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.
