Thoughts While Running #005
processing a world that feels broken
Like so many, I’ve spent the past few days trying to process the absolute tragedy that has occurred - and is still occurring - in Israel. I’ve spent far too much time engrossed in Instagram to the extent that I have had to move the app into a folder on my home screen that is simply titled ‘No.’ This isn’t to ignore what is happening, but rather it is an act of self preservation because when I see videos of survivors recounting their stories it is impossible not to imagine all of the what could have beens had I been born into a different life.
Israel has always held a special place in my heart. I’m not Jewish, nor do I have ancestors who come from the region and this is not meant to be a statement in support of one side and against another. I have visited the country several times when I was designing accessories as we had a factory located in the northern city of Haifa. Religion aside, it was hard to ignore an energy to the land that felt significant. Perhaps it’s simply how ancient it all is…the history, visiting towns and landmarks that are recognizable due to years of growing up in the Christian faith. Whatever the reason it’s undeniable the importance the region carries for so many various religious groups.
Watching the events as they unfolded over the weekend, my heart is heavy. It struggles to comprehend what is happening, as it cannot understand how there could possibly be so much hate in the world. My heart prays to a God it hopes exists to provide some sense of comfort to a world that is in so much pain.
There is this naive belief that has been shattered: that I am raising my son in a world that is inherently good, one that will look out for his well being even if I can’t. Maybe it’s the color of my skin or my citizenship or age that had once awarded me this privileged belief. I’ve felt it being chipped away over these past few years, each new senseless act of violence providing one more crack in the facade that was my optimistic hope that at some point the world would course-correct and everything that feels so hopeless and so unreasonable would be righted and all of this turmoil we are currently living in would be relegated to the history books.
As I watched my son this weekend sing into his bowl of yogurt and squeal with unfiltered delight, I wanted to shelter him. Pull him closer or better yet, put him in a bubble where I know he’ll always be safe and loved and cared for. Protect him at all costs, physically and emotionally.
We had a rough night last night. Dougie woke up crying at 2:45am, uncharacteristic for him as he’s always been a great sleeper and has required very little intervention from mom and dad at night. When I asked him what was wrong, he said he had a bad dream. He wanted to be picked up, held and cuddled in the giant oversized chair we keep in his room. We cuddled there for nearly two hours as every time I tried to put him back in his bed (so we could both get some more sleep) he would frantically cry ‘up! up!’ his voice hoarse from crying.
It was all so out of the norm for him that I can’t help but wonder if somehow he’s absorbed the energy of the world, if I haven’t been careful enough when watching the news or looking at instagram around him…and if my attempts to shelter him are as naive as my desire to do so in the first place. He’s always been a keen observer, studying everything he sees, even as a small infant fresh on this earth. Perhaps somewhere through all his observing he’s picked up on my energy or worry and it’s sitting in the back of his brain, unsettling him as much as it’s unsettled me.
There is no real understanding or comprehension of what’s happening. It is pure hatred that has fueled these attacks and a dehumanizing hatred that is fueling the retaliation. Extremism on both sides of a heavily armed border that refuse to acknowledge and see humanity for what it is: human beings of like body and blood all deserving of a shared right to live a life that is valued. From this hatred is a desire to not just harm but erase entire populations and ethnic groups of people; ethnicities formed simply by birthplace or believing in one god instead of another. Religion and political ideologies wielded like swords, these self righteous beliefs that they make one group better than the other, as if they could ever (they couldn’t ever) condone the atrocities that are currently happening.
As a mother, I am far too aware of the fragility of life and how little control I have over it. To grow a child inside of me, to be so acutely present to how helpless I am, that for 10 months I can do nothing more than take care of myself and trust in nature to do the rest. Once the baby is born, we watch over them and care for them as day by day, month by month, year by year they become more and more independent. The physical umbilical cord replaced by an invisible, emotional one that grows longer and longer with each and every milestone.
As a mother, I am also far too aware of how little I can do to keep my child safe. How much I need to hope, pray and rely on my community to care collectively about keeping him safe as much as I do. I worry that his right to safety might not be valued as high as say, someone’s right to own a gun. While I hope to never experience such a horrendous act of terrorism as the ones happening in Israel, I am sharply aware of the acts of terror currently happening within our nation’s borders. With every mass shooting the risk and probability of his life being impacted and changed by gun violence becomes more probable as long as we have a government who can’t collectively come together to pass legislature that could help keep him safe.
As the war in Israel unfolds and the war in Ukraine continues alongside it, it’s hard to stay present and not get swept up in the fear that all of these small wars could at some point amount to a much larger one, that at some point in my lifetime, or at some point in my son’s lifetime we might experience the devastating effects of another world war. If the pandemic taught us anything, it is that the world is increasingly more and more connected; that no person or country is isolated or unreachable. What happens in Israel, what happens in Ukraine, what happens in (fill in the blank), can also happen in (or to) the US.
This post should probably be retitled ‘thoughts while existing’ as I haven’t been able to go for a run to help process the emotions that have surfaced these past couple of days. Instead they are manifesting as a general sense of unease, of agitation bubbling just below the surface. Hopefully we’ll all get a good night’s sleep tonight so tomorrow I can lace up my running shoes and spend a few miles moving through the emotional toll of it all.
I’ll do that tomorrow, and the next day, and the next so I am able to process these feelings and exist alongside them. Until then I’ll be here holding Dougie as tight as he’ll let me, praying for peace and doing what I can to make sense of all that is happening in the world.
Love to you all,
*k
❤️