On the edge of fear and love

For the past few weeks since the mass terrorist events at the Buffalo supermarket and the elementary school in Texas, in which innocent elders and children were killed without reason, I have been in a space of grief, fear, and hopelessness. I feel so tender and raw and my instinct is to numb myself, to not talk about it, to try not to think about it, to avoid it. But there’s no way to bypass the global suffering that we are exposed to endlessly. How can I find a perspective that helps me to see beyond despair?

I remember the last time I felt such despair – the summer of 2020. The summer of we can’t breath. A frightening and deadly virus was waging war on our lungs, our forests and valleys were burning in fires, and we were begging for Black lives to matter as the sounds of George Floyd calling to his mother haunted our dreams.

But something was different then.

The thing about 2020 is that it was an “oh fuck” moment for everyone. No one avoided an “oh fuck” moment in 2020, did they? The world was spinning in the opposite direction for all of us for the first time, we were dizzy and off balance, and we were all paying attention.

Just two years later, we’re paying attention to work deadlines and social event and vacation plans. The world is still spinning in the wrong direction, but as a collective we’ve adjusted to the disequilibrium. This is just how the world spins now, isn’t it?

Not for me. I’m still dizzy, but I long to feel stable. I’m numb, and I long to feel full and sustained by the range of human emotions that reminds me that yes, I’m still here. I’m still alive. I still have things to do.

In the summer of 2020, porch sits stabilized and sustained me. Community sustained me. The “oh fuck” collective held me and my grief, fear, and hopelessness. I held theirs. We looked directly at one another’s pain and said “I see it. I’m sorry. I’m here.” Despite our differences and our challenges, we loved each other through crisis and gave one another a perspective beyond despair. This community is so critical, now just as much as then, because it allows me to be tender and raw, but does not permit me to go numb.

On my own and dizzy with despair, I might fall off the edge. But with my community, I can find life-sustaining balance on the edge of fear and love.