Racial healing (part 3)

Wow.

I’m deeply touched by all the loving and supportive comments coming my way and I’m maybe even more moved by the way people are opening up and sharing.

I want to respond to the outpouring of support and sharing. And at the same time I want to crawl into a hole and hide. A part of me is saying: “Okay, that’s enough. Really, I’m fine! No need to belabor the topic.”

I’ve understood for a long time that my approved “role” is the cheerful, optimistic, positive, it’s-all-going-to-be-fine, peacemaker. And I am a naturally upbeat, positive, cheerful person who loves harmony…just not 100% of the time!

The problem is that somehow being down, struggling to cope, feeling depressed…. all got written out of my role. To the point where any degree of “not having it together” feels like I’m failing, and I’ll do a lot to avoid anything confrontational.

So I’m not comfortable right now. I’m continuing to move forward but adding to the discomfort is the fact that I’m having to let some things fall by the wayside in order to stay with this process. When what I’d really love to do is turn on a funny movie and eat a big bowl of popcorn.

For a long time I’ve self-identified as being someone whose main coping mechanism is “denial” (I even used to joke about being Cleopatra, Queen of de Nile…get it?). But now I’m thinking that what looked like “denial” was maybe more of an inability to fit difficult experiences into my construct of reality.

Take that incident in Virginia with the Blue Saints Jazz Band for example (by the way, I should clarify that this took place in 1971 or 72 when I was only fifteen or sixteen years old). I don’t have a clear memory of that experience in my mind and had actually forgotten it altogether until reminded, decades later, by a friend who was there.
So — was I in denial?

It was my first time traveling to the other side of the country, away from the community that knew and respected my parents, that respected me. The community where I went to an integrated school, was on the honor roll, was the featured alto saxophone soloist with the concert band; where my father was president of the school board!

It must have come as a shock to be told I wasn’t welcome. I imagine there would have been no place in my consciousness where such an experience could have made sense, prompting my psyche to tuck it away somewhere deep inside and forget about it.

Effective in the moment but I hate to think about how much energy has been committed to the task of keeping these things tucked away…