I had moved from being shocked, to saddened, to angered, to depressed. Flopping through these emotions, I was seething. No amount of my Buddhist study and meditation could dispel my state. I became very low. So low, I was worried I had lost control of my thoughts. I didn’t want to do anything. And I mean nothing.
In the past, I could usually shake a low depression by going for a walk in the woods with my dogs. Not this time. It scared me. I came to realize I couldn’t handle my feelings alone. I went to my husband’s office where he was busy writing a story. I sat down in his comfortable leather chair.
“I’m sorry I’m interrupting you,” I finally said.” He turned his swivel chair to face me. “But I need your help.” I shared with him all the thoughts and events that were swirling in my enraged mind and how low I had sunk. My feelings of helplessness; my struggle to find my purpose or meaning in life; my feeling of not wanting to live to watch more injustices, more inequality, more deaths, more world destruction and with no peaceful solution.
I poured out my suffering to him as he sat quietly, watching and listening to me.
“I wake up in the morning with a mind enraged with a web of thoughts. May 25th to be exact. Watching the stark images of the police officer grinding his knee into George Floyd’s neck, as the man begged for his life, cut into my gut as if he were someone I knew. “
Stopping to wipe tears, I then continued.
“Photos of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson, Stephon Clark, Eric Garner, to name a few, flash through my mind. And, I think of my biracial grandson, just coming into his teens. Will he be able to drive to the grocery store without fear?” I couldn’t stop. “The brutality that has been creeping into our news reports with the introduction of phone videoing is taking its toll on the black community, on me, and I think on many in the white community as well.”
I went on.
“I look back at my naivete in 1965, when I stood in the crowd at Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. listening to MLK’s “I Have A Dream” speech. I actually believed at that time change was taking place. I and the other hundreds of souls there that day had hope. Black and White. Hope in change. Hope for equality. Now at 80, my heart and mind are filled with fear. Fear that this country isn’t learning from its mistakes. Fear that we are not that democracy that we professed to be. Fear that the White Supremacist groups have increased and infiltrated a lot of our communities. Are you aware there are five right here in Maine?
I worry for the safety of my grandchildren and my son in law. I worry for my friends of color. I worry for our world peace and our earth’s health.
Do we who live in a light skin color think we can continue to go through life with the privilege of usually feeling safe to get into our cars and go to the store and without thinking of the rest of the human race who can’t? As hard as one of us can try, it’s impossible to put ourselves in their shoes. It’s obvious we know nothing of what it is really like, day in and out.” There was no stopping me. My anger was increasing.
“My heritage is Native American and I’m sure if I did a DNA test, I would find African American blood as well. Yet, no police officer or person in charge has ever stopped me with questions as why I am there, what I am doing, where I am going. The color of my skin. That carte blanche!” I was almost yelling by this time.
After I finished getting all this out of my gut, I stopped crying. My husband’s calm voice brought me out of my exhausting stupor. “Let’s walk over and sit on the deck at the pond.” “I don’t want to walk. I don’t want to do anything,” I said.
“Then I’ll drive you over.” This made me feel guilty as the pond is not a long walk away. If he’s willing to stop writing and make the effort to drive me, how can I sit here pouting?
We sat in silence, watching frogs hop into the water and trout rise to the surface, trying to capture dinner from the new hatch of bugs, as I dealt with the shame of riding in the car instead of walking.
Silence can be quite noisy. Especially when you are with someone who sits in calmness, saying not a word while your insides are about to burst forth. He didn’t say a word or ask any questions. He sat close with his arm around my shoulders. Slowly, his calm spread over to me. I could feel it easing into my skin, then muscles, then arteries, reaching my heart and brain. I almost melted into the wooden bench.
This different composure replaced the anxiety, the anger, and cleared my mind. But, what was it? Guilt or shame to then find my mind filling instead with all the wonders of my life. Of my wonderful caring husband. Of our place. Of my family. Of friends. Of nature and animals. Of Maine. How fortunate I am.
Depression is a horrible experience and I’m not sure I won’t go there again, but for now, I feel gratitude and hope.
* * *
Since I first wrote this, two things have given me immense hope: First, I received a video to watch from a friend, “Boat Life, 9/11.” Though this is depicting an event many years ago, it was powerful and moving. As a friend commented, “… an indication that humanity has the potential for unselfish kindness.”
The second thing was the announcement that Joe Biden had chosen Kamala Harris for his running mate. This put a resounding positive energy into the air for all of us.
I have been reading a lot of W. S. Merwin’s writings recently and I want to share one here:
“…in times of political turmoil: We try to save what is passing, if only by describing it, telling it, knowing all the time that we can’t do any of these things. The urge to tell it, and the knowledge of the possibility. Isn’t that one reason we write?”
Boat Lift