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.

Things I Don't Do Well...

I am not perfect.

No, really, it's true.  I'm flawed and full of shortcomings.  I don't think I necessarily have any more than anyone else, but I do have my share.  Sometimes they are annoying, and sometimes they serve me weirdly well.  I tend to consider the word 'flaws' to be a largely one-sided, black and white way of looking at it.  I'm not sure there are any traits that I possess that are always negative, all the time.  I'm over sensitive, for instance -- but that feeds my empathy.  I'm insecure about a lot of things -- but that keeps me humble.  It's a system of checks and balances.  Which doesn't mean there aren't things I would like to change.  Sometimes the balance is a little tippy in the wrong direction....and while I don't mean my weight, I wouldn't mind losing a few pounds, either.

So, what am I not good at?

Saying no.  This has shown up here and there in my life lately as a character trait possessed by a friend, and in her laughing at herself about it, I realized that I have the same problem.  I like to be helpful.  I like being busy.  I like to be useful.  I like accomplishing things and feeling like I'm making a difference.  But that ends up translating to having a LOT of things going on at once and occasionally panicking that I can't do it all.  The list at work alone is exhaustiv-e(-ng).  I teach an overload every semester.  I'm on a few planning boards and advisory committees.  I teach for another college and am in talks to teach for another.  I'm piloting programs, traveling between campuses, planning conferences, presenting at conferences, submitting proposals to conferences, writing mission and vision statements, co-chairing committees for things about which I only have a vague sense.  The list goes on.  This isn't always a bad thing.  If I get bored with something, there's always something else that needs my attention.  It got me promoted right out of the tenure starting gate and fresh off probation.  It teaches me about things that I wouldn't otherwise encounter.  It puts me in a good place to find the means and ways to do the things I want to do (I still want that computer science degree).  It gathers around me a supportive crew of people who know of what I am capable and are grateful I helped when I was needed.

But, my goodness, do I get tired.

The other thing I don't do very well is somewhat more troubling and that is friendship.  I have a very small circle of people I count as true friends and while I count them as blessings in every way possible, I sometimes wonder that there are not more.  Somewhat greedy, I suspect.  The only reason I'm thinking about this now is that I've found friends within the last 8 months and I was not even looking for them.  I'm not even sure why or how it happened -- just, I got invited to join a cadre of three for dinner and the three became four.  I am the fourth (a designation I adore for whatever reason).  But it is strange.  It is hard for me to break out of what I'm comfortable doing -- but the friends I have seem generally content to let me be who I am.  They know I'm busy and I spread myself too thin now and then.  They know I rarely sit still except in the evenings, and then I don't want to move at all.  They know I never stop thinking.  Ever.  They know my quirks and generally accept them.  Oh, there are attempts now and then to shake me out of whatever it is I need shaking out of -- but I do the same to them.  I told one of my dearest friends once, when our friendship was just learning that the soil was perfect for laying down roots, that I was high maintenance.  I remind him of that now and again and he just laughs.  He knows.  He's been putting up with me, as I like to say, for awhile now.

I could, incidentally, throw my family into this list as well -- since I count them as friends.  But, no matter how closely the roles of 'family' and 'friend' may mingle, there will always be a little something different about my siblings, for instance.  A lifetime of memories and shared experiences can't help but impact the definition of friend.  Perhaps one of these days I'll embarrass them by dedicating a blog to each.  Hmm...birthdays are coming.  But, that is a blog for another day...as is one about my wonderful husband.  This is the blog for friends....as inadequate as that word may be.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, other than to acknowledge that I have wonderful friends, and sometimes I feel like I'm not living up to what I should be living up to because I don't always want to go somewhere at night, I cannot always be easily found, and sometimes, despite that they are my dear friends, I don't want to come out of my shell, my internal world where I'm thinking and dreaming and living.  I can't be found even when I'm right there because wherever it is I go is a place wholly separate from the world around me, regardless of where I might be at the time.  I have good people and part of me sometimes worries they will wander off (as many have).  Or that we will just wander off and not realize the other one isn't there until it is too late.  And sometimes I have this weird fear that I see more than is there.  Or that I will, somehow, mess it up.  I do that sometimes.  See blog title.

But, then there's that part of me that knows better despite that it should know better.  It reminds me gently of who I'm dealing with here.

There's a few out there whom I never or rarely met.  We talk a lot and then we rarely talk, and yet whenever we pick up the threads, there we are.  The longevity with which my life has been graced by a certain former Marine never ceases to amaze me, especially when taking into account that we occasionally drive each other quite bonkers (detail oriented person with bad memory meets sometimes off the cuff person who doesn't like being pinned down).  Then the uncanny speed with which The Three have found their way into my life and made me need them is both terrifying and exhilarating.   I feel very blessed to have them in my life and to be able to see and hear them laugh.

So..um....thanks?  Stick around if you would.  It is crucial to do some things well, even if history suggests you won't.

"Do you want to lose these friends" is one thing that I can say 'No' to.  Without hesitation.

No.

-T