Dream

Passages are a funny thing to consider.

One soul leaves this world.

Another enters.

Certain lives may never intersect or overlap, yet one may still impact the other.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, five years before I was born.  He didn’t know my parents, and they - young white people getting their start in the world - surely felt their lives in New England were worlds removed from his death in Memphis.  They wanted a kind, gentle world for their family, so they appreciated Dr. King’s words.  They may have nodded, hoped, said a prayer, even shed a tear or two.  And then they moved on.

That is white privilege.

To agree, to hope, to pray and even to work for a better world - all in the absence of fear.

It’s an odd thing to try to understand.  As a white, middle-class female, it’s not something I asked for.  But there it is.

I remember being in elementary school and learning about the assassination of Dr. King.  I remember going home terrified that my own father - an intelligent, eloquent man who never hesitated to stand up for what he felt was right - would suffer a similar fate.  While clearly the intent of the lesson had been to illustrate our nation’s history of racial inequality and the impact of the civil rights movement, I’d somehow missed the crucial part.  My young brain couldn’t grasp the inane notion that skin color could have anything to do with hatred.  What I’d gleaned was that using one’s words to help others in this world could get a person killed.  What I’d felt was that such a world was surely insane, and terrifyingly unpredictable.

In time, I came to understand that my father, a white male, had the best armor possible.  This only amplified my belief that the world was an insane, terrifyingly unpredictable place.  As a child, I was certain my father was a great person - but I knew it had nothing to do with his gender or skin color.  It was because he was smart, kind, funny, and pretty much always carried candy for his children.  What sort of idiocy had been law in our country long enough that adults didn’t get what was so clear to a child?

My father told me about the Florida courthouse where he first practiced law.  Technically, Jim Crow laws were done for, but right there in the courthouse, next to the scales of justice, the words “WHITE” and “COLORED” remained inscribed in stone above the drinking fountains.

And people still used the fountains that matched their skin color.

How sad, how silly, I would like to say now.  I would like to look back and shake my head at the insanity of the past, gratefully beyond it.  Yet 2014 proved that the racial divide in this nation remains far from bridged.  There is quite a bit that is sad, yet nothing that is silly, about that.

I don’t believe this means we are doomed.  I sometimes think this nation’s past is so painful, we almost viscerally need to believe we’re done with it.  It hurts too damn much to consider the ways we might have benefited from an ugliness with which we disagree, or the times our behavior may have been guided by unfair instincts.  Still, we might do better to acknowledge it, to own up to the way prejudice can seep into the marrow and infect generations.  To look it in the face and say: I will not let you infect my children.

My daily experience with people is that they are generally good and kind.  I believe we are capable of bringing that goodness and kindness to our every interaction.  Call me Pollyanna, but I cannot read or hear the words of Dr. King without thinking he is still the key, and his dream is still possible.

I hope and pray 2015 is the year we each commit in our hearts to being done with drawing superficial lines.

That we work at treating each other gently.

That we take a moment before we speak, before we act.

That we remember that each of us is not the flesh and bone structure we see on the outside; it is the soul within.

With love and gratitude for the life, lessons, and memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dream.

- k.c.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

Peace

Last week’s post was wistful and bittersweet, a recollection of a beautiful moment that didn’t quite deliver the happy ending it promised.  Even without divorce in the mix, the holidays mark time in a way that seems to invite comparison and underscore absences.  It’s been nearly four years, for example, since my father’s sudden passing, but December - his birthday month and mine - seems rife with moments that make it feel impossible still that he’s gone.

I am generally a glass-half-full kind of girl, but in these dark, short days, sometimes the cold chills soul-deep.

I’ve written before about some of the things I have found are essential to maintaining my balance: exercise, yoga, massage.  I meditate to stay in touch with the peace within.  I recently realized that there are some things I enjoy during the holiday season that are just as essential to my well-being as any of the things I do deliberately for that purpose.

Enjoying the return of the seals to the waters near where I live.

Walking my dog at night and appreciating the way Christmas lights seem to lessen the chill.

And then there’s the thing that I think gets me in the holiday spirit more than just about anything else: visiting a place called Clark Farms and seeing what the “elves” there have done with their greenhouses for the season.

As I recently stood in the winter wonderland that this local nursery becomes for the holidays, I realized that for as long as I have lived in South County, I have gravitated there after Thanksgiving to take in the lush sights and smells.  This year, when so much in my life is different, my visit was especially comforting.  Their gorgeous displays vary every year, but the smell of pine mingling with blooms, the warmth and cheer - that remains the same.

I’m not a fan of commercialism, so it might seem odd that I am so fond of any place with a cash register in the midst, but this year I recognized that this local business has, over the years, given me far more than the items I’ve purchased there.

It’s a little bit of peace on earth, and a reminder that there are better things to count at the holidays than losses and absences.  Even in the dark of winter, there is life and growth and magic.

Enjoy a little glimpse…

www.kcwilder50ways.com

Home for the Hollidays

Just five years ago, The Ex (then my boyfriend of a few years) and I were heading to a Christmas party.  He picked me up at my apartment. It was the place I’d called home for nearly seven years, and it was serving as our home base while we worked on the major renovation of the house we’d purchased up the road a few months prior.

“I’ve almost got the fireplace finished,” he told me as he helped me into his truck.  “Want to see?”

I did.

He drove the very short distance - five houses or so - to the old beach cottage that was to be our new home.  As the entire interior was a construction zone, I’d placed a small Christmas tree out on the deck, wrapping it in colored lights.  Snow had begun to fall that evening, and when we pulled into the driveway, I noted how dreamy it looked as it blanketed our little outdoor tree thinly in white.

I followed him into the house, noticing immediately that something was different.  Though gutted to the frame and littered with construction debris, our house somehow flickered with golden light.  The fireplace had once been a horrific throwback to the 1970’s: bright red brick with black grout.  Now, though, it was a fieldstone beauty - much like the one in my apartment, which I loved - and a fire glowed warmly within.

I was awestruck.  Earlier in the day, he and I had attempted to affix the new stones to the bare concrete face with little success; we’d posed as if in a strange game of Twister, our hands and feet pressing stones into cement and waiting for them to take.  More than once, we’d thought we had things set only to hear the disheartening crash of an avalanche as we walked away.

Now, though, every stone was in place.  A granite mantlepiece finished it all; I hadn’t even realized he had that beautiful bit of stone cut and ready to install.  While I tried to take it all in, he took me by both hands in front of the blaze at the hearth.

He proposed.

With snow falling on the small, brightly-lit Christmas tree outside and fire illuminating the mess and the progress inside, he put a diamond ring on my finger and asked me to be his wife.

It was the most romantic moment of my life.

In time, the construction zone morphed into our home.  I reveled in moving from finishing sheetrock to painting to decorating.  And when Christmas rolled around again, I loved hanging stockings on the mantelpiece.  My heart was in that house, and the hearth seemed the heart of the home.

Now, as my regular readers know, the man who gave me that romantic moment on a snowy night is not my boyfriend, my fiance, or even my husband - he is The Ex.  Our marriage was brief.  Our divorce was finalized earlier this year. 

This year, Thanksgiving and the subsequent plunge into the Christmas season have been bittersweet.  The romance of that lovely wedding proposal blinded me to myriad truths I’ve since faced.  I understand that he and I are better off apart. 

Still, it’s an interesting thing to have no real home at a time of year when the whole world seems focused on home and hearth.  From bare bones to sheetrock to creature comforts, I worked so hard to make that house our home.  Now there is no “us,” and that house is no longer my home.

This weekend, I decorated my tiny, temporary apartment for the holidays.  Far from the full day my house used to claim, this took less than an hour.  I saw The Ex at the dog beach and learned that he’d put up the Christmas tree.  I bit my tongue and did not ask about other things: the stockings and mantlepiece garland, the lights on the blue spruce planted in my father’s memory, the candles at the windows.

It is not my place even to ask anymore.

Now?

I am finding my way forward.  I am working on opening my heart again.  I am learning to trust those who truly deserve it.  I believe I am deserving of love - real, true, boundless love - and I am grateful for the chance to find it.

Memories may make some aspects of Christmas difficult this year, but I think the best I can do is be appreciative of all the beautiful moments in the midst of the difficulties - much like the fire and the proposal amidst the construction debris.

This holiday season, I wish The Ex peace, joy, and love.

I wish it for myself, too.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

Beach house Christmas

'Tis the season

The pups approve

Hung by the chimney with care

Dad’s tree

This year: a tiny ‘tree’ for a tiny apartment

The tree on my neighbor’s dock makes me smile 

Hollaback

I generally try to stay out of the fray on hot-button topics, but sometimes I just can’t help myself…

Unless you live under a rock, you know that a young woman named Shoshana Roberts spent ten hours walking the streets of New York City while being filmed for a public service announcement for the anti-street harassment group Hollaback!  The resulting video - which pared the experience down to a two-minute glimpse at the catcalls and intimidating behavior - went viral.

And?

Ms. Roberts has been inundated with everything from messages of support to criticism to threats of rape and murder.  On Fox News, Bob Beckel said, “She got one hundred catcalls, let me add one hundred and one. Damn, baby, you’re a piece of woman.”

Way to underscore the point, buddy.

But look, the only thing that surprised me about the video was that people found it surprising.

Well, that, and the way a fair number of my male friends seemed to feel compelled to apologize for the behavior of the men in the video.

Some of the posts from guys on Facebook:

“Well, now I need a shower.  Is that really my species?”

“Wow.  Totally embarrassed by my gender.”

“Shocked and disgusted.”

There are so many ways these well-meaning comments miss the mark.  That the video went viral is telling - there are things we need to talk about, folks - but I’d hate to see it devolve into an exercise in man-shaming (or man-self-shaming, as the case may be).  Let’s discuss some important points, shall we?

I’ll start with the much-discussed race issue.  The Hollaback! video makes it look as though all the men harassing Ms. Roberts are black or Latino.  Whether this was a case of poor editing or something more sinister, I can’t say.  But any woman can tell you catcalling and street harassment know no racial boundaries.  It’s equal-opportunity ugliness, and yes, what you see in the Hollaback! video is actually pretty mild.  If you want to see a better, more well-rounded, and waaaaay funnier treatment of this issue, check out this video by Jessica Williams of the Daily Show.  The very end of it cracks me the hell up - and when you can do that on a serious issue, amen.

Next let’s talk location.  When I walk or jog around my little New England town, I smile and say hello to everyone - even the guys whose remarks may be cringeworthy or make me uncomfortable.  Maybe especially so in those cases.  I make eye contact in a way that could be saying, “I’m friendly and appreciate that you are, too” or “I can identify you in a police lineup.  Have a nice day!”

But when I go to the Big Apple?  Bitchface all the way.  Stone.  Cold.  Bitchface.  Why?  Because I’d prefer not to end up raped and dead in a gutter somewhere.

Which brings me to my next point.  Women have to move differently through the world, and we know it.  We are aware that, in some environments, ending up raped and dead in a gutter is a real possibility.  We have to wear the bitchface and screen out the catcalls while simultaneously calculating whether or not there is any real threat.  We have to be aware of our surroundings in a way men rarely do.  Is that right or fair?

Hell, no, but (here’s where I offer a little dose of tough love) welcome to life.  Suck it up, sisters.  Gender is but one of the lines along which unfairness and injustice occurs.  That deserves attention, yes, but personally, I feel that all the progress that’s already been made practically guarantees we will get to a better place.  The ball is rolling in the right direction.  There’s no stopping it.  I’m aware, I’m proactive, I am proudly feminist - but I hope I am never so busy being outraged at the crap I and my contemporaries endure that I miss the sweetness in life hard-earned by the women who came before me.

And men?  God, I love men, and I hope all the great men in my life know just how awesome they are.  Those men who make catcalls, who harass and intimidate women with their words and their body language - just like those trolls threatening Ms. Roberts in the wake of her video - those are not the men I know.  Those are small, ignorant creatures.  I suspect there’s a lot of pain and hurt going on in the world of any man who enjoys bullying women and making them uncomfortable in the public sphere.  Those are men who don’t know how to be real men.

To my guy-friends who feel compelled to apologize on their behalf, I say: don’t.  I am grateful that you are dismayed when you consider some of what women put up with in this world, but you’re already doing your part by empathizing, engaging in dialogue, raising your sons to be kinder, your daughters to be bolder.  Don’t apologize for lesser men.

Whatever your take on her video, Shoshana Roberts did something she clearly felt was important and hoped would help to make the world a better place.  Too often those are the very sorts of actions that are misunderstood.  I hope she’s not discouraged by the fallout.  I believe life is best lived by taking risks.  She did that.

And if she needs a laugh - or if you do - here’s one I’ve shared before and probably will again: Wanda Sykes’ ‘Detachable Pussy’ standup routine.  Because sometimes this world is so frigging crazy, the best we can do is just laugh at it.

www.kcwilder50ways.com