.....a clean sheet

Yogis,
When I step back to look at this unprecedented time in which we now sit, an image of a clean sheet of paper keeps coming to mind. A chance to re-write how we do things.

In reality we always have that opportunity. Every day is a new now with nothing set in stone, but it typically does not feel that way. We have our heads down, walking well worn tracks and believing we know what comes next. That we are in charge. But then BAM!  This all happened. One moment we felt in control and the next we were floating unattached from all that felt ‘normal.’

We are sitting poised to begin a new journey. Which way will we go?

The easiest thing is to jump back into those tracks and trudge ahead. Back to the ‘normal’ we had previously lived. Although you may recall, at that time everyone kept saying the way we were living was unsustainable. Or we can clear a new path…..

Our main obstacle is our limiting beliefs. Fences in our mind that have developed over time and tell us what is and isn’t possible. They create artificial boundaries that keep us tied to ‘how things are done.’ Let’s take the fall schools discussion as an example.

We are coming up with two options. The first is full online schooling. Now I don’t know about you, but when I was working at Xerox, if I had even two full day trainings involving my computer, I was a basket case by the end. And then there are those who simply cannot learn in that format because their brains aren’t wired that way. Ok, option 2. Send them to the school buildings which are indoor, shared areas and require adults to be with them and then send the kids home to breathe on parents and grandparents. Hmmmm…….

Fences in our mind.

Then there are the college kids. They may feel they need to take a gap year. But what do they do? No options for backpacking through Europe or joining Habitat for Humanity. There must be new options. Ways of being we haven’t even explored.

What if we decided that for one year we throw out the curriculum and its incessant demand for rising test scores and instead have teachers guide students in life projects? Perhaps older kids could spend some of their days with small groups of younger kids teaching them about nature, building or sewing? Or maybe we develop some loose national framework of issues our country faces and hand it over to the children and let them come up with plans and ideas using their individual strengths?

Take down the fences. No boundaries.

Many said we couldn’t work from home. Politicians believed the only way to solve the traffic issue was to build more lanes. We believed we couldn’t cut down on gasoline use. Aha says the pandemic! Those limiting beliefs uprooted in an instant showing us that indeed we could.

I can see the potential but don’t have the answers, but there are those out there that do. That aren’t bound by our ways. Let’s all look for them, give them the tools and put our doubts aside. Who knows what might happen!

Opening the mind for inspiration,
SARAH

....she was free

Yogis,
Let me begin by telling you how I came to know Margaret. In 2004 she became my next-door neighbor after marrying Danny, the long time honorary mayor of our street. At the time, he was 79 and she a spry 74. She quickly took her rightful place in their home, bringing order, preparing three meals a day and getting to know the neighbors.

Margaret is one of those people that watches your children grow, remembers facts you tell her about your life, asks how you are doing and isn’t shy about sharing her opinions. She knows what she wants, and she makes things happen.

It therefore wasn’t the least bit surprising that two weeks ago, when provided with a ‘name’ for the pain she had been experiencing, she took ‘life’ into her own hands. Her words were clear. She had lived a long healthy happy life and did not intend to grasp on and suffer. She would say goodbye the same way she said hello….with purpose.

Saturday morning I woke to a message asking if I would take a turn sitting by her bedside.

Margaret was 90 but you would never know it.....  Her spunk, wit, sense of humor, kindness and bright smile had not dimmed even one bit. She could also still pull off jeans and dangling earrings, and made some mean deviled eggs!  She was a beautiful and strong woman and a loving partner to Danny.

When I visualize Margaret and Danny, I see them walking down the street after dinner, holding hands. For years you could count on them sitting together on the driveway, welcoming in all....humans and dogs alike. There were always extra chairs if you could sit and stay a while. In these later years the chairs moved into the front porch but the love of catching up did not change. 

Sitting beside her bed I began telling stories to settle her restlessness. Stories of neighbors who have come and gone, my memories of her wedding day and things I remembered from her earliest days on the street. Stories of Danny. Soon she quieted. I listened to her breathe.

I have never been present for the release of a spirit, but on July 11^th, at 9:27 am, with my eyes closed I experienced a sensation and vision of doves flying out from my chest. I opened my eyes and knew. Margaret Louise Castle was no longer bound by the physical body which had run its course. She was free.

It was their 16^th wedding anniversary.

Margaret's absence will leave a large hole in Danny's life and on our street. They were partners, companions, best friends and lovers and they were never apart. Her largest concern in leaving was that he be taken care of.

I am not afraid of death. I read about it, talk about it and speak to those who have had near death experiences. I see it as a transition back to the source….a drop of rain returning to the ocean. Not to be feared. The peace I witnessed yesterday has strengthened this resolve.

Margaret, you were feisty…….you were determined…..you were loved. We will miss you.

Om,
SARAH

....turn the view around

Yogis,
I have returned from my first post - covid vacation. Every year we spend the last week of June at the Jersey shore with LOTS of family and our house is the central hub. Being the closest to the beach we house everyone’s beach chairs and umbrellas with our driveway used for overflow parking. The first floor powder room acts as the convenient and appreciated pit stop for all when coming and going.

Pre-covid, the activities didn’t end when everyone trudged off the beach….sandy, hot, tired and happy. Most nights after quick outdoor showers everyone would descend again for large family style meals, ice cream and some evening tv and games. But we knew this year would have to be different.

I began visualizing and planning how to do this all safely. The first and most difficult change was that only those staying in the house would be allowed in, with the one exception of the powder room. In the bag went Lysol and hand sanitizer to be kept on the sink. But how would we do dinners?

When all of these discussions among the troops were first going on, the focus kept coming around to all of the things we weren’t going to be able to do. Cook together. Hang out on the deck. Sit around the big table. Go out to eat on the last night…..all long time traditions. But then it hit me. We were looking at this backward. Whenever there is challenge, there are gifts underneath.

  

If you had told me in mid-April that we were even going to be going I would have disagreed. Yet here I was loading up the car. How grateful I was to be heading up the highway.

I packed a long folding table and some chairs with the idea that we could all have dinner on the driveway and under the carport. And we did. Fifteen or more of us spread out on our beach chairs under the cool pink evening sky eating delicious grilled salmon. How grateful I was to experience the sunsets.

Since our pizza outing was not in the cards, we chose instead to order 9 pizzas and 6 salads one night to share al fresco. As our food frenzy began slowing down, 3 bottles of champagne were popped to accompany my nephew’s announcement of a new baby on the way. The seagulls flew overhead. How grateful I was to be with this ever-expanding family.  

And since everyone is working from home, my sons and grandchildren were all there for extra days. On the evenings we chose to stay quiet, we all talked late into the night. I can’t remember the last time we had such quality time as a nuclear family. Our pod. How grateful I was to wake to the sound of my grandkid’s voices.

I realized as I was packing up at the end of the week that this year all of us spent the majority of our days and nights out in the sea air. The tv sat silent as we all connected under the waxing moon. Life seemed simpler. How grateful am I.

Beneath every challenge there are gifts,
SARAH

......colorblind

Yogis,
As you know I love to photograph bugs. Butterflies, beetles, spiders, bees……. have all found themselves on the other end of my camera lens. And they come in every color.

The velvety black of the tiger swallowtail floating against a clear blue sky. A praying mantis camouflaged perfectly as her green body hides among the stalks of my sunflower bush.  Dragonflies donned in orange, blue, brown and today one in such a vibrant green, it didn’t look possible. The red of the ladybug. They come in every color. A rainbow flying through the garden.

When I describe a bug to you, one of the first descriptive words I will use is its color. The color it is wrapped in is ones of its glorious details. Would I want all bugs to be yellow? Or blue? Of course not! Do I pretend to be colorblind in the garden? Of course not!

So why do we do it with humans?

When we claim to be colorblind our intention is to indicate that we don’t want race to be a distinguishing characteristic, but in the end, it has the opposite effect. To claim colorblindness is a pretty good indication that there may be something inherently ‘not as good’ in one color versus another. If all colors were considered beautiful, why wouldn’t we sing them out!

I remember times in a conversation where I was describing a black community member, while trying not to say the word black. I realize now that is ridiculous. We each have a skin color and like the bugs they are all different, all unique and all should be celebrated. And like the bugs, the skin color we happen to carry around does not determine our personality, our intelligence, or our goodness. All colors are beautiful. All colors are necessary.

None of these are easy conversations. They are uncomfortable and awkward, but we can and must learn a new vocabulary. We are not colorblind. Just as you notice if my gray roots are coming in, you notice the color of my skin. The work is to acknowledge it, be comfortable with it and dig deep to understand any preconceptions your mind latches on to when you see color.

Let’s stop being colorblind and see colors, and love every one of them……..

Humans. A rainbow passing through this garden we all share.

I see you,
SARAH

.....two sets of rules

Yogis,
Sitting at the edge of the river I watch the water's graceful flow downstream as it carries an occasional leaf or stick, gently winding its way between the islands. The suns reflection twinkling as skinny legged bugs scoot silently along the surface. Peaceful.

Then I stand and look down. Beneath this calm there lies another current. More powerful and unforgiving. This level has a different set of rules than the one above and is the reason for the multiple rescues each year of unsuspecting fisherman who wade into its grip.

Two currents with different rules.

I…..and when I say I, I refer to my soul…..came into this world in a white body. I can take absolutely no credit for the physical shell that is acting as my vehicle on this particular journey through life. Other souls are born into a black body. These two souls are not separate. Two sparks of the same universal energy. Two drops of water from the same life-giving river. Yet these two bodies they inhabit are provided different rules.

My rules are what we all like to call the ‘American dream’. That if I study in school, stay out of trouble and work hard, I can have whatever it is I set my sights on. I get to swim on the surface. Yes, of course it takes effort and work as I must use a proper stroke technique and kick, but if I do it, I am rewarded. My efforts equal my potential. My rules are clear cut.

Now for the soul in the black body, the water gets a little murkier. Their current is choppier and unpredictable. Everyone insists the ‘American dream’ is there for them too, but they quickly learn they must follow a different set of rules. Don’t offend, don’t stand out, be polite, don’t resist………Don’t be your truest you when out in the waters…..as those on the surface might not like it. Be more like them and they may let you swim up top.

As a young girl, realizing that these two sets of rules existed, I often wondered how anyone could think that because they had been placed in a white body life should be different for them than others. That the privileges of being able to lie back on a raft and ride the current was somehow earned simply by birth seemed ludicrous. Yet here I float.

In my rules I have never been pulled over by the police and handcuffed because ‘I fit the description of..’ I can shop in a store without being followed and I never had to sit my boys down at a young age for ‘the talk’ which wipes away their innocence to protect their lives. No, my rules give me freedom and ease. Privilege. But why? And what can I do to help erase that second rule book?

The first step is I must swim down and feel what it is like in the turbulence. Watch my own reactions, beliefs and prejudices and question them. Notice when I assign different rules or assumptions to others, call myself out on it, and grab the eraser. This must begin within.

Second, I must be brave enough to call it out when I see it in others. Whether it is actions, words, jokes, or overt cruelty. Silence only strengthens the rules since we wrote them in the first place. The privilege I swim in creates responsibility.

And in the meantime, as I swim along the surface, I am going to look for ways to reach down and pull others up because I know this river is indeed wide enough for all of us.

The spark in me sees the spark in you,
SARAH

....digging out the roots

Yogis,
The small garden area in our town that I am responsible for ‘beautifying’ has a particular weed running through it. Every few days I head down and pull out the green that’s sticking it’s head up through the mulch. But this is only a band aid.  Two days later they will be there again, as the roots run deep. So do the roots of our racism…..

I know from my own garden that I can go years simply tidying up the top, pretending that nothing lurks beneath, and my garden will ‘look’ beautiful. But I go away on vacation for 10 days and upon my return the truth looks me right in the eye. As does racism…..

It is only when I am ready and willing to do the work that change happens. When I will get down on my knees, dig deep and allow myself to get dirty. Pulling, tugging and willing to keep going down, even when my shovel hits those darn rocks the size of a football.  Standing up at the end of the afternoon with earth under my nails, skin glistening from sweat and muscles sore. Then I know I have begun the work. The same is true with racism……

We are in a unique moment that will test whether we are going to tidy up or remove the roots.

Changes are already happening. Policies and laws are beginning to be overhauled which will help to save black lives, but these are what is happening above the ground. They will not tug at the roots. The roots of racism live within each of us and will require inner work and personal action to dig them out.

The protests and social media personal stories have swept back the top layer of dirt and the roots are now exposed. Will we get to work, or once the protests end and everyone goes back to their own manicured gardens will we hire the landscaper to cover them back up?

Who must be in this gardening club? All of us white people. This is not the job of the black community. We are the ones that planted these roots hundreds of years ago and we must get out our tools. And there are many tools to help us.

All you have to do is Google the best-selling books of the week and you will find enough reading on the issues to take you through the summer. Seek out the amazing black writers, educators and activists and listen to their words. I have been doing this and it is utterly heartbreaking. They have been speaking for so long, but I haven’t heard them until now. I have so much to learn/unlearn and work to do.

The word that has been coming to me all week is ‘vulnerable’. As whites we have been in the position of power for so long that it has become the norm, but now can we be brave enough to be vulnerable? Trusting that in allowing another to rise I am in no way diminished….in fact isn’t that the very essence of what it means to be a full human being?

Getting messy,
SARAH

.....this is hard

Yogis,
This is hard. Life is hard. This week was hard. Writing this is hard.

I have been reading, watching and listening all week. Images and stories that bring me to tears. To know that people live their lives in fear makes my heart hurt. I have always known it, but it is easy in my safe comfortable corner of the world to forget. To hope that things are getting better. Then there is this.

I began searching for articles written that could help me understand at a deeper level. And what I found is hard.

Someone directed me to a young black woman who is an academic, activist, writer and lecturer, who is teaching others to Unlearn. I signed up for her program and began reading some of her work. Fast forward to the next day.

I read a comment a white woman made to one of her posts and then this woman’s response back which was sharp and direct. It wasn’t ‘nice’ and made me very uncomfortable. Here is my mind speaking….. Wow! Well I think I selected the wrong person. I don’t like this. Why couldn’t she have been more kind? Maybe I should cancel.

Then it hit me. What I was doing has a term. White Fragility. That as soon as the discussion offends me in even the smallest way, I’m out the door. That somehow my feelings are what is most important, and not the lifelong challenges of the other…..who by the way has their feelings hurt as a natural part of daily life.  

This is hard.

But it has to be. True change only happens when things get uncomfortable. Heated. Chaotic. If I choose to stay in the cool and comfortable side of the room, I am turning my back on those who need to be heard. This isn’t about me. I can leave, or I can learn.

I am admitting that I can’t ever truly understand….but I will use that as the catalyst to go further. I am admitting that I have privilege….. That I am making mistakes….. That I am White……. That I live in an unjust system…..  That my good intentions are not even close to enough…… I must change.

A simple phrase has been crossing my path these last couple of weeks. ‘Be still and listen’ It is time for me to let the people most affected speak without my need to challenge, twist meaning, or add in my thoughts or feelings. Simply listen.

I can learn or I can leave.  This is hard.

Uncomfortable,
SARAH