On oneness and healing

I’m going to attempt to be brief today.

With the new gig it looks as if writing time will have to be wedged into the stray minutes of my days. As always happens, when I have long open hours, I’m at a loss for things to write about. The second my time is claimed- all the ideas.

Of course, now I’ve spent fifty-eight precious words writing about my plans for brevity- which would seem to totally negate the whole idea of abridging all the thoughts. Crap. Twenty-nine more words. I’m bad at this.

OK. Enough stalling. Here’s the story … or the ramblings. Or whatever we want to call them.

My left arm is a story.

On my elbow is this mole, slightly bigger than a pencil eraser, that was the subject of ridicule among middle school boys back when I was 12 and 13. Its largeness and the long black hairs shooting from it was an invitation for exclamations of surprise and disgust.

On the top of my wrist, in the very center is a small, indigo-colored dot. The remnants of a pencil-stabbing incident that occurred in my 12th-grade government class.

If you follow the lines of my index finger down to just below the fleshy part between it and the thumb, there’s a small indentation. That’s where a German Shepherd bit me at a dog park. Snacks was just a roly-poly puppy and I had to go to urgent care to get antibiotics and then later to the emergency room to be treated for rabies. Not that I had rabies. I didn’t know whether the dog who bit me was vaccinated and the health department doesn’t much like to mess around where rabies is concerned. For those of you who have never been treated for rabies, you start with a shot of immunogloblulins at the site of the bite. In my life, the only thing more painful than having a shot delivered to the site of a an open wound, was childbirth. So yeah. Don’t get rabies. Also, if you’re ever bitten by the dog, make sure you get proof from the owner that the dog is up to date on his rabies vaccines.

Farther up- on my forearm there’s a series of narrow, pale pink lines tallying my skin. There’s another one- two-inches long, the width of an earthworm- across my bicep. Those I did to myself- years ago- when I was depressed and lost and self-loathing and ashamed and afraid and anxious and angry. All the things I couldn’t put words to, so I put sharp edges to my skin instead. My dominant right hand to my steady left arm. I’m not going to go into all the gories here today- I’ve written about all that before.

My left arm is a story. A story about the pain it was born with. And the pain inflicted on it by others. And the pain inflicted on it by its own body.

Like most everyone else, I’ve been rolling over in my head the story of our country right now. How divided we seem. How much we are hurting. How afraid we are. How anxious and angry. How it feels insurmountable.

I see my left arm. And I see our country. And I feel like it’s the same. Kind of. This body that’s suffered, but that also carries along its day-to-day functioning. My left arm squeezes the baby to my hip. It carries all the grocery bags as my right hand fumbles with the keys to the locks. It holds the dishes my right hand scrubs. It helps turn the steering wheel.

It’s been scarred and it’s healed over and over and still does the work it’s given to do. It still supports the whole of me.

I’ve been listening to old episodes of Elizabeth Gilbert’s podcast, Magic Lessons. In one, she interviewed actress and comedienne Sarah Jones. They talked about art and creativity and pursuing art that deals with the darker side of humanity. Things like the Holocaust. Slavery. The Native American Holocaust. Trafficking.

During their conversation, Jones mentioned that “the horrors human beings can visit on others” are really horrors visiting on ourselves. Because there are no others.

“That’s the sickest, most twisted thing about these scars are that they are reminders over and over again we do this to ourselves because there is no other,” she said.

I understand I tend to get all metaphysical and “we’re all one” around here. But I really believe that. Our connectedness. Our oneness. Maybe that’s too weird or too earnest or sounds too naive and too, like, what? Kumbaya. But that’s where I land. So proceed with that understanding.

When Sarah Jones talked about the ugliness we inflict on ourselves- well I understand that intimately. I know what the right hand can do the left arm.

And please. Don’t read anything into that. I’m not using my left arm and right arm as a political metaphor. Only as a metaphor for our struggle as a nation and as the people living in this space together.

We’ve done so much to cause each other pain. And, I think, because we’ve never looked our own guilt in the eye, we continue to cause each other pain. Our reckoning will continue until we face all of it.

I’m not a poster child for healing. But it’s been more than a decade since I’ve hurt myself in the name of all the unresolved darkness I’d been carrying. The last time I hurt myself was the worst time. That was the time I needed stitches. And that whole situation was so awful I set aside all the sharp objects as a means to self medication. It took me by the shoulders and shook me. It told me “enough.” Enough.

And I keep thinking, maybe, that’s where we are. That now we need to go to triage and tell the doctor the horrible truth about our own sickness and self loathing. Maybe that’s melodramatic. I can be that way. But… also… maybe a little true?

I mean, we all kind of feel that we aren’t all OK around here, right?

Here’s where I land (and this isn’t particularly novel or revolutionary, but is also sort of both) we begin and end with love. Love for each other. Love for ourselves.

And not just love for the parts of each other and ourselves (which are really all the same) that are beautiful. But love for the parts of each other and ourselves that are ugly and seem unlovable.

For all the pain my right hand has inflicted on my left arm, I’ve never been angry at it. I’ve never punished it. That would be crazy. It’s all part of one body.

And that’s the same for us. For humanity. We are all of one. To hate my right hand would be to hate my whole self. And that never got me anywhere.

My middle school mantra is “Be humble and be kind.” I walk into school each morning, repeating this phrase. Because it’s easy as the grownup, as the one with the years of education and the years of life experience to want to assume that I have all the answers, that I’m always in the right, that I’m the one who knows the things that need to be learned. But that isn’t true. It’s not true. Because for as much as I have to share with the students, they have plenty to show me in return.

Being humble, being kind- walking into the building holding love means meeting the kids I talk to each day where they are. That’s not stooping to their level. That’s not responding in kind to their shenanigans. But swimming with their currents in whatever shape that takes.

The other day I was trying to get an eighth-grader to stop the endless loud bickering with a classmate and focus on Civics. The two just traded insults across the room then would stomp into corners and refuse to do anything close to learning. They didn’t care about Civics. I took the student out in the hallway to cool off. He told me about his grandfather who’d passed away years ago. About riding the tractor at his house and checking out his antique cars. He calmed enough to return to the class, where he sat down at his desk and told me he was going to imagine that both his grandfather and his favorite pet cat, who was also dead, were there with him in the room. He went so far as to offer BooBoo the cat a spot on his desk to nap on. The student fussed at me when I put I rested my hand on the desk.

“You’re crushing BooBoo!” he exclaimed.

I was told that BooBoo was liable to bite anyone who petted him and was especially wary of strangers– so I couldn’t place my hand on the portion the desk where the ghost cat was sleeping. In my head I laughed at the absurdity of the situation, but in practice I steered clear of BooBoo as a way to demonstrate how much I cared about the student in hopes that he could move forward in his learning.

This same student had spent two class periods driving me nuts with his constant calling out, his sneaky teasing of a classmate, his incessant helplessness. He wasn’t the easiest person to offer kindness to.

I share this story not to brag about my prowess. In fact, it could very well be that I’m just being played by yet another student. Or that my efforts were in vain. There is always the very real possibility that I am the idiot here. But I don’t know that I care. I just know that I’m trying to take the path that feels true to me. And that path means letting go of self-righteousness and finger shaking and demanding respect. It means listening. Allowing someone to be heard and honoring their experience.

It doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with it. It doesn’t mean sacrificing my own ideals or beliefs. It just means giving space for everyone to breathe the air they need to breathe. Not suffocating someone with my own hot air. Walking beside someone instead of dragging them to where I think they need to be.

Not petting the ghost cat lest I piss it off and alienate his temperamental owner. And definitely not questioning the existence of said ghost cat and making his owner feel stupid and misunderstood.

This is easy enough to do with an eighth-grade special-ed student. Someone who is young and who you can find compassion for based on their youth and academic struggles.

Harder though for the relatives and friends who espouse views so different than ours. Harder still for the strangers who make it their job to troll anyone who expresses any viewpoint different than their own.

None of it’s easy, right? But then, sometimes it can be easy. And maybe fun even. Because it is a little silly, right? Talking to a student’s dead cat?

Why can’t love feel be both impossible and joyful in the same moment?

A month or two ago I read Ann Patchett’s “Bel Canto.” Which if you are a reader of novels, you should read. It’s just so lovely. And feels so timely to right now.

In the group of men from all over the world and one especially well-known female opera singer are held hostage by militants in an unnamed South American country. The hostages and captors spend months together, forming bonds with one another that cross cultural and language barriers, creating a new way of life. The opera singer practices her craft daily- and all the others- hostages and captors alike are captivated by her skill and beauty.

In one scene, a Russian dignitary decides he needs to profess is love to the American singer. And what he had to say was so lovely and eye-opening for me.

The Russian starts out:

“In another setting, perhaps it would be ridiculous, too grand. In another setting it would not happen because you are a famous woman and at best I would shake your famous hand for one second while you stepped into your car after a performance. But in this place I hear you sing every day. In this place I watch you eat your dinner, and what I feel in my heart is love. There is no point in not telling you that. These people who detain us so pleasantly may decide to shoot us after all. It is a possibility. And if that is the case, then why should I carry this love with me to the other world? Why not give to you what is yours?”

“And what if there is nothing for me to give you?” the opera singer asks.

“What a thing to say, after all that you have given to me. But it is never about who has given what. That is not the way to think of gifts. This is not business we are conducting. Would I be pleased if you were to say you loved me as well? That what you wanted was to come to Russia and live with the Secretary of Commerce, attend state dinners, drink your coffee in my bed? A beautiful thought, surely, but my wife would not be pleased. When you think of love, you think as an American. You must think like a Russian. It is a more expansive view.”

Again, I say, in this challenging time. Read nothing into the fact that this character happens to be Russian.

Read into what he has to say: That love is a gift to be given freely to the ones who inspire our love. That love doesn’t mean running away into the sunset with the objects of our love. That it doesn’t mean we expect anything in return.

That it’s an expansive thing.

And I think it’s the thing we need desperately right now. There is no point in not being open to the expansive love that surrounds us. The love that unfolds in the blooming of a flower or the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings, but also the love that greets us in the smile from a stranger. In the kindness of the person who tells us to go in front of them in line. In deliciousness of the food that’s prepared. Or the hand that is offered or the laughter that is shared.

Love is also something we can create with our own hands with whatever materials are most handy to us.

I came to this conclusion quite literally with a recent art project. For years I’ve been collecting plastic bottle caps with the goal of turning them into some type of mural. The cap collection has elicited raised eyebrows and eyerolls from more than a few people. Because, let’s be honest, I’m basically collecting, cleaning, sorting and storing trash. What’s more, it’s trash I’ve moved with me to multiple houses.

I’ve made some smaller bottle cap projects- a tacky Christmas wreath, a tacky mirror and tacky picture frames. But I wanted to do something on a larger scale. Maybe something could hang up in my backyard to add some color. Especially during the winter months.

I went around and around on what I could depict in plastic bottle caps and ended up landing on love. Writing it out. Yet again. This time in plastic bottle caps. Because I really don’t think I can get enough reminders that love is the answer. Today Brad hung it up on our fence. I can see the word “LOVE” while doing the dishes and preparing our meals. And I can see it each morning when I head down the stairs.

And here is the reminder again to all of us. Create love often. And create it with whatever is on hand- even if it’s trash. Even if it’s offered begrudgingly to someone or something that is difficult to share it with.

In school last week, we were discussing Sept. 11 in seventh grade history. How strange it was to learn the students in the class only had a vague awareness of that day’s significance. But these kids hadn’t been born yet when that day happened. They’d only ever lived in a world post-9/11. How nice it is for them, I thought. To be so removed from that horrific day that its mention didn’t involve the stories about where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news. And how you called and called and called to confirm the people you cared about were safe. Observing all those moments of silence. The candlelight vigils. The piecing together of what went wrong. The rebuilding of what fell apart.

But thinking further about it- the world these young people are left to come of age in now somehow feels much scarier. Much more sinister. Because this time the people terrorizing our way of life is us.

And how can we conduct a war on inner terror? We don’t. The solution to the right hand maiming the left arm is not for the left hand to cut off the right arm. It’s for the left hand to hold the right hand.

Who leads the nationwide therapy session that allows us to exorcise the anger and the fear that’s at the root of that anger? Each other.

We are called to walk beside one another. To witness the fear so that there can be healing.

There’s more than enough pain to go around in all corners.

The legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and the gaping wounds of mass incarceration and discriminatory housing policies and police shootings of black and brown people. The legacy of the Native American genocide and the gaping wounds of their continued marginalization in the corners of this land that was their land.

The gaping wounds of class divide- of the rural poor and the urban elite. Of the hopelessness felt by those living in rust belt cities and in coal mining towns and on farms. Individuals who feel the world has passed them by leaving few prospects and no way out.

The gaping wounds of the opioid epidemic. The gaping wounds of gun violence. The gaping wounds of our treatment of immigrants and their children. The gaping wounds of women who have been denied the safety of and agency over their own bodies. The gaping wounds of those in the LGBQT community being denied the opportunity to openly love who they love and to openly self actualize without fear of discrimination or bodily harm.

All these things and all the things I haven’t mentioned. This list could go on, I know. It’s immense and overwhelming. It’s hard to know where to begin.

We don’t begin by dismissing one another’s pain though. We don’t begin by ignoring it. We don’t begin by name calling. By saying people are snowflakes or facists. Idiots or ignorant. We don’t begin by screaming out loud or in all caps in public or in comments about the wrongness of the other. There is no other.

We’re all together now.

And the root of the root of all our anger is the same: Pain.

You don’t heal an open wound by stabbing it (unless of course that wound is a dog bite and you’re stabbing it with a needle filled with immunogloblulins). You tend to it. You clean it. You wrap it up. You change its dressing. You give the body time to knit itself back into a whole.

Our nation is a story. One nicked and dented and pitted with scars of its creation. Injuries inflicted on it by others and injuries inflicted on it by its own people.

And the only way to healing is as steady and as constant as our heartbeats.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Love.

*Yet again, I apologize for my inability to brief. I swear I was gonna try. But 3,300-plus words later… failure.