What's Gonna Set You Free?

Dear ones,

About 25 or so years ago, there was an existential question posed in graffiti on an I-95 overpass in eastern Connecticut, heading south between Stonington and Mystic. Some of you may remember it.

WHAT’S GONNA SET YOU FREE?

I drove that stretch of highway regularly throughout my late teens and twenties, on my way home to southwestern CT from a few weeks working the Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals, or a visit to my grandparents in East Providence. But I barely had time to consider the magnitude of the question when a tag on a subsequent overpass offered a response.

PERHAPS SOME CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES AND MILK.

No one had cell phones then, let alone digital cameras,  and while a fairly deep dive into Google suggests that others remember this graffiti, I can find no visual evidence of it.

These are darkening days – and I mean this both literally, in terms of the autumn season, and figuratively. I don’t need to catalogue the destruction, the threats, the racism, the violence, the steady erosion of rights and justice and respect. And the floods. And the fires. This week more acres burn in the West. Family members and loved ones in Texas, Florida, Oregon, and California are grieving the “natural” devastation, trying to mitigate their survivors’ guilt by helping those who are most directly affected. “Absolutely apocalyptic,” my cousin described the landscape a few miles from her home in Sonoma County. “So much pain it’s overwhelming.” 

And that’s not all that has been burning. Perhaps the dubious award for “most distressing fires of 2017” should go to the violent and hate-filled white ("Christian") (mostly male) supremacists in Charlottesville, who stormed the University of Virginia and the city with tiki torches blazing. 

I was already struggling with depression when the Nazis and Klansmen came marching through. Let's face it - they've been with us all along, but of course until recently they weren't so emboldened or willing - even proud - to be seen in public. Look at these assholes. How do we reckon with this?

I was heartened somewhat by a quote in a New York Times article by Aryn Frazier, a young woman and recent UVA grad who attended the counterprotest. Her words have stuck with me these past two months: 

But for all the vitriol and hatred, there was also something deeply human happening in downtown Charlottesville. People were offering each other water, masks, earplugs and gloves. One kind woman came around to offer us locally grown cherry tomatoes. I, for my own peace of mind, have to believe that humanity's good will eventually outweigh its bad. It won't happen on its own, but with the help of people like those who were helping, or perhaps, watching from their homes in horror, thinking about the role they might play to stop something like this from happening again. 

I was surprised to see those cherry tomatoes appear in the middle of the passage. But then I remembered a fable from Buddhist nun Pema Chodron called "Tigers Above, Tigers Below." 

I'm not Buddhist, but enjoying the strawberry, or the local cherry tomatoes, seems to me a necessary response - perhaps the only response - to the larger moment that we are in. What's gonna set me free? Right now it's poetry, and dahlias, marveling at the beauty of wood ducks on the pond near my house, collecting black walnuts, watching the quick work of tiny spiders on my deck if I leave my empty tea mug unattended for more than ten minutes. 

When I am able to be fully present and savor the moment (that is, when I am able to get outside my own head), I feel better equipped for the work that has to be done to more fully realize love, respect, and community. As rabbi, theologian, and Civil Rights activist Abraham Joshua Heschel said in his 1963 speech "Religion and Race," "Some are guilty, but all are responsible." We all need to show up. But we also need to be fortified. Enjoy those chocolate chip cookies and milk. We have a lot to do.

Love,

Kelley

My girl at the RI March for Racial Justice, October 2017

(Note: This past week marked the 7th anniversary of my brain cancer diagnosis. Next week I have a followup MRI and oncology visit - always a cause for anxiety. Light some candles, cross your fingers, send up a prayer for me if that's your style. As it is, I've been having a hard time the past few months. But it feels good to have finally finished writing this.)

February/Hygge

Presidents' Day: There is still some snow on the ground but I am happily sitting on my deck steps while the old man cat rubs against me, the sunshine warming his mahogany fur. First, an employment update: I am thrilled to report that I am once again gainfully employed full-time! I returned to Brown a month ago, and I’m delighted to be back in the School of Public Health with so many friends and colleagues. I’m now the Program Coordinator for the newish Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute, a lofty name for a place with lofty goals, namely to have a “transformative impact on the lives of children and their families.” (See https://www.brown.edu/initiatives/child-health/). 

It’s a great group of people dedicated to improving children’s health, and I’m excited to be part of something local that has a clear mission and the capacity for measurable success. That feels especially critical at a time when so much national and international news is overwhelming. And – less loftily, but important – I have a window! With a view of First Unitarian! 

Late afternoon winter light on First Unitarian, Providence

Winter has been fairly mild, despite one big blizzard followed by heavy, sloppy snow 3 days later. I was lucky enough to have a snow day, which was perhaps more exciting than it should've been for an adult. I spent the day in sweatpants reading, dozing with cats, making soup and shortbread, and feeling cozy. 

We do cozy pretty well here in our little sunflower yellow bungalow: Sam bakes bread regularly, and an everyday pleasure is toast topped with a little butter and some jam she made from last summer’s raspberries. I think I will survive the coming apocalypse as long as Sam’s with me, although I will miss the butter.

I am worried about the coming apocalypse, as are so many of us. But I'm also convinced that effective Resistance is expansive and holistic: it is speaking out and giving money and time and energy to worthy causes. And it is also consuming and creating art in all its forms. I've been doing some of my own writing, but I'm drawn particularly right now to art that challenges me and makes me uncomfortable, like Octavia Butler's Kindred, Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, and Ava DuVernay's documentary 13th. 

My sister did an Ancestry.com DNA test, which revealed that we are about as white as we possibly be, mostly English and Irish. The one slight surprise was that we have a modest amount of Scandinavian heritage. To that end, to appropriate something that's not really mine, I find the Danish concept of hygge (which is having its cultural moment) particularly useful during these dark political days. I'm not talking about hand-felted hats and mittens and artisanal teas, which are lovely but material. Rather, If we are to survive the trump years, I think the value of hygge is being present, and appreciating connection. I am proud that my belated birthday celebration was a potluck singalong. It was so affirming that we will make it a regular event. Other friends have instituted salons where good people gather to read poetry, drink wine, and discuss how we live into our best, most inclusive values. These are all tonics and much needed to balance the work of marches and rallies, calling elected officials, and more obvious forms of civic engagement.  

Marching, January 21, 2017

So I belt out "I'll Fly Away" with friends, and I look for hawks on bare tree branches, and we laugh when the goofy kitten nibbles on dead flowers, leaving her chin and nose covered in turmeric-yellow pollen. And we go to the Safe Sanctuaries organizational meeting at church and we call Rhode Island's congressional delegation and we celebrate this remarkable world even in the face of fear and hate. We persist.  I visited my river sanctuary spot a couple of weeks ago on a much colder day. The log that my night-crowned heron friend sits on was entirely frozen over. But the water was still rushing forward. 

Ten Mile River, February 2017

And as the snow has melted in the past few days, I can see that the green shoots of bulbs are slowly making their way above ground. 

Soon there will be daffodils.

Here's to little victories. Skol!

Love, Kelley