often it is stressful, it is almost never completed, and it is always tiring.  All in all, however, I truly enjoy teaching classes, connecting with students, and generally trying to make the world a better place in my own small corner of it.  I may not like starting my day when it is dark and ending when it is dark, but the exhilaration – or ‘teacher’s high’ – after that last class is undeniable.

This is not a blog about my job, though.

Some time ago, I made the choice to live in the moment as much as I could.  I’ve refined it to live in the day.  By this I mean that if there is something undesirable coming towards me, I will simply enjoy all the desirable moments in between.  By not letting these dreaded moments rule my life, I’ve come to enjoy the intervening moments all that much more and the interruption of undesired necessity is that much easier to endure.  This means that every evening spent at home I am really, truly, at home.  I’m not thinking about the dentist or that visit from the realtor, or the nine thousand errands I have to run.  I may be grading or thinking about the next school day, but only in terms of preparation.

But this is not a blog about changing my daily perspective.

I only want it understood that the following is not about finally getting free of a job that I don’t like or simply the relief that comes from leaving a necessary, but unwelcome, place.  It’s not about letting go of dread or not taking the moments of my life for granted.  I have a very good life and my workplace is filled with some of the funniest, kindest, and supportive people I know.  No, this blog is not about letting go of worry or about getting away from something, but rather it is very much about returning to something.

One of the best parts of my day is the moment I get close enough to my driveway to see that my husband’s car is already there (and not because it is a nice car, though he’d tell you that it is if you asked him).  That car sitting there means that there are lights on inside, there’s a hug waiting for me, and there’s someone to talk to.  Sometimes it even means that dinner will already be cooking.  It’s walking in the door and instantly feeling that I’m home.

Home is where I am a side of me that I only touch on at work.  It’s when I relax and can be silly, I can wear my frumpiest clothes and feel like the most beautiful woman on the planet.  I can make immature jokes and act like an idiot and it will be met in kind and with laughter.  I spend most of my evenings being reminded that I can be silly and that life is too short to be too serious for too long and too full of love to be wallowing in fear or worry about the wider world.  That part of me is always there, but there’s something about him that makes it that much more likely to thrive.  Our lives are not complicated or enriched by children – though we have three cats and a dog that keep us on our toes in various ways.  For a large part of our existence these days, it is just him and I.

Him and I.

We’ve had some upheavals of late and though they don’t really belong here, it is enough to say that we’ve both made colossal mistakes, we’ve both found our worlds suddenly a little smaller, and we both rediscovered what it means to be in love.  My world is both bigger and smaller, both deeper and lighter, both sillier and more emotional.  I have new dreams and plans to get there.  Not worrying about the future has gotten so much easier because my present feels content and reinforced.  This is where I want to be.

Here.  With him.

He is the light to my darkness – laughing when I try so hard to be serious.  He is the dark to my lightness – keeping my idealism closer to earth with a healthy dose of realism.  He is the confidence to my insecurities.  His height gives him a perspective that I don’t have and yet he doesn’t look over me or overlook me.  We work together well and though we have our troubles, like all couples, we are suddenly becoming much more adept at working through them together.

Together.

A thousand clichés talk about marrying one’s best friend and the importance communication, and a thousand clichés can’t be wholly wrong.  I am more content now than I have been in a long time, though I see the world around us and worry that the End Times are upon us.  I am content because my immediate world is beautiful in all its oddity.  

One of the greatest feelings in the world is my hand in his.  Or the warmth of him next to me as I lie awake at night and slowly will my aching back to ease up enough for sleep.  There is something comforting about the warm weight of a loved one nearby – be it cat or dog or human.  My house is one full of love and it’s a love that extends to the houses of my parents and my siblings.  The world spins around us, and yet I have so much love in my life to support me as I try not to let the emotions and the craziness crush me.   I’m not afraid or ashamed to talk about the love I have for my parents, my siblings, my sibling’s spouses and children.  I am proud and humbled that there are three houses I can go to that are filled with love and where I am accepted for who I am – for all my quirks and mistakes, my talents and abilities.  I am loved for who I am.  And, at the end of the day, the fourth house is the one I call home.  It is my home and my heart, my soul and my life because he is there.

Him and I.

Home.

Together.

Us.

My hands are small, I know...

"The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference" - Elie Wiesel

This quote has been moving slowly around in my head and in my heart over the last week or so.  It is that much more poignant that it came from a man who somehow, miraculously, survived the devastation the Third Reich visited upon its own citizens in World War II.  The senseless acts in Paris and other places around the world seem a relentless barrage of darkness that threatens whatever light we live by in the micro-worlds around us.  I am an empath, and so my own heart keenly feels these things - I've often been told that I become too invested emotionally and so each tear is a floodgate to emotional wreckage.  In talking to a (male) friend, JDB recently said - as the only words of explanation he could offer - she feels things.  I can't help it and it often puts me in awkward and painful situations.  I seem to collect the injured around me and I desperately want to heal them all.  I rarely can.  Even less so when it is the world itself I want to heal.

It did not help that the events in Paris unfolded while I was sitting alone in a hotel room hundreds of miles from home.  I did what I could to avoid traveling down a stream of tears until I at least had my standard support network in place - my family, my husband, my friends, my cats.  Even the dog.  But still - the buildings lit in familiar colors for another country's flag were a monument not easily overlooked as I walked the streets of a city that I did not know.  So, my heart ached, and still aches - here in the safety of home - for those put in harms way, those who paid a price they did not ask to pay, for those who are reeling to find answers when there are none.  And part of me finds that my support network is reverberating with hatred, fear, indifference, and paranoia.  I am reminded, at each visit, of the opening stanza of a Yeats poem that just two weeks ago my students presented.  Never have the words felt so real to me.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Build walls, close the doors, throw them all away because a few might be poisoned.  I've heard the refugees compared to the Jewish population under Hitler's regime.  I've heard them compared to food.  Food.  We are at a place where we are comparing the terror, desperation, and helplessness of human beings to grapes and M&Ms.  I've heard people who feel otherwise being called bleeding hearts, being berated and insulted, simply because we do not blame the Syrian refugees for these acts of violence.  This issue is dividing the world and yet the very country that exploded in blood and broken glass has vowed that it will welcome the refugees in direct defiance.  It remembers the words placed on the base of her gift to us - La Liberté éclairant le monde. Liberty enlightening the world.

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

It always comes back to light, doesn't it?  Paris went dark and the world lit up in solidarity.  A thousand points of light and love dotted the globe before it turned to glaring spotlights on the innocent.  But that early light brings me hope; it always does.  Those early lights - which symbolize the world's ability to set aside differences for one brief moment - are why I will never give up.  In each chapter of darkness, there are always points of light and I will always look for those. There is always good to be found in the world.  There is always hope.  And if each of us believes that we can change the world, we can.

My hands are small.  I cannot heal the world alone, but I can hold your hand. And yours. And you can hold the hand of the next person, and they the next.  In the end, only kindness matters and we - each of us - has the power to spread that kindness if we can but push through the hate and the indifference.  I know this echoes of cliche and naivete, but I will not bow down.  I will not give up. The minute I give up hope and give in to the madness of the world is another step towards the failure of the world to rise above.  Another light that has gone out.  We must have our own passionate intensity.

We can do this.  Spread light.  Give love.  Start small.  Take my hand.