Bits

I have nothing to add.

It feels again like it did when this all began in March (how is it June 1st?) Checking twitter and the news constantly, reading and trying to make sense of everything. When something happens (I won’t say something ‘new happens’ because racism is not new) it’s so hard not to fall back on something easier, a memory, even though it wasn’t easy at the time. Like when #sourdoughfails was trending above all else.

I was emailing with a lovely new friend the other day and she reminded me of the gift we have as writers to be able to write in order to make sense of things – the news, the world, our thoughts. I’ve been writing 1000 words a day on a project and nothing else has helped as much to settle the rattling in me. Well, ok, let’s be honest – gardening helps, my hammock, the enormous stack of new books I’ve purchased without much worry to cost, taking baths, watching television, eating great food and ice cream and local takeout – knowing my family was safe. So many things I take for granted, because I am white, and privileged and have so very much to learn.

Our boys have been keeping up with the news, hardly something to congratulate ourselves for, they are more than old enough and if they weren’t what would that say. But I was worried they were hearing things in too many fragments – the stories, the pictures, the asshole tweets – along with my anger swirling in and around it all. We know how much it is. So Sunday morning we sat on the carpet in out living room in a puddle of sunlight and watched the Trevor Noah video on one of our tiny phone screens and his words and the coming together of all of those bits, felt like Church.

I’m thinking of the need to post pictures on Instagram when the space could be used for better things. I even feel doubtful as to the reason I’m posting here today. I guess it all goes back to that idea of having a little space on the Internet of good things, our stories. Maybe we don’t stop posting and writing, we just acknowledge that our space needs to be bigger, needs to better.