It has been a couple of months since I last wrote anything here. There are times that I, as a writer, cannot write. The words dry up in the heavy heat of a world on fire. I have found it hard to find words to express all that my body has been feeling since the killing of George Floyd. I am one who has been gifted with deep sensitivity, the ability to feel in my body the pain of another. It is a gift, but a heavy one at times. I’ve been carrying the collective pain of a nation divided against itself between states of red and blue, of oppressor and oppressed, of power and privilege and those held back and pushed down, again and again and again. I feel the weight of an oncoming election, and I’ve followed the emotional rollercoaster of DACA dreamers, asylum-seekers, of refugees and the unemployed. As Brene’ Brown has said in her podcast interviews, those who are not feeling turbulence at this time are not awake to what is happening in our world.
Instead of writing, I’ve been taking in the words of others. Ibram X. Kendi. Glennon Doyle. John Lewis. Parker Palmer. Marilyn Nelson. I’ve been reading the voices and perspectives of people with a skin color and life experience different from my own. I’ve been letting music and poetry wash over me and bring comfort and inspiration.
During this dry spell, the earth within my soul has been tilled up and turned over. New seeds have been planted, and I’ve had to step away many times from the news and the articles and the angst on social media to allow some breathing room for these seeds to grow… to literally sit or walk beside running water at the creek banks near my home, inviting the watering of soul, the cooling of mind. I find myself needing the medicine of green spaces, the nutrients of earth to grow these seeds into thoughts, words, hope, action.
Most recently, I’ve immersed myself in interviews with the late representative and civil rights icon, John Lewis. When I listen to the words of this great man of faith, this leader of love and justice-making, I feel hope for our next generation. I feel hope even for this presently divided country. John Lewis lived with the long-view in mind, deeply believing that a new world is possible, the kind of world that Jesus told stories about, and Dr. King, Dorothy Day, Gandhi and many others non-violently worked for. He also believed that each of us have a moral responsibility to speak up and make “good trouble” whenever we see injustice, to use our gifts to work toward that new world.
I’ve come to believe there are always two realities happening… the one that we see through images from our news media outlets… a world run by greed, fear, and scarcity mindset – where competition and exploitation tear the human family apart and rape our Mother Earth. But there is another reality, too. It is one that we tap into and form through our dreams and imagination–a world created through Wisdom, Love and Spirit. It looks like the sharing of resources, the building of bridges, the crumbling of walls, and the sacred valuing of all living things. I caught a glimpse of it, just recently, when walking along the river trail.
I take to the river trail images from my television screen – another hurricane hits the coast disruption of home and hope a fire is set in Portland military personnel attack civilians the clash of white and black wealth and poverty power and oppression truth and lies I come here to the riverbank where life breathes in shades of green here where the hawk hovers above my head on his low-hanging hickory branch and whose flight to a sistering tree I might have missed had it not been for the slow stride and astute eyes of a man and a woman walking wrinkled hand in wrinkled hand, heads bent toward the trees. a birthday party is happening up on the hill – the women wear long, simple dresses and cover their heads; generations of farmers and faith stroll in their quiet ways. I watch as a young man playfully pulls his lover toward the trail; she touches her hand to her bonnet, laughs, and they run down the path toward dusk and dreams. Along the bridge a fisherman is packing his pole and his catch of the day. I pass raspberry bushes pushing their fruit and mothers their strollers; a little girl leans from her seat and smiles at me. Nearing the red bridge, I hear music – the marimba, the maracas, the vihuela – a fiesta is taking place across the creek; laughter and Spanish bubble up from the water where the children splash and a man is building a cairn of rocks. And up in the field which now stands golden in day's end light, two families, in beautiful shades of milky chocolate, pose for a portrait shoot. The woman wears a wedding veil, the man a buttoned white shirt; the children are giggling. I remember again the images from my television screen and consider how the beautiful and the brutal live as neighbors on the same spinning planet. And I see now what the TV cameras failed to capture – rescuers reaching out hands and help to hurricane victims healthcare workers risking again their lives to save lives peaceful protestors, descendants of slavery, children of Jim Crow and mass incarceration, holding up signs beside white friends and allies, descendants of privilege, all of them moving toward a fuller fulfillment of "the dream." I see the beauty of bravery the elegance of courage the grace of resilience. The unimaginative may say, these are dangerous times to be living, and they are right. And also true is that it is raspberry season, and sustenance abounds wherever life is nurtured by love, not greed, whenever room is made, like here at the riverbank, for the plain family's party and the lively fiesta, for the fisherman and the hawks, the photographers and the joggers, and the blending of families, the young and the old – here where air holds space for english, ebonics, spanish, and german and the language of hawk and hickory. And to those who wish to make America great again, I say, let's dream bigger than that; let's make America greater than it's ever been before. Come with me to the riverbank; it's dreaming America here. © Annette Garber
