My First Submission

I’m happy to say I made my first writing submission in quite a while. It was rejected, but it’s still exhilarating to be back in the game.

I went through the Writer’s Market and picked out a handful of publications that I both wanted to be published in and felt I was qualified to write for (meaning, I have some experience with the subject matter). For example, Ms. Magazine (I’ve been a girl for 54 years, so I think I’m good here. lol), and Modern Cat (I live with 5 cats currently and boy, do I have stories to tell).

My first submission, though, was to Our Wisconsin Magazine. Sometimes, the easiest way to break into a publication is in a magazine’s regular features, because they are sometimes more open to freelance writers. Our Wisconsin has several of these, such as How I Met My Spouse, So Glad We Moved Here, and the one I submitted for, What I Miss About Wisconsin (just to name a few).

Oftentimes, rejection letters are dolled up versions of, “wrong answer, thanks for playing”, but Our Wisconsin explained the situation they currently find themselves in. They only publish 6 issues a year and they currently have thousands of submissions filed for consideration. That’s pretty easy math…it could be decades before my story would see the light of day. That’s not really a bad problem for a publication to have…in laymen’s terms…to have submissions coming out of your ears.

I feel like this is likely a pretty common occurrence for magazine publishers these days. It was rough before, but post-Covid, with so many people preferring to work from home, I have to imagine freelance submissions are at an all-time high for many publications. I don’t have any statistics to back this up; just a hunch. Think about it….we can expect there were many publications who closed their doors. I can rattle off a few publications that I used to write for that are no longer in business. All of them closed pre-Covid, but we watched what happened to restaurants and small businesses all over the world. Surely there were many publications that shut down their printing presses since 2020, leaving writers scrambling for work elsewhere. Freelance competition that was already fierce 20-30 years ago may easily have turned cutthroat as more writers are vying for the same spots in fewer publications.

Hence, a file with thousands of prior submissions already waiting to find their way to the glossy pages delivered to subscriber mailboxes every other month.

It’s a bummer, but I get it. And I’m nothing if not resilient, so I’ll keep on, keeping on.

Discouraged, but not beaten

In my quest to get back into magazine writing, I went looking for my freelance bible. It was the book I turned to for all the inside information about what magazines were looking for and what their submission rules were. They updated the book every year and for many years, I purchased the new one religiously.

And then I decided to write a book. We all know how that went.

With the book now on a back burner, I went looking for my trusty, telephone book sized Writer’s Market. The original publisher sold it to someone else. The someone else created a Writer’s Market 100th Edition. Very cool, I thought, until I discovered it was published in 2021. Any of you who have been writing for magazines for any length of time know that the research for that edition was likely done in 2020. Remember? When the whole world crashed around us. It’s possible some of these publications no longer exist. And if they do, who knows if the information they provided for the 100th edition is still valid.

I started checking publication websites, figuring the information in the Writer’s Market was not necessarily the most up-to-date. I mean….it’s four years ago since the information was compiled and three years ago since the book came out. Surely in an industry as volatile as publishing can be, much has changed.

Most of the magazines I have checked don’t seem to have writer’s guidelines on their websites. I have to imagine that many of these publications either have a stable of specific freelance writers they work with or they are relying on in-house staff more than they were back when I started freelancing.

Either way, it’s a bummer.

I haven’t given up yet, though. I’ll keep looking and hopefully, I’ll find a way back in.

Dear Young Me

The Dear Young Me exercise I mentioned in my previous post.

This photo was taken right before I started wearing glasses.  For a child who was already self-conscious, I was horrified by the idea of having to wear glasses for the rest of my life.  As a 10-year-old, that seems like such a terribly long time and quite a cross to bear. It affected everything I did…I played basketball and softball then, but the glasses made all of that more challenging. I don’t know if that’s the entire reason I stopped playing sports, but it surely played into the decision, however unconsciously. How could I (swim, ride a horse, wear makeup, etc.) with glasses?

I spent a lot of time trying so very hard to fit in. I was afraid to be myself. Afraid of being judged and found to be less than. I have always placed the blame for that firmly on my father’s family and their treatment of me as a child. So many memories of tears and shame at their hands. My mom’s family spent all their time working to undo the damage, but it’s much easier to believe the bad in yourself. If only I could have learned by example to walk away from the haters instead of letting them get under my skin. It took me many years to let all of that go. I made many choices in my life based on bad information and observation from these early years. I lost sight of my dreams, my self-worth, and my confidence.

Please know how strong and special you are. Know that other people’s problems are just that ~ their problems. People who judge and treat you (as people in your life did then) are themselves damaged in some way. They lash out to make themselves feel better. Enjoy your youth. Find ways to do the things that inspire you. Surround yourself with people who “get you”, who champion you, and who want the best for you.  Even at this age, you knew who those people were (and those who were not). Focus on the good. Let go of the bad. See people for who they are and let go of what doesn’t work for you. Even if they are family.  You will build a chosen family and they will have your back always. The right people will be drawn to you and love you for you. Always remember that.

Butt Kick Update

Well, the butt kick hasn’t completely worked the way I had hoped, but I did actually write something and submit it to a magazine. Honestly, that’s more than I’ve done in quite a long time, so I’m taking that as a win.

My goal today is to keep my butt in my chair and write for fun. Well…if I’m being honest…I hope something publishable will come out of it, but I think part of my butt kick needs to include just writing because I enjoy the process. Sometimes, I have to remind myself to write just because I like to tell stories. I hope to make other people feel like someone else “gets them” because someone else has the same struggles. Maybe make them laugh a bit at my trials and tribulations so they can have an easier time laughing a bit at their own.

Yesterday, my husband and I went to the Pet Expo that was held at the State Fair Park located in Milwaukee (about a 40 minute drive from our house). While he drives, I watch life happen around me outside the car. The young woman carrying a load of laundry into the laundromat. The guy in the apartment above the business next door spraying what I assume is water on plants. Even when I don’t see the people, I wonder what life is like behind closed doors when the houses are so close together you could lean out the window and share a cup of sugar with your neighbor. Inside the Pet Expo, I wonder about the woman who breeds Maine Coon cats. Or the girl with the pink hair encouraging kids to pet the snake in her arms. All these experiences that aren’t my own fill me with curiosity and stories being percolating in my brain.

Then, I get home to MY experience, and I investigate the low growl I know is the beginning of a cat fight somewhere in the house. I do the dishes, some quick decorating for Valentine’s Day, and I take out the cat toys we bought and give the fur babies some exercise. We make dinner and before I know it, we are settled in front of the TV for the evening. Where is the writing in that scenario? Exactly. There wasn’t any.

So, today, I’m writing. The cats have had a little catnip in the hopes they will be buzzed and sleepy. My husband is off to a slot car show and I’m hoping for enough quiet to get some words down on paper. 

I found an interesting exercise in a magazine several months ago. I ripped the page out, so I’m not certain which magazine it came from, but maybe from People? They had various celebs look at a picture of their younger selves and then write a letter to themselves at that age. What would you want to tell your younger self if you could? What things did you maybe struggle with or worry about at that age? Or maybe you were so young, you didn’t have worries at all, but you internalized the worries of those around you? We are products of our environment, after all. How did that help you or hinder you and what would you love to have done differently if you had the chance? So many different ways you can look at this exercise, that I think you just look at the photo and free write. Once it all spills out on the page, what do you have? Any surprises? How can adult you and young you come together and appreciate the path you have taken? What took you too long to learn? It doesn’t have to be very long. The ones in the magazine were only a couple of paragraphs each.

I’m going to spend some time writing to my younger self today. I’ll share it, and the photo, once I’m done. Maybe it might inspire you to take a few moments to do the same.

Word Press Stats = Kick in the butt (hopefully?)

I just saw the stats word press sends all of us about the performance of our blogs during the past year. I don’t think I’ve seen it before….could be something new? But truly, I don’t need to see it again. Let’s just say, mine were not impressive…not at all. 

Maybe if I had posted more than four times last year, they would have been better. 

I’d like to say 2023 was a really busy year, but saying that would be lying to myself. Sure, we had a couple of weddings and some medical procedures in the family…I spent half the summer suffering from allergies probably caused by the Canadian wildfire smoke that seemed to be forever billowing into Wisconsin…(pic is hubby and me at one of the weddings).

I took a girls’ trip with my BFF (that’s us with a goat who was beyond fascinated by my purse)…

We put down our beloved girl cat, Emma, due to cancer…

We rescued a new girl kitten we’ve named Chloe, who had been hanging around the local gas station…She goes in to be spayed on Wednesday….She doesn’t know that yet. haha.

And two of the boy cats in our house have decided they aren’t each other’s biggest fans. They didn’t always have this problem and we have no idea what changed. But we’ve spent a fair amount of time mediating disagreements and trying to solve the problem. The vet’s latest diagnosis about the older cat (who is 10) is that maybe he’s just going to be a grumpy, old man. 

How delightful.

I’m in my 50s and I can say menopause has not been nice to me. I’m tired, short-tempered, and unmotivated. The F-bomb, which has always been a favorite of mine, now tumbles out of my mouth with a shocking amount of frequency…usually in the form of, “For …. sake.” Used daily. Most often while driving, but sometimes directed at the felines who live in my house or people in the grocery store who have their cart crossways blocking the aisle.

Did I mention I’m short-tempered?

But really, none of this is out of the ordinary. Everyone has challenges and family obligations. And other writers still seem to get work done.

So after thinking it over, I’m refocusing my energy and I’m going back to magazine article writing for a while. Taking on the task of writing a novel has always been a little unnerving for me. But then (Type A that I am) I decide to jump straight into the deep end of the pool and write one that is not only historical in nature, but the main character lived through an institution I can’t even begin to pretend I understand the horrors of, no matter how much research I’ve done.

I’m going back to the first rule of writing….write what you know. I know people may disagree with that. I, myself, didn’t always agree with it. Watching other authors really throw themselves into research to learn what they don’t know is inspiring…and honestly, a little intimidating. The perfectionist in me feels like I need to hit the ground running at their same level. I have a hard time giving myself the freedom to begin at the beginning and let my work grow. I may have paralyzed myself with fear by biting off more than I could chew with the novel, so taking a step back will, hopefully, get me back in the game.

I still feel like I need to share Mamie’s story, so I may post it here over the coming year. I feel like I was led to her story for a reason. Surely it wasn’t just so it can sit on my computer hard drive, never seeing the light of day. I may retool it for a women’s history month article somewhere along the line. Maybe I’ll revisit it as a novel. We’ll see where 2024 takes me.

Hopefully it takes me to more than just four blog posts.  

Whew! I can see again!

Cataract surgery.

I know some of you can commiserate with me when I say it’s not a fun time. Well, to be fair, the blurry vision I was enduring before the cataract surgery was less fun, but I’ve always been nervous about anyone getting too close to my eyes with any kind of sharp object.

When LASIK became a thing years ago, I was first in line for a consultation. I hated wearing glasses and had been wearing them since I was in the 5th grade. Glasses were a fate worse then hell for a kid who played basketball and softball. How inconvenient! Plus, no boys liked girls with glasses. My life was over before it began.

Of course that was all just the demons inside a 10-year-old’s head who wanted nothing more than to be like everyone else.

So, some 15 years later, when I saw the ad in the newspaper for a free seminar about LASIK that included a screening to see if I was eligible for the procedure, I registered without thinking twice about it.

I watched the video about the procedure and had the gall to be horrified. I don’t know how I thought the procedure would be performed…I suppose I didn’t give it any thought at all, preferring to skip ahead to how amazing it would be to never wear glasses again.

It was there, sitting in that room, that I realized I never wanted anyone touching my eyeballs. It seemed so delicate…like the smallest thing….maybe a slight breeze…might leave me blinded for life. Irrational, maybe, but there it was. I wanted nothing more than to have LASIK done, but I also knew it was the last thing on my body I would allow anyone to mess with. I loved cheap sunglasses from the mall, not having to worry about glasses at the pool, and waking up in the morning clearly able to see the cat across the room who was messing with the window blinds. But the hell if anyone was cutting open my eye.

Of course, then there was the cost of the procedure. Back then, it was a lot!

Fast forward to 2021. I’m 52 and my vision is getting so blurry that I’m feeling a little apprehensive when I drive…especially at night.

I see the eye doctor and he refers me to a retinal specialist…just to be sure I don’t have a bigger problem. With the blessing of the retinal specialist, I head to the cataract surgeon.

The irony of having come full circle on my fear of someone touching my eyeballs with a sharp object is not lost on me as I sit in the doctor’s office while they explain the procedure to me and then talk to me about how much it’s going to cost.

I could have bought a pretty flashy car instead.

Along with a driver so it didn’t matter if I couldn’t read street signs.

When the doctor asks what condition I would like to correct, I cocked my head and frowned.

“Fix what now?”

Turns out, I had options: near vision, distance vision, or both. Each came at a different price point, but visions of Target sunglasses started dancing in my head. I was still intimidated by the idea of someone cutting into my eye, but if I had to do it, I was going all in.

“Fix them both. I don’t want to see a pair of prescription glasses ever again.”

And so we did.

I don’t remember them ever telling me this, but at my 7 day post-op follow up, they mentioned I may at some point in the future, develop a cloudy “membrane” on the lenses. It happens to about 50% of patients….some of them right away, some of them not for years. They have no idea why this happens, but they go back with the lasers and kill/cut/do something with the membranes and it never returns.

I left that day, hoping I was in the 50% who never had it happen.

Well, you know Lady Luck isn’t going to let me off that easily, right?

By the time of my one-year follow up exam, I’m using reading glasses at the computer and I can only read books in bright daylight.

“Yep, you’ve got the membrane growing over the lens. Let’s get you scheduled to have it removed.”

Delightful.

But as a writer (and a book lover) it’s been frustrating having so much trouble reading in the months leading up to this appointment and, truth be told, I guess I’m glad it happened sooner rather than later (if it had to happen at all).

Yesterday, the doctor used the laser to remove the membranes. I still have a lot of floaters, which he said should settle down in a couple of days. I think he actually said something like, “my eye will learn to adjust my vision so I don’t notice them.” I haven’t tried to read yet…yesterday was all about the pupil dilation. 4-6 hours, they say, and your eyes will be back to normal. That’s cute. My eyes are more like, just go back to bed and we’ll see you in the morning.

I’ll let you know how reading goes in the next couple of days, but I didn’t need the reading glasses at work today, so I’m taking that as a win!

Tricking Myself Into Journaling

On and off almost since I learned how to write my name as a child, I’ve been trying to journal. Surely, in grade school there wasn’t much to journal about, but wouldn’t it have been interesting in my 20s and 30s to go back and see how I was feeling at different points in my childhood?

And now, wouldn’t it be great to be able to go back to old journals from my 20s and 30s as I lived through some…let’s say interesting…dating escapades?

One reason I stopped journaling as an adult has to do with one of the aforementioned dating escapades, when someone I was seeing (who I thought I could trust) went digging through a dresser drawer, found my journal and read every last word. Things I was barely able to admit to myself were now being tossed into my face. Obviously not the trustworthy partner I had hoped this guy would be.

I didn’t write another word in a journal for years.

But now, I wish I had begun again. There are so many things that I could use now in my writing pursuits…probably many things I’ve forgotten about, but so many strong feelings and opportunities for growth. But the feelings are all washed out now…blended with the watercolors of time into a few colorful lines on my journey. Maybe a photo or two in an old album.

So once again, I am trying to put pen to paper on a regular basis to record my feelings, my ideas, and my plans for myself. I’ve bought myself cute notebooks full of blank pages just waiting to be filled with ink. I’ve changed it up by bringing home notebooks with writing prompts and ideas to get the words flowing.

Each of them has a few words written on the first couple of pages and that’s it. One of them I use primarily for genealogy research because it’s small and fits easily into my purse. Which is fine, but not really the intention when I purchased it.

There have been many more over the years. Equally blank.

I know what you might be thinking…don’t all writers have a stationary store sized collection of journals and pens and other tools of the trade? Probably. Are most of them blank like mine are? I hope not.

I keep buying them either because they are adorably covered in pink flamingos or they have interesting prompts, thinking this time, I’m going to stick with it.

My latest attempt at tricking myself into journal writing is with Silk & Sonder Journals. I’m deep into a wellness kick. How do I make myself better and happier so I can enjoy the second half of my life more fully? I love the premises with Silk & Sonder: Wake up to a life you are inspired to live. It sounds blissful. They market the journals as “Journaling Made Easy”. Whew, I surely need that. The program covers a different theme each month (with a different journal each month that is shipped to you about a week or so before the new month begins).

I have found the journals to be overwhelming. There’s a lot of information in these little journals, and not a huge amount of space to really do any writing. You have spaces for reflections of the previous month, intentions for the new month, trackers, gratitude log, meal planning, and columns for each day, all broken out by weeks. It’s a lot. They have YouTube sessions you can attend to participate live with the rest of the community and get guidance from different members of the Silk & Sonder team, but, for example, I don’t necessarily want to track my meals for the week. During the YouTube sessions, you get a chance to see what other members have done with that particular space and how they’ve changed it to meet their own needs, buy my needs are to not have that pre-determined space there at all.

Don’t get me wrong, they are beautiful journals and the sample journal pages I’ve seen in the YouTube sessions are lovely. People are doing beautiful journaling in those pages, but it’s just not for me. Part of the problem for me is my all or nothing attitude. If I miss a day I’m like, “well, I screwed that up this day/week/month/year.” I know one of the things Silk & Sonder is trying to promote is giving yourself a break. The goal is to overcome that feeling and allow yourself to do what you can, as you can. That’s a tough order for someone who has always had high expectations for herself.

And having a journaling soul damaged by the betrayal of another. Is that blocking me from journaling, simply to protect myself? Keep my thoughts private, as they should be? No one is going to dig through a dresser drawer and stumble upon a notebook filled with my private thoughts if those thoughts stay safely inside my head.

How can I be a successful writer if I can’t get myself to put words on paper? Not just any words, but words that come from some place deeper?

But I’m trying. I’m working on it. Maybe I just need a new notebook…

Contemplating New Writing Goals

The original focus of this blog was the writing of my first novel. My goal was to help keep me focused on the end goal of getting my story written and into the world. It was to be historical fiction and my protagonist was a Black woman in the south who was married to a White man shortly after the end of the Civil War. I was finishing up the first draft just about the time all hell broke loose in the world. COVID scared us all into the safety of our homes and the death of George Floyd proved that, as a society, we still have work to do.

As a woman, certainly I’ve dealt with discrimination before, but watching the protests across the country, listening to author presentations of their writings, and reading the local newspapers, I learned about systemic racism and it was eye opening ~ to the point where I began to feel like I had no business trying to tell the story I wanted to tell. I did more research and the more information I gathered, the more convinced I was that I couldn’t tell this story and do it justice. At least not in the way I originally intended.

I likely shared this in an early post on this blog, but as a refresher, a genealogy loving friend of mine in South Carolina discovered a grave in a local cemetery belonging to my protagonist. Margaret was buried with her children, but there was no husband. This piqued my friend’s curiosity so he went searching for the missing man. Imagine our surprise to find out he was buried in another cemetery with no headstone marking his location. Margaret’s final resting place was within the grounds of a local historically Black church’s cemetery. Upon further investigation, my friend discovered that her husband was buried elsewhere because he was White. The lack of headstone may well have been punishment. Or for his own protection from others who disagreed with his life choices. Or perhaps the headstone was simply destroyed over the years by weather (or by vandals). It could be any of the above.

Margaret’s first child was born in 1874. Just a few short years after the end of the Civil War. I was overcome with curiosity about what her life must have been like. Surely, she was a badass, marrying a White man while most of the South was working overtime to come up with new “rules” to keep the races apart. I respected her strength as well as the obvious depth of her love for this man. Why else would you put yourself in such a position? Surely she knew what to expect and yet, she went ahead with it anyway. They went on to have 4-5 kids, so she was in it for the long haul.

If all of that wasn’t challenging enough, Margaret’s husband then died, leaving her a widow while the children were still quite young. Now she must navigate this life by herself.

After 2020 exploded on us, I realized there was really no way I would ever feel comfortable telling this amazing woman’s story. I was ignorant to the world Black families inhabited. I never worried my brother would go out to see a friend and never return. I never thought about being pulled over for reasons other than my very real distracted driving. I had no idea. And the more I learned what I didn’t know, the less confident I felt about writing a fictional account of Margaret’s life. The last thing I wanted to do was mess something up because I didn’t realize it was out there. I didn’t want to disrespect her or her descendants with a misguided attempt to honor her.

So, all of that is just to say that I’m scrapping the idea of a fictional imagination of Margaret’s life. Instead, I’m going to focus on the actual facts as we’ve been able to document them and my reflections of her life. That feels more authentic to me and something she and I can both be proud of. I’m thinking, perhaps, it could be something for women’s history month…maybe something for Juneteenth. I’ll need to write it first and see where it takes me, but I’m feeling a whole lot better about it already.

Where Have I Been?

I can’t believe I’ve been away from my blog for this long. My last post was back in 2020! It’s sometimes unbelievable how quickly time passes.

A lot has happened.

We adopted two kittens and had to put one of the older cats down (cancer in his spine). If you’re keeping track, that puts us back at five. One of the new adoptees had a terrible case of ringworm and we spent the better part of four months hauling him back and forth to the vet for lime dips, giving him baths at home (because of the smell of the dips) and living with him sequestered away from the others so no one else got sick. We were successful (though my husband and I both caught it) but it was tough going for a while.

During all of that, I had knee surgery to help ease the pain I’d been having. I’m too young for knee replacement, as it turns out, but not too young for cataracts (naturally), and I had to have cataract surgery on both eyes. Did I mention the root canal? I mean, you turn 50 and literally, all hell breaks loose.

My husband and I made the difficult decision to move back to Wisconsin from our beloved South Carolina. Our mothers were both older and I really began to feel like I needed to be closer. I worried about my mom and that opened the door to other feelings, like how much I missed my friends and the rest of my family. My husband’s mom has since passed away, which was heartbreaking.

By the fall of 2021, we were busy preparing the house for sale and on December 3, we packed up two ridiculously large moving trucks and with the help of my brother and my best friend, we hit the road with the very upset five cats. They were especially angry when it got cold (right about Indiana). Except for the oldest of the bunch, these are all “southern” cats that we adopted in South Carolina. They have never known cold and snow like they were about to bear witness to.

How are they adjusting? Let’s just say, they have all become lap cats. We should have moved them back years ago. HAHA.

I was able to turn my job from in-person in the office, into working remote in the frozen tundra. Most of the time it’s great, but we live about 30 minutes north of Milwaukee where the majority of our neighbors are of the four-legged bovine variety. The problem is that my internet connection goes out if the wind blows too hard. Which, after living in the land of hurricanes for the past decade, the wind blowing “hard” in the Midwest just feels silly (no disrespect to tornados).

I discovered something new that I loved though, out here in farm country. There’s a goat farm not far from our house. Who knew I loved baby goats?? Not me…not until I started seeing the babies hopping around their enclosure. They are near enough to the roadway that I gawk at them each and every time I drive by. As it turns out, there is nothing on the planet cuter than a baby goat. Take a goat yoga class and tell me otherwise. Go ahead…I dare you. You won’t be able to deny it. They are seriously adorable. They make me smile every day.

It took us the better part of 2022 to get settled and back to the business of living our lives. Moving is such a huge transition and neither of us are getting any younger. My husband’s job search was impeded a little by our location. I mentioned we were out in the boonies, right? There’s nothing quite like living in the city to have your pick of jobs, but we didn’t want to live in the city anymore. We wanted quiet. Well, we found quiet, but it has required a few sacrifices. (Squirrely internet, anyone?)

But we are all settled in and getting back involved in activities with friends and family that we were enjoying before we moved away. It’s strange how the last 10 years almost feel like they never happened. They have turned into vacation memories now. Or a beautiful dream. It’s very surreal and more than a little sad.

But never say never. We may well find our way back to South Carolina once we retire and our work here (as they say) is done.

In the meantime, it’s time for me to get back to all of the things that bring me joy. Of course, the aforementioned family and friends, but also my writing, genealogy, reading and scrapbooking. I’ve rejoined genealogy and writing groups. We have three family weddings this year (the first of which is this Saturday). I would likely have missed two of the three, if we were still in the south ~ it’s NOT cheap to fly back and forth, let me tell you. I’m grateful to be able to be a part of it all. My brother has had a scary surgery and my mom has had two different procedures done…Surely I would have been flying up for at least one of her surgeries but now I don’t have to. At only a one hour drive (instead of a 16 hour drive) I can be to her house whenever she needs me and the reality of this has removed a fair amount of the stress I was under when I was 1,000 miles away.

Do I miss the palm trees and sunshine? Absolutely. It’s in the 30s here right now and we have a winter storm coming overnight tonight. But it’s not like I’ve never dealt with winter before. I was raised here. I’ll adjust.

Though my plans to become a snow bird are slowly beginning to take some shape…

Black Lives Matter

I’ve been mostly staying out of the conversation about everything going on in our country following the murder of George Floyd.  As a writer, I’ve been watching and soaking everything in, trying to collect myself and cut through all the social media noise. I didn’t want to speak out of turn.

I’ve watched many in the white community talk about what the black community needs and I often wonder how many of them have actually talked to their black neighbor or co-worker ~ or if they are just white people who think that, again (or still?), they know best. I don’t mean to criticize…I absolutely encourage people to get involved in whatever way they feel comfortable. Black out your profile on Facebook, join a protest, do what you can, but be careful to not put your words in anyone else’s mouth. Instead, let’s spend some time listening and really hearing each other.

I’ve also watched hate build.  As you all know, situations like this mean you often learn things about people you are close to that may surprise you. I’ve been caught off guard by many things I’ve seen on social media lately, but when some of the noise is coming from people you know and love, it can leave a whole other level of hurt and confusion in its wake.

Maybe it’s a lack of self-esteem, but for a long time, I’ve operated under the mindset that “no one will care what I have to say”. Not just about the current state of racial injustice, but about many things in our world today. I have feelings of inadequacy…I’m just a no-name person who couldn’t possibly have anything helpful to say about race, politics, or whatever else is going on in our country at any given time. I don’t necessarily feel like there is anything I can add to the conversation that is going to make a difference. I’m a woman, placing me into another group of Americans who have been discriminated against over the centuries, but I’m a white woman, so there’s still a voice in my head asking me what the hell I think I know about truly experiencing inequality.

I’m going to tell you right now, that I don’t have the answer and I won’t pretend to. I wish I could just snap my fingers and fix our world, but I know it’s not that easy. What I am going to share, is my personal experience. I suspect it might be similar to many people’s experiences and, truthfully, the conversations need to start somewhere. So, here goes…

I’m 51 years old. If you’re doing the math, you’ll know I grew up in the 70s & 80s. Cell phones had just been invented in the early 70s, but there were no smart phones that took photos and video and certainly none of us kids had one. Heck, very few parents had them. The internet didn’t come along until the early 80s and it was certainly nowhere near the information highway it is today. There was no social media ~ a kid could go out and do something stupid and it wouldn’t live on in infamy for the rest of your natural life. The bullies at school had to tease you face to face.

You get the idea.

I grew up in a very white suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I remember having a couple of Hispanic friends in school, but I didn’t meet anyone from any other racial groups until I was well into my 20s. I grew up in a bubble and generally knew little about what went on outside of my little world ~ a world where we were taught to “never talk about politics or religion in polite company.” Which, as I look back now, the unspoken addition to that statement could have been race and civil rights. Really, it included any topic that was likely to elicit strong opinions.

And maybe that’s the problem…how can we have conversations about sensitive issues when we were never taught how to do that? We’ve all watched our country’s political parties’ constant fighting and bickering, unable to find a way to communicate and meet in the middle on literally anything. Maybe it’s because we were never exposed to anyone else’s viewpoints because…you know… “don’t talk about politics”.  Wouldn’t it have been easier to explore other people’s viewpoints when they belonged to your close friends and family? If we had a disagreement with a friend, wouldn’t we try to understand where they were coming from and find a way to understand and compromise? I know this is a VERY over-simplistic idea, but maybe it’s part of the reason our country is struggling so much right now. Some of us don’t know how to accept anyone else’s opinion if it doesn’t match our own.

Anyway…to say I was ignorant of the world at large would have been an understatement. My view of the world, which I think is fairly common when you are young (at least back then), was innocently centered around myself. So many big things happened in Milwaukee during my youth…Jeffrey Dahmer comes immediately to mind. But the “big city” was so far away that it could have been in another country. Certainly I knew of Dahmer, but it wasn’t until I read a book about him decades later that I really stepped into the larger circle of what was going on in the city at that time. It was eye opening because I had no idea.

As I met and made friends with black men and women, I learned more about what life was like for them in Milwaukee. Even though I was learning, I still didn’t really “get it” until I moved away.

My husband and I were eager to escape the long, cold, Wisconsin winters. We landed in Charleston, South Carolina. I had been told by a friend who traveled frequently that Milwaukee was one of the most segregated cities in the country. I was dumbfounded at the time. It might have been God’s doing that found me relocating to, arguably, the very epicenter of the slave trade and racial oppression. Perhaps He thought an education might be in order.

And boy, have I learned some things. Although certainly, there is much more to learn.

Even before the murder of the nine worshipers at Mother Emanuel AME Church on June 17, 2015, I became a student of Southern history. As a writer, I’m a huge reader, and I’ve been devouring books about Charleston’s history in an effort to learn about the unimaginable. The whole of this beautiful city was built on the backs of slave labor. The wealth of the city realized at the cost of thousands of deaths of the Africans they held in bondage. Often, as I read or visit historical sites around the city, I’m horrified by what happened here. And then, something like the tragedy at Mother Emanuel happens, and I am amazed to see how my adopted community came together, black and white, to speak out against the hatred that brought murder to the church that night in June. Tears came to my eyes as I listened to the families of the victims offer forgiveness. I don’t know if I would have been able to do the same in their position.

I walk through my neighborhood, and I see that Milwaukee’s segregated way of life is not the way all communities live. I don’t know about all neighborhoods in the South of course, but, the community I live in is home to all racial groups and it does my heart good. Certainly there’s hope for Milwaukee, Atlanta, Los Angeles and all the other cities in our country that are hurting. Surely, if Charleston can find peace and love, these other cities can too.

And then the video of George Floyd appeared on social media. Listening to him beg for his life is one of the most heart breaking things many of us have ever heard (certainly for this naive little Midwestern girl). Even Charleston lost a little of their collective composure (understandably so) the week after George’s murder. It’s quite clear to me (and anyone else paying attention) that there is still much work to be done.

Over all the years and everything I’ve learned, I wasn’t prepared for how this would make me feel. I saw a post on Facebook that I’ve been told was released by the Minneapolis Police Department whose officers were involved in George’s death (I have not fact checked the origin of the post, so this may not be true). The post apparently listed all of George’s run-in’s with the law. Almost like they were trying to justify what happened. No matter what he may or may not have done, he did not deserve to die. I was sick to my stomach. Since then, I’ve seen worse being posted and it so horrified me that I refuse to share it here and I’ve stepped away from social media for a while.

I’ve had wonderful black men and women in my life over the years and met many more. It tears me apart every time something like this happens and I imagine any of them having to live their lives with the very real fear that they or someone they love will be mistreated or killed. In fact, one of my friends in Milwaukee had that very thing happen, losing a family member to a police issued firearm.

I support the police. I support good police. I know there are many more good officers out there than bad ones. I’m grateful for their dedication to our communities, as they put their lives on the line to protect us each and every day. Sadly, however, the bad apples have made the largest impact lately and are getting the most air time. And just like that, all the slates of all the officers across the country who are doing great things in their communities are wiped clean.  Suddenly, all of the positive work officers have been doing goes up in smoke and they must begin again to rebuild trust.  Certainly, there is work to be done to prevent the bad officers from hitting the streets, but we need to also acknowledge and encourage all the officers out there doing right by the communities they serve. It doesn’t have to be an either or choice. You can support good police and also support racial equality. There has to be a way forward ~ together.

I’ve been encouraged by reports of community leaders who are beginning to have these conversations. Hopefully, George Floyd’s death won’t have been in vain and we can take real steps to prevent another family from having to bury a loved one under similar circumstances. People are angry right now. I get that. But I’ve got to believe we can come together peacefully and make change happen.

One nation, under God. Loving our neighbors as ourselves.

And listening.