LIVING WHILE WAITING

Today, the residents of Minnesota’s Twin Cities are living while waiting, myself included.

Collectively, and regardless of what outcome we’re individually anticipating, we are waiting for a jury of our peers to decide if a police officer is guilty of murder.

Simultaneously, while wondering what world we’ll be living in after the results are read, we are waiting to find out what precedent for accountability will be set and what chaos will ensue.

Will sleepless nights of riotous noise, indistinguishable from gunfire and bombs, return to our communities? Will our black neighbors have to continue living in fear of a traffic violation? Will all law officers continue to be judged upon the actions of those who, without consequence, abuse their power?

So, with all of this waiting going on, I can’t help but wonder, how is everyone managing? What action or inaction is appropriate right now? What do we do while we wait and wonder? How do we combat feelings of helplessness?

As comforting as our morning beds are before we’ve accepted the realities of our day, it’s just not practical to maintain that blissful state of ignorance. We need to figure it out. We need to earn a living. We have to keep going.

So we fight through the fog of living in limbo and manage.

Some, terrified that their livelihood is in jeopardy, are managing by boarding the windows of their businesses. Activists, hoping to influence the outcome, are managing by marching for action in the streets. While others are ignoring the news, but managing by quietly praying for peace from their homes.

How do you manage to carry on while waiting for a life changing event? Do you mentally prepare by obsessively researching online articles? Do you pray? Do you live in avoidance and just stay busy at all costs?

No judgement here. Because what am I doing? I’m sitting at home, hanging out with my toddler, and struggling to wrap my mind around what is morally appropriate to write about today.

The only conclusion that I can come up with is the fact that there really is no wrong way to survive limbo. We just have to do it. To put it plainly, limbo sucks, and it’s a confusing place to exist.

So keep fighting, keep preparing, keep managing. Just keep living while waiting.

IN PURSUIT OF COMMONALITY – RECONCILING WITH MY FATHER

The strangeness of being raised by a family that doesn’t look like you comes and goes over time. But the racial inequities that exploded to the surface in 2020 birthed a reckoning, and this reckoning made me yearn for commonality more than ever before.

I was reeling from an election season that exposed unfathomable bigotry. Damaging bigotry exposed in neighbors, friends, and family. And with the loss of each friendship, I reflected on prejudicial origins.

Soul-searching with refreshed eyes, I reflected on the prejudices that I have held, along with the prejudices that have been held against me. And as I reflected, I found myself seeking out the previously unknown side of my family. The family that looks like me. The family that may be able to relate.

Eventually becoming exhausted by sleepless nights of scrolling marriage certificates and obituaries, I realized that I had but one lead to follow. It was time to contact my father.

For more than twenty years, largely through social media, I kept tabs on him from a safe distance. Just in case the time would come for a relationship, I monitored his whereabouts.

Without getting into the details of why I waited twenty years, I will say, my younger self was simply not prepared to deal with the demons that he fought in his own life.

But with that being said, I still had hopes that things would be different this time. After all, now I am an adult, a mother, and a woman that has made great strides in the way of self-assurance.

Perhaps he was different too? Maybe, now that I didn’t need him as a parent, we would be able to connect as adults. Connect over life stories, family members, social concerns, racism.

So I did it. I threw caution to the wind as they say, and fired off my first sign of life via Facebook. And at first, things went surprisingly well. He was genuinely excited to hear from me. And while rapidly bringing me up to speed on our shared family members, he gleefully forwarded cousin’s photos, uncle’s birth dates, grandparent’s death dates, and every date of meaning in between.

Then it happened. The cracks that would destroy my hopes of having a social justice comrade for a father began to appear. And it all started with a Youtube video that he shared.

To my horror, my father sent me an argumentative video detailing how BLM activists orchestrated the insurrection at the capitol. And it didn’t stop there.

Relentless and with something to prove, he forwarded conspiratorial articles and conservative podcasts. All the while, repeatedly using language with discriminatory undertones. Even as I made polite attempts to get him to change the subject, his attempts to influence and persuade persisted.

Exasperated, I made my stance on these issues abundantly clear. In defense, my father used his own brown skin, and the fact that he has black “friends”, to justify his opinions.

Sigh… It became glaringly obvious, the camaraderie I sought was not coming in the form of my father.

So where does a parent/child relationship go from here? Do I retreat back to the shadows as a Facebook stalker? Hopefully not. Despite our differences, I would like to stay in touch. But with enormous conversational boundaries in place.

And as for my quest for commonality?

I realized that I had it all along. The people in my life that stand along side me today, may not provide commonality in genetic features, but each one provides the benefit of commonality through shared experiences and principles. Like they say, you can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends.

OBTAINABLE FETISH – A WORD FOR THE “EXOTIC” GIRLS

From a young age, you received signals that marrying a white man would raise your status.

Signals from the media, from society, signals from your mother.

The signals that devalued your male counterparts were so strong that you came to resent your own identity. You felt less than.

Your societal insecurities lead you to become gracious of admiring men whose intent was only to have you in their bed.

Not knowing it was temporary, you felt beautiful, unique, special.

Special until you realized that you were a conquest. A checked box. A fetish.

Because, he had been receiving signals too.

Signals from the media, from society, signals from his father.

His signals told him that you were exotic, obtainable, submissive.

Knowing it was temporary, he felt powerful, entitled, superior.

Replaceable and devoid of value, he put you away with the other trophies. All hollow beauties that unwillingly perpetuated his belief that you were always his property.

Who found who? Who was the match maker? The media? Society? Your parents?

To the girl wondering if he loves you, or if he desires you for the fetish that the world has reduced you to…

Know, you are more than the sum of your parts. You are whole, you are human, and you are you are worthy of love that honors your mind, body, and soul.

It is the world that needs to raise its status. Not you.

I WOULDN’T BE SELECTED

Every mother knows the scenario. Your toddler is in the other room playing, when the room suddenly goes silent. Then, CRASH, tears, and “Mama!” is desperately cried out.

You rush in, assess the situation, and scoop up your little one. And in that moment, you are so relieved that you are there to provide the comfort and cuddles that they were hoping for.

I am forever changed because it has become instinctual. From now on, every call to “Mama” will hit that primal spot in my heart like a bullseye, and call me to action.

Which is why I wouldn’t be selected.

I am incapable of avoiding the visceral response that occurs when I hear a cry for mama. So there is nothing that could convince my soul that when a grown man named George Floyd called out to his mama, it was anything but a desperate cry for help, comfort, and life.

We just passed the one year mark of Covid being declared a pandemic, and my home town is currently bracing for the trial of Derek Chauvin. So far, six fellow Minnesotans have have been chosen to serve as jurors. One of six are women.

So this morning, I can’t help but wonder, is it because mamas are women?