QUIET CONVERSATIONS between the sheets or on the streets, direct messages or tree telepathy—we’re trying to say what we mean. We’re trying to say what we feel as if no one’s watching, ready to pounce, ready to cancel.
Whisper chambers, talk tunnels, prayer portals—we’re speaking to each other in code and conducting ourselves with electric conduct, hoping to get the message across to one another.
I love you. I trust you. I am not afraid of you. I will protect you. I will defend you. I will care about what you need from this world. I will see if I can get it. I’ve been thinking about you. I wonder how you are. I care about you. I care about your family. How have you been lately? No, but really?
If we judged the state of things based on what we read or saw on social media, we’d have no choice but to conclude that the world is indeed too much with us, with all this getting and spending, laying waste all our powers! From the looks of it, we’re battling each other with swords of ultimatums, granting crowns of conversion and ribbons of righteousness to the winners.
But then it’s the Fourth of July, the most wobbly holiday on the calendar, and not one I’m super jazzed to celebrate—especially not these days. Still, my older sister just loves the thrill of fireworks. So we drive to the local park, the one behind the elementary school, and the whole place is alive with the silhouettes of families playing on the jungle gyms and talking in the grass.
Buckets full of babies, kids chasing each other in circles, shrieking, young moms lounging on picnic blankets, young dads throwing their toddlers up high in the sky, catching them with a giggle midair.
Yes, there’s all the insanity and violence of this country bound up in these celebrations. There’s also just the fact of families enjoying the first blast of cool air and fog after a long stretch of oppressive heat.
And so we say our hellos and coo at the babies and look up at the boom-blast of fireworks that never quite make their debut, their view obscured by trees and clouds that cover their glow.
And so we walk back to the car and startle at the neighbors who insist on trying again: one more blast in the driveway, one more rocket launched toward the out-there darkness all around us.
It’s late when we get home.
Black cherry stains on my fingertips. Fresh corn on the cob still sits on the stove, covered in salted butter. Half a loaf of challah still on the counter from my recent ritual of bread-making for the Sabbath.
I choose to believe there’s still space and time to be ourselves—however misunderstood and confused we all are by the current state of our nation—and there’s still time to make more of it, space and time, to be ourselves.
Later that night, I can’t sleep.
I scroll past the photograph of white nationalists marching through the capital: a young Black woman alone in a sea of white men who have nothing but mangled hate in their hearts for anyone who doesn’t look like them. It’s disgusting, and I have nothing beautiful to say about it—no words of reconciliation or diplomacy. It’s despicable that it’s come to this, that it’s always been like this.
I finally fall asleep to the sound of neighbors laughing across the street, families walking home from the park, honking their horns, letting the air cool us down.
My niece reminded us at the park how words don’t necessarily match their meanings. Look for context clues, she was taught in school. Look for congruence. Look for coherence. Look for clarity. Look for comprehension.
We may not find it these days—only dissonance in our midst—but we listen for laughter—listen for learning—listen for love.
Whisper chambers, talk tunnels, prayer portals—we’re speaking to each other in code and conducting ourselves with electric conduct, hoping to get the message across to one another.
I love you. I trust you. I am not afraid of you. I will protect you. I will defend you. I will care about what you need from this world. I will see if I can get it. I’ve been thinking about you. I wonder how you are. I care about you. I care about your family. How have you been lately? No, but really?
If we judged the state of things based on what we read or saw on social media, we’d have no choice but to conclude that the world is indeed too much with us, with all this getting and spending, laying waste all our powers! From the looks of it, we’re battling each other with swords of ultimatums, granting crowns of conversion and ribbons of righteousness to the winners.
But then it’s the Fourth of July, the most wobbly holiday on the calendar, and not one I’m super jazzed to celebrate—especially not these days. Still, my older sister just loves the thrill of fireworks. So we drive to the local park, the one behind the elementary school, and the whole place is alive with the silhouettes of families playing on the jungle gyms and talking in the grass.
Buckets full of babies, kids chasing each other in circles, shrieking, young moms lounging on picnic blankets, young dads throwing their toddlers up high in the sky, catching them with a giggle midair.
Yes, there’s all the insanity and violence of this country bound up in these celebrations. There’s also just the fact of families enjoying the first blast of cool air and fog after a long stretch of oppressive heat.
And so we say our hellos and coo at the babies and look up at the boom-blast of fireworks that never quite make their debut, their view obscured by trees and clouds that cover their glow.
And so we walk back to the car and startle at the neighbors who insist on trying again: one more blast in the driveway, one more rocket launched toward the out-there darkness all around us.
It’s late when we get home.
Black cherry stains on my fingertips. Fresh corn on the cob still sits on the stove, covered in salted butter. Half a loaf of challah still on the counter from my recent ritual of bread-making for the Sabbath.
I choose to believe there’s still space and time to be ourselves—however misunderstood and confused we all are by the current state of our nation—and there’s still time to make more of it, space and time, to be ourselves.
Later that night, I can’t sleep.
I scroll past the photograph of white nationalists marching through the capital: a young Black woman alone in a sea of white men who have nothing but mangled hate in their hearts for anyone who doesn’t look like them. It’s disgusting, and I have nothing beautiful to say about it—no words of reconciliation or diplomacy. It’s despicable that it’s come to this, that it’s always been like this.
I finally fall asleep to the sound of neighbors laughing across the street, families walking home from the park, honking their horns, letting the air cool us down.
My niece reminded us at the park how words don’t necessarily match their meanings. Look for context clues, she was taught in school. Look for congruence. Look for coherence. Look for clarity. Look for comprehension.
We may not find it these days—only dissonance in our midst—but we listen for laughter—listen for learning—listen for love.
