On events of the world and events in our worlds, making daily change, and losing the game of Sorry
June 12, 2020
Dear Eva,
Last week was one of those periods in my life where my mind was very clearly situated elsewhere from where I am. My letter was damning evidence—not a single word dedicated to a thing we have been mulling in our ongoing epistolary conversation. I am remembering that our letter-writing adventure began similarly, with me writing about the Kavanaugh hearings rather than anything that actually touched my own little world in a direct way. This inclination of mine—to be consumed by events of the world to the detriment of events in my world—feels like it warrants a bit of reflection. In some ways, I see it as a manifestation of my lifelong tendency to be hovering above where I am like a hummingbird. I feel, sometimes, like I have trouble putting my feet firmly on the ground where I am. It is also, quite simply, a form of being distracted. That is easiest to see when you consider how it plays out in parenting. I am reading a book to my 4 year old and the words are coming out of my mouth but they are not going into my ears. My mind is faraway, contemplating civil disobedience, moral commitments, racial justice.
I wonder, though, what the right balance is? Full presence at all times seems to require a certain myopia. Actually, this is squarely related to another aspect of these past couple of weeks in my personal life—the cancellation of a family vacation, and my capacity for empathy. To do it justice, it requires a bit of background. Every year, my parents and my sister and her family make the two-day drive to New England, for a couple of days on Cape Cod and then 7 days on Nantucket Island. It is a tradition that goes back long before I was born, though it hasn’t always been annual. Bill and I join for the trek occasionally, and we had planned to join this year. In light of the global pandemic, we decided it was not in the cards this summer. The final decision to cancel was made last week. There were many tears. None of those tears were mine. This brings me to the issue of empathy.
It has never before occurred to me how empathy is limited by objectivity. That is, isn’t our ability to understand the feelings of another human being constrained by our sense of what is objectively or at least relatively good/bad/otherwise? If it is not clear already, I did not feel sorry for my family or for myself because we had to cancel our family vacation. I just couldn't get past the fact that the sacrifice was about as small as could be when it comes to life during a pandemic. The more I think about it, the more I am fascinated by this—how my accurate sense of perspective limits my capacity for empathy. I have to imagine this makes me a relatively difficult parent to have. And our poor children have two empathy-impaired parents in this regard! (Kids, I want to cry with you about the fact that you lost the game of Sorry, but I literally just cannot.)
Turning back to our correspondence about who/how we are, I wonder if this is a way in which I am not quite as malleable as I might have let on? Speaking of which, I appreciated your reframing of this quality of mine to see it in a more positive light—perceptive, and seeing the good in others. I agree! I think I mostly like other human beings, and I tend to be able to connect with people in a relatively non-superficial way if I have regular contact with them. I think this relates to my openness to people and experiences, which is of course just the flipside to being malleable. I enjoyed your speculation that maybe this soft exterior and hard core is some kind of ice cream treat, though the closest thing I was able to come up with was a gooey caramel apple. Yum! Perhaps the boundaries of my empathy relate back to this hard apple core in my bones? I have certain ideas about who and how to be that feel quite sturdy, including the fact that it is best to always take a gander at the big picture, particularly when we are feeling low. Chances are, we have nothing to complain about. I realize that perspective has the potential to negate any personal feelings any of us ever have, so I must not take it too far, which I am sure I have over the years. It is also possible this is just another way in which I am contradicting myself again. It is funny that you mentioned interrogating me and putting a spotlight on my words. I do not feel that way at all, and in fact, I appreciate someone helping me sort through the webs! I do sometimes instinctually feel a cringe when I learn the ways in which I have been inconsistent, but I know that is silly. We are all full of opposing viewpoints and opposing ways of being, all at once. In fact, this, too, feels like another beauty of the letters. Just as we are recreating an early vision of the internet where like-minded souls created and sustained connections across geographic boundaries, we are also more comprehensively displaying what it means to be human and think deeply. It means contradiction! Any veneer of consistency in a self is something we artificially construct when we edit and refine. Our letters reveal the truth of our messy, paradoxical selves.
You mentioned over text that it has been a bit of a week, so I hope it came to a close without stress and that you can now enjoy some R&R! I am looking forward to a weekend of unusually lovely temperatures and sunshine with nary a single obligation. Summer bliss!
I look forward to reading your words tonight.
Your friend,
Sarah
Friday June 12 2020
Dear Sarah!
It’s Friday, but not just Friday — it’s Friday evening! After 5PM! You texted me and said you hadn’t yet written your letter and I hadn’t written mine either! Now we are in a non-competitive evening battle to see who will finish her letter first!
My brain is quiet and tired this evening but I am pleased to be sitting here to write to you. The sun is streaming in again, a lovely sunny evening, and I’m sifting through the swirls in my mind to see what I can pluck out to share with you here. It’s like we’re in a quiet conversation with each other, or sitting silently in a room together and simply enjoying each other’s company, each swimming in our own thoughts. Sometimes our thoughts are spoken and written, and perhaps sometimes we can be here together in this letter space in a bit of a quiet way. I don’t know that I’ve tried that yet, I find that I’m usually sprawling and adding and mixing in more and more to layer up our conversations week after week.
I find that I’m feeling more fragmented these last few weeks, time sliding past, even as the days are long. This letter may reflect that feeling. The phases of the pandemic, the phases of local, national, and global crisis, feel like they have been many, and we’ve hardly begun. I wonder if we will call this time something else when we look back on it (assuming we make it forward in order to be able to look back) — something other than the pandemic time? Last week you described the thought that we are living through a moment of reckoning — perhaps we will come to know this time as the great reckoning.
I’m full of all kinds of thoughts and emotions this week — still processing, as I said two weeks ago, and I’m not done yet. If anything, I am trying to figure out how to use my slow processing as a kind of boon in this time and moving forward. There are many people, people of color and activists, who’ve been working long and hard to drive forward change, and that work will continue, like the longest marathon or relay race, punctuated by sprints. I’m trying to figure out how best to be a supporter of change over the long term; what does it look like to make daily changes in myself and to influence the people around me to help continue to move change forward?
I just watched the film Coded Bias, which I highly recommend, and which is further filling my head with things I need to read and learn. I’ve also been thinking about publishing, and art book publishing, and publishing as an activist practice.
If I’ve both protected myself and been protected by the things that I cannot change about myself, it feels like it is time for me to figure out how not to live quite so safely.
I feel that it’s almost a bit rude to end my letter so briefly but I’ve written some long ones over the weeks, and I am hoping you’ll forgive me! The old 9PM curfew sirens are sounding in my neighborhood, and I think I need to keep thinking on what I’m thinking on!
Until soon,
Your friend,
Eva