Somehow, in almost six months, we've lost a legendary athlete, groundbreaking musicians, 100,000 Americans from—get this—a global pandemic, a black man who was jogging, a black woman who was in her home asleep, a black man who was trying to cash a check and many many many others. In other words, 2020 has been exhausting.
Even trying to find the space in my own mind to write how I feel about this collective trauma that has settled in our minds and spirits, has been tiresome. I've started and stopped. Been unsure about what to say and what good it does to say anything at all.
“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”― Zora Neale Hurston
Many years ago, I wrote a blog that stated: safety is an illusion. And with everything that is happening in the world, I think it is even more relevant now. At least for me, nothing feels safe. In our current climate, masks, at best, "might" protect you in most situations. An alarm for my home is a deterrent, but not a solution for someone who wants to break-in. Being black in the park while innocently bird watching can still get the police called which can ultimately get you killed.
It's a lot to process. This thought that by doing the "right" thing, the "safe" thing, we are somehow immune from the atrocities that happen in life. It's just not true.
I don't know what the solution is. I am out of "to do's" or what happens next or hashtags or words. There is so much pain and fear living inside us as a human race that what is happening looks like chaos. And rightfully so. In truth, no one feels safe. We are all very fragile. But we all have to find a way to collectively heal, face the past and just maybe we can rewrite the future.
In the meantime, I just hope and pray that whatever and whoever is keeping my family, friends and me "safe," continues to work overtime.
To all those lives we've loss so far in 2020, rest well!
To the land of the living, stay safe!
writerjns