Concentric Circles

"What are you doing, babe?" I whispered sleepily as you tiptoed towards your daddy's dresser at 6:15am.

"just grabbing the hair gel before I make breakfast burritos."

I smiled and rolled over, but couldn't stay in bed much longer, pulled out of bed by the thought of you making breakfast burritos. Sure, there was a bit of concern regarding the eggs shells, gas stove, and cheese to egg ratios, but I mostly got up because I didn't want to miss it. I didn't want to miss my sneak peek into watching you grow from a boy into a young man.

Parenting feels a lot like driving through a series of tunnels to me. There are long stretches of monotony, sometimes feeling disoriented. And then suddenly, we burst into the light and the landscape is totally different.

Sometimes the new landscape isn't so friendly either - the topography of arguing, rudeness, and short-temperedness sometimes makes me wish for another tunnel. But other times, it almost takes my breath away.

I recently began to think of parenting as a series of concentric circles, with the center circle representing the youngest years of our life and the outside circles representing the years we fully become grown-ups. We start together with our children in the very middle, figuring out our small boundaries and fairly simple roles of engagement: you cry, I try to comfort. you cry, I cry, and then try to comfort. You laugh, I laugh. You laugh, I cry.

And eventually we grow to the edge of that small center circle and break through to the next. The thing I've slowly come to realize is that my children lead the break through. They determine when it's time to move from one set of norms in our interactions with one another, to the next.

For years, he wanted sung to while he fell asleep. Today, he rolled over and said, "ugh, not that song again."

For years, he needed me to squirt his toothpaste. Today, my toothbrush was waiting for me by the sink, toothpaste already on.

For years, she needed help with her socks. Today, she walked out of her room, dressed better than me, looked at my outfit and simply said, "nice, mom."

For years, she wanted coaxing and encouragement for the simplest of tasks. Today, I heard a thud in the other room - when I peeked in, she was picking herself up from the floor, "one handed cartwheels for a 5 year old! gotta keep practicing." and went straight back to it.

They burst through the walls of the concentric circles without much warning, and unless the way has been paved for them, they'll go into a free fall - taking me along. It turns out, I'm meant to lay the foundations for the next state of independence and exploration before we get to it. But too often, I forget and we enter free fall. Or, more likely, I miss that you've broken through into the next phase of being your own person and I'm still trying to hold you to the place you have now outgrown.

This feels especially poignant today as I stood hand in hand with middle schoolers at my kids school participating in the #enough walkout to honor the 17 students and faculty who lost their lives a month ago in Parkland, and to voice their simple request, "we want safe schools."

Whether any of us saw it coming or not, the youth of this country have burst (and in some ways been forcibly evacuated) into the next phase of their development. No longer only concerned with college applications, snapchat filters, and 80s-throwback hightops they're also advocating for their own physical safety and feeling a strong sense of responsibility.

I listened to a one of these students today read a poem written by a classmate called "bullet proof teen." It was powerful, eloquent, and one line hit my core (and I apologize to the author for any errors in my recall of exact wording): "we are bloody flesh but we must be kevlar. we must protect the little boys and girls behind us."

They were talking about my little boy and my little girl. I looked around the heart-shaped gathering of tomorrow's leaders, todays self-identified children and change-makers and saw on their faces a willingness to die for my 6yr old and 8yr old who walk the same halls as these teenagers. I stood in silence, feeling the tears at the back of my throat, facing the justified slap those words probably never intended to bring, accepting the fairness of the question it implicitly asked "why weren't you there to defend me?"

We're in free fall, dear ones. We missed it, you and I. The grown-ups, the decision-makers, the money-spenders, the ones intended by creation's design to protect, to prepare for, and to welcome those younger than us as they keep on through life. We missed building the stable footing for our young people and we are all feeling the free-fall, but none more than our youth and their parents.

So what platform will you build today? Are you building a platform that is actually a plank, only wide enough for you and your dear ones? Are you walking on a gated platform that leads to nowhere but more separation from the rest? Or are you using multiple materials, aware you have a critical piece of the platform and the stranger next to you does too?

My husband and I were 2 of 3 adults standing on that heart-shape with students today. We went to simply be there, not to speak, not to control, but just to be.

The rest of the adults present (most of whom were teachers) stood back, taking photos. I truly believe this was out of respect to our youth and their pain, but presence is more powerful than distance in easing pain and absence is not empowerment. My husband talked to two of the MS organizers afterwards, to thank them for their leadership and allowing us to be there. They replied, "thank you for being here, and thank you for being close."

They're paying attention - those sleepy, tousled heads of your own children confidently making breakfast burritos, and those frontal-lobe developing fierce leaders shouting at our elected leaders through loudspeakers. They're paying attention to us, they want us close, and they've burst through to the next circle. I'm right there with them, doing everything in my power to build the platform we should have built years ago, and also looking to what the next circle is and how we can build that platform too.

We can't afford another free fall as a country and unity is the only way to avoid it. Find a stranger, make a friend. Find an enemy, make peace. Find a resource, build a platform. The circle is getting bigger, and I need you next to me because it's too much pain for one person or one generation. But together? I truly believe we have all we need.

eight square inches

i do not intend
to listen
when you tell me
i cannot
change the world

i ripple impact.

these eyes
have shed a thousand tears
have looked shame in the eye
transforming it to healing grief

these ears
have bathed in beauty
bled from pain
remained open vessels for new learning
maintained slopes pouring growth
down
to the heart
out through hands
moved to act. touch. heal. push aside.

this tongue
has formed whispers of comfort
launched rockets
of just anger
fought back fear
eaten hope

these lips
have kissed away heart wounds
tasted the sweetest strength found only
in a welcomed lovers skin
curled upwards to the sun
silent power shot across to another
striking loneliness a death blow

this mind
has learned, unlearned, relearned
wrestled with demons in and out
chosen the painful tenderizing of opinion
so perspective never hardens to hate

this heart
has chosen to stand still
instead of flee
to fight and sometimes relinquish
to face defeat but never be
defeated
to break wide open
over
and over
and over

eight square inches of my face
a house for all this
and more

eight square inches of my face
i see infinite

you see flesh and wrinkles
tell my eight square inches
"you cannot change the world."

i respond with silence
a composed canvas

but inside
i reverberate a force
rendering your words hollow

"i already am."

and though you don't see it, i do.
you are too

sixteen square inches.
infinite world changing impact

there is only one difference
to how you and i
will
change the world

i intend to do it
on purpose

transplanting blackberries after a homicide

To My Dear Community,

My husband ushered our children into the back bedroom to finish their movie, unaware in their innocence, as the gunshots cut the air of our neighborhood. A quiet street I've only ever known to be full of dog walkers, joggers, and the occasional driver going a tad too quickly down a residential street now filled with flashing blue lights, yellow tape, and chalk.

Our front window, which still looks out at a row of adorable houses that remind me of a rainbow now also looks out on the memorial of a young man, our new friend, killed just steps from our front door.

It has been a hard week for us. And here, in our little neighborhood, as I go to my kids school, to work, and talk to our neighbors and friends, it sounds like it's been a harder season for us as a community in general. We're growing a lot, so many new people, so much less space, so many more cars.

And it seems as if it the growth is coming with more stories like the one that unfolded outside my dining room window as a life flowed out into a storm drain in the street while the kids obliviously sang along to "let it go."

There are more stories of people hurt, hurting one another, kids discouraged from walking to school without a grownup - our ideals of safety threatened and somehow suddenly fleeting.

People seem more afraid and it's coming out as anger; I get honked at more, glared at more, and if I'm honest, I'm honking more, snarkier with the person taking too long (in my opinion) in the check out line, defenses automatically up when I walk out the door. It just seems we're all more on edge. The tensions of our world, our city, and our community stuffed down into raincoats with zippers increasingly too short to hold all the pain and wondering in, and so there are quick glances away if our eyes meet a stranger's. Friend or foe? We don't know, and we’re too heart-tired to find out.

But in the wake of the events this week, I've thought of our West Seattle community a lot, and I had a few very simple things I wanted to share with you. So, here it goes...

I think a lot about fear. If I'm honest, I can feel a lot of it on a daily basis. I've learned over the years how to use it as a catalyst for good, how to be grateful for my constant vigilance, seeing the many ways it has benefited my family, my community, the things I am involved with. Fear is like a yellow light - it's not a directive to stop or to go, it's just a sign it's time to make a decision. And the more information I have about my trajectory, goals, and physical realities the more likely I am to make a wise choice in response to that yellow light.

My favorite yellow lights are the ones accompanied by an accurate pedestrian crosswalk - that number countdown to the yellow light is what all lights should be, and what I wish life provided: adequate time to know what to expect and how to prepare.

But in real life, which has come way too close to home for us this week, it doesn't work that way. While the yellow light of fear happens frequently enough, it is very rarely preceded by a gentle warning: "fear is coming soon - just wanted you to have a bit of time to prepare and plan your response."

Here is what I have learned about fear: if we do not choose how we will respond when it inevitably comes, then in the face of fear what flows out of us is our worst, not our best.

Fear tells us there is a threat, and in the absence of an intentional response to fear, our instinct tells us to turn away, to pull in, to put up higher fences, install bigger security systems, and fortify our defenses. And we do. I do.

But, here is another thing I have learned, having grown up in a city where the literal fences were high, topped with barbed wire, and monitored by dogs and armed guards.  The put up, pull in, back off mentality does not bring a greater sense of safety, nor does it diminish an actual threat of risk. Perhaps it does for a moment, but not for long. It is fleeting, and our belief in our own ability to singularly control our individual outcome in the world is like a drug: we need bigger doses of heavier substances to retain our feelings of control.

We are a culture that prides itself on self-reliance and individualism, and a city where politeness is paramount but our internal walls are high and we more easily turn away than towards. Uncomfortably, especially for us, this truth remains: the anecdote to fear is not an exertion of power or a reinforcing of our own walls. The anecdote to fear is togetherness.

This week has been incredibly hard for me and for our neighborhood, but it has been so softened by the fact we already knew our neighbors - even the ones who were the victims in this senseless tragedy. There was instant comfort in knowing that even in the midst of real fear we were surrounded by people who knew us, knew our kids, had us watch their pets, and came over for drinks or bbqs.

We didn't know our neighbors on accident, there was no roster passed out when we moved onto the block several years back. There was a lovely bottle of wine dropped off, and a couple phone numbers swapped at a neighbors night. The rest has been slow building. It has meant going on evening walks as a family and stopping to say hi to anyone we see out and about, including getting into or out of their cars (and yes, it's always awkward, and yes, it's always met with eventual warmth). We introduce ourselves, say where we live, offer to swap numbers and remind people "we're close by if you ever need anything."

It has meant watching when the houses go up for sale, knocking on the doors of folks as they unpack their boxes, passing on the next bottle of wine, swapping numbers, and again saying, "we just live right there...so glad you moved in." It has meant large group text chains telling neighbors about impromptu BBQs on the first warm Saturday of spring, asking for help managing our chickens while we travel, walking the mail incorrectly delivered to us over to it's rightful owner a block away and choosing to knock on the door rather than stuff it in the mailbox.

Building community, which I recently heard described as common unity, does not happen through programs, or private groups. Neighborhood groups on social media help with the transfer of goods and information, but they are no substitute for a handshake, an eye-to-eye smile, or a knock on the door.

I've lived in a lot of places, I've been close to a lot of pain, and experienced it myself. I've had my sense of safety violated more than once, and know it will happen again. As much as some knee jerk part of me wants to do everything I can to gear up for battle, I've lived long enough to know the real war isn't in the moment of fear, it's in how I've prepared my heart, my family, and my community before it comes.

I'm a fighter, through and through, there is no flight in me. But I won't fight fire with fire or violence with violence for one simple reason: love is much stronger than hate or fear. You see, hate and fear eat a soul alive while love self-repairs and grows stronger each time it's shown. A community turned towards one another, intentionally woven together, is more safe than a community pulled away from one another in fear and hate.

It's not up to me to decide what your block is like, that's up to you. But here on this block, even after the week we've had, we're going to keep turning in. We're going to keep watching each other's pets and kids, inviting each other over for warm pies, asking how the day was & waiting to hear the real answer. And the folks at the corner of the block are going to wrap this around the block and across the intersection, and I hope it spreads like wild blackberries our neighborhood is known as the part of town where folks know their neighbors, aren't afraid of the ways our city is changing, and see the yellow light of fear as an anticipated reality that we get to respond to with choice.

I hope you've already planted your own blackberry patch of love and togetherness in your neighborhood. But if you haven't, that's ok, just consider this letter a starter clipping from mine. It's all you need to get started, just drop it in the soil of a knock on a neighbors door, water it with a the swap of a phone number, and fertilize with a text when you're running errands and just wondered if anyone in the neighborhood needed anything while you were out.

Hate raised its head this week, and it will again, even today. But I'll raise my head even higher, choose to look in your eyes a little bit longer, fighting for love a little bit fiercer. It's the very best thing I know how to do, and I really, really hope you'll join me.  

And you know, we live just down the block so if you ever need anything, just holler; and if you're new, we're so glad you're here.