Struggling through with joy... |
kind of.
Struggling through with joy... |
I want to write about the shooting in Boulder. I’m confused and angry and heartbroken and I think writing about it will help me sort out how I feel.
I lived in Boulder for 12 years, through college and most of my young adulthood. The town itself, it’s personality and values, shaped who I am today. But it’s too raw. I feel powerless, I cannot hear more about thoughts and prayers and personal freedom. I am stunned that so many people believe they have the right, the need, to own a gun so powerful it can mow down innocent citizens stopping in a grocery store for a few things. I can’t focus on anything for long. I sit outside while my children dig in the dirt, reading my book and only half-understanding. I start making them lunch three times. It takes me 30 minutes to get a load of laundry in the washer. My mind pings around and wanders. I think about hands, the way our veins make a map on the front and back of our hands, the way it feels to hold different kinds of hands: small damp hands that are always warm, strong hands used to working, old gnarled hands that foretell the future of my own fingers. I think about the tenderness of our frail human bodies. When I find I am forgetting the humanity of others, this is what I think about. Hands. Eyes. That which makes us unique. I want to recognize the humanity in others, even those whom I find reprehensible. I want to let go of my judgement and hold their hands, to look into their eyes, to find some way to understand. I want to listen, even when it is hard. I think about the people who were killed. I hope they have tremendous peace now. I ache for the grief 10 families have been plunged into. Their peace will be long in coming, if it ever returns. I wonder how it is we’ve become so hateful that we can live with this kind of depravity. I discover I am still not afraid to go to the grocery store. I still want to raise my children to be independent. I still want to trust other people. I want to believe in the goodness of most people. I don’t know how so many opposing ideas can exist in my mind. I’m exhausted by it. I pray, and I meditate, and I read to my children. I will write about Boulder, really write about it, but not yet. Not now. For now, I will sit with disorientation, sorrow, anger. I will not continue to be a person who accepts that this ugliness is who we are in America, even when I see it very clearly is who we are. I will let my rage simmer into action, empathy, some small hope that something can change.
1 Comment
Joanne C Toft
3/25/2021 06:34:51 am
Your last line is a big part of the power of this post. "I will let my rage simmer into action, empathy, some small hope that something can change." Action and hope that we can make a change in this country toward peace. A hard piece to write but so important.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
March 2021
Categories |