It’s July and we are still in the throes of Covid.  In addition to a great, much-needed civil rights movement.  As a white woman, I am doing my best to not f*ck up.  That’s the honest to goodness truth.  It’s a minefield and there are so many things I did not learn.  We — collectively, as a country — did not learn.

When everything reached a fever pitch in early June, I felt overwhelmed.  So much information, so much coming-to-terms with my own damaging behaviour.  So much hate toward white women.  It was — and continues to be — a lot.  I’ve always said about myself that I exist on the ends of the spectrum, I see things in black and white.  And what I keep learning over and over is that life and existence only exists in the in-between.  Not even the primary colors like red, yellow and blue.  But in every shade, every variation.  Truth exists like that — my truth, your truth, the world’s truth, the historian’s truth.  Everything told and played through perspective, different angles and glass tones and lighting.

I spent some time in my youth studying light design for theatre.  (I loved it).  There is a world of difference between a human standing on an empty stage in stark white light versus the same person, standing on the same stage, in any other combination of light, intensity and gel color.  It doesn’t look the same.

This, I believe, is true of the human experience.  We are all looking through filters, we are informed by our own experiences, the things we’ve been taught, the things we’ve seen.  Some of us can try to step outside ourselves and critically look at how we behave, how things have influenced us — but many of us never do that.  We are caught in the emotions, the anger, the hurt.  We have created our experience and there is nothing outside of that.  it is all-consuming.

In my brief study of yoga, we discussed the idea of our minds creating our entire reality.  Aka, what blue means to me, how I see blue, versus anyone else. How I smell orange, describe cold, consider air.  Our minds create this world that we live in, but it isn’t the stripped down truth of reality.  Our minds organize things and allow us to have an enjoyable life experience, rather than being caught in a caucophany of infinite assaults on our senses.  It molds our reality to our likes and dislikes; what we are struck by, intrigued by, turned off by.  How wild is that?

~*~

It is very hard to accept the new terms being asked of us — that we have unknowingly committed harm over years, decades, centuries.  That all of the accomplishments of great men are tarnished by loathesome behaviour that was commonly accepted.  It is hard to keep trying even when you are told every day you are wrong, that the rules have changed again.  It is asking a lot of humanity to do that.  To accept that the reality and the history of the world cannot be determined solely by who wrote it and it cannot be defended solely by who speaks loudest.  There are subtleties and information that is uncomfortable and downright shameful.  That is f*cking hard.  I have watched people I love and respect say and do things that have horrified me in defense of the history they have accepted and perpetuated for themselves and for humanity.

We are living through unprecendented times.  We are being told that while we might be capable of nearly anything, we have to stay home and wear a mask because an invisible virus could be lurking.  We are being challenged to question the status quo of history, of mankind.  It is not easy.  It is hard, hard work.  It is exhausting (especially when you’re handicapped already as I am).

But we need to do it anyway.  Because we decide to.

xo, g