hi,
i’m glad you’re here.
a lots happened since we last talked.
on april 13, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, went to pick up his younger siblings. he went to the wrong door. a mistake that almost cost him his life. he was shot in the head and the arm.
on april 15 , 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was out with friends when they pulled into the wrong driveway, she was fatally shot by the homeowner.
on april 18, 21-year-old Heather Roth and 18-year-old Payton Washington, were at the supermarket after a late-night cheerleading practice. one of them went into the wrong car by accident, the two of them were shot in the parking lot as a result.
ralph went to three houses after being shot before anyone would help him.
kaylin’s friends tried desperately to step on the gas as the fatal shot came through the windshield
heather roth rolled down her window as her shooter approached the car, she was trying to apologize.
six days. in just six days headline after headline of unprovoked violence.
how did we end up here? what fuels that knee-jerk towards fear? that instinct of intolerance?
i want to find the wound so we can stop the bleeding. that starts, i think, with a willingness to look. a willingness to face what is happening. a willingness to pull the rot out with our own two hands.
we are always looking away. sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of habit, sometimes because it’s just easier. but do we have to wait until it’s a name we know on the screen before pain slaps us in the face and we realize none of us were ever safe, after all?
what a luxury to look away! the (perceived) worst of the pain was always just far away enough from us to convince ourselves there was nothing wrong. it was somewhere else, someone else.
but, now, it’s at our doorstep.
it’s ringing the doorbell, banging on the door, demanding to be let in. to be seen.
we can’t afford to look away anymore.
for too long there has been a cognitive dissonance in the US. we were sold the idea of superiority for long enough that it became a worn-down prayer on our lips, a hymn memorized so long ago that we stopped registering the words.
yet, here are just a few facts about the “greatest country” on earth:
Americans are 25 times more likely to be killed in a gun homicide than people in other high-income countries. (source)
The US maternal mortality rate is more than three times the rate in most other high-income countries. (source)
More than 34 million people, including 9 million children, in the United States are food insecure. (source)
More than 46 million americans live with water insecurity - meaning no running water or unsafe drinking water. (source)
The average lifespace in the US fell to 77 in 2020 and dropped further, to just over 76, in 2021. That's the largest decrease over a two-year span since the 1920s. (source)
politics can be contentious. this is not: we need saving, mostly from ourselves.
i keep going back to the fact that ralph yarl had to go to three houses before anyone would help him. a kid, clearly hurt and scared, met with reluctant eyes and closed doors. we can do so much better than that. we should be doing so much better than that.
this isn’t a doomsday cry, or a eulogy for the state of being. i write this, not because i think the world is unredeemable but because i think, despite it all, we are good. good enough to be worthy of something more. good enough to open the door.
we imagined up this whole world, it’s systems, its laws - we can imagine up a new one.
we’ve been fed a narrative centered around fear. this idea that we need to build up our armor, both literally and physically, to protect ourselves from an ever-growing list of threats.
you can draw a straight, albeit long, line between these unprompted attacks and this fear-driven storyline. in fact, these events are more proof that it’s worked, we’re playing perfectly to script.
we’re quick to scare because we’ve been taught to look at each other with skepticism, with doubt over compassion. the problem is always outside of us, focused on some “other”, some group of people that we can magically turn the blame on.
it’s a story that has been carefully crafted to keep us from looking up. pushing us to use our collective energy to fight one another instead of linking arms and putting an end to the decisions that are being made above us, against our best interest. instead, we’ve been looking down, on each other - choosing to see the worst, choosing fear over acceptance.
what if we built our story around something else? what if, instead of letting a politics of fear guide our future we let a politics of love start to take root?
over the past decade there has been a revived willingness to look at what’s in front of us, without rose-colored glasses. so much so that nothing is painted pink anymore. we have taken a blanket approach to reality. it’s grey, it’s dismal, it’s hopeless.
but what if we accepted reality with those glasses still in hand? what if we chose to see what’s in front of us for what it is and still had the courage to focus on what’s left to love?
as my favorite poet, andrea gibson wrote:
because where I come from
beauty is in the eyes of anyone
who sees what’s missing,
but can’t stop pointing to what’s still there.
If there is no definition of love I think that’s a good one.
we can’t let the bad drown out our willingness to care for one another, we can’t because we are the ones with everything to lose. not just our lives but the goodness inside of us that makes life worth living.
we need to place all of our attention on where the love still lives, on those precious pieces of care.
on how heather roth rolled down her window, how her instinct was to forgive first, fear later.
we have to be willing to feel the loss of that kindness, to care enough to pay attention, to love our neighbor enough to demand better.
here is the rest of that andrea gibson poem mentioned above, titled “The Year of No Grudges” - it’s spoken word and, if you haven’t heard/read their work, you are in for a real treat.
and here are my latest nails:
leaning into those spring time vibes with the yellow. here’s to hoping for fewer spring showers and plenty more sunshine. ☀️
see you in a couple weeks. ✨