A Reckoning

Previously posted on TinyLetter

“

And I think what is happening in our nation today is, all of the harms of the past have come up to claim us, all at once, and they’re not gonna let us go
until we take the stride of reckoning with them.”
– Serene Jones

If I take even the briefest moment to reflect on the past year of life through a pandemic, Presidential race, and social justice uprisings, my eyes mist up, my jaw clenches, and I feel defeated. I feel the kind of defeat that makes me want to drop everything, walk to the safest place possible (most likely my bed) and cry. One of those ugly cries, you know? As a cerebral person, I write this out to you because I haven’t done that, so if I write it, maybe I’ll trick my body into believing I did that …

Instead, I feel like I’ve done all the other things trauma research informs – fight, flight, and freeze. Mostly, though, I feel frozen. Frozen in the decisions to make wise choices of who to see and not to see; who to like and not to like based on their fundamental beliefs; hug or not to hug; protest or wait for the next protest. In a recent session with my therapist, she reminded me that the human body and spirit were not created to sustain this level of threat for this long. It’s no wonder and no surprise some of us feel the cracks and the aches of it all; the loneliness that barrels in at the most random of times, the feeling of trusting a grocery store trip won’t give you a deadly virus, the reminder that a Zoom call could never replace the feeling of sitting across from a favorite human, hugging their neck, feeling their laughter fill the room with yours.

And I know, I know – I KNOW – there are so many celebrations I can have in my corner of the world. We are beyond grateful for the ways we have avoided so much that others could not and did not have the option to. So maybe I am speaking to those of us who carry the torches of both grace and grief; those of us who have found ways to an inch of normality in a not-so-normal time. Can we just acknowledge it’s OK to want to cry and scream how this is not a show anyone of us purchased tickets for?

The quote above is from an On Being podcast with Serene Jones. This idea of a “reckoning” – a year in – feels true and yet cruel. If I believe in the goodness of Earth, I know she also has a way of remembering. Gardening reminds me of this every Spring: even the weeds remember how to grow alongside the perennial daffodils. And if you’ve ever had to tackle a weed with only your hands, it’s excruciating work to really get to its root. Right now, I feel we are only at the top of the root. We have to keep digging and know it is worth every painstaking minute, hour, and day.

I know this will one day be a reflection for each of us. A piece of history that we will feel a flood of emotions toward. And it’s not about the masks or the six feet, it’s about the whole notion that we are a generation(s) being called forth into the reckoning of what America’s sordid history and its present-day is revealing. So. many. weeds. But, Dear Lord, I am tired. I’m sure you are, too. This is some hard ass work.

With that … take good, good care, friends.