Unwinding

Everything is lined up.  The temperature at the moment sits at 62 degrees fahrenheit, and it is sure to go up in the southland - triple digits.  The morning air as cool as it is helps to bring coolness inside.  Today is Saturday.

After our meal at a Korean restaurant I have never tried before, my friend talked about all the things that have happened in life since our last in-person contact. The evening was such a special visit to a time and place that is now long gone.  Good food, good setting, good energy between the two of us.  Like so many, the pandemic had its impact on my friend, who had to be isolated for three weeks because of her body's immune system's sensitivity.  Where did it come from?  No one she knew was positive with the virus, she had not moved into big crowded spaces.  Maybe the little thing that wants what we all want – to live - has morphed into ubiquity?

We were unwinding the stories that have been swirling in the community, the world of politics, the experiences we have had over the time since we last saw each other - and it was beautiful to revisit those times.  We reminded each other of things, caught up with our stories of the pandemic and families, and ended up landing on a heavy topic that both of us are engaged with today:  reparations, repairing relations.  This is the kind of conversation you can only have with a trusted friend, a caring individual who sees the complexity in today's living - she is one of those who can enter this space and join in thinking about what needs to happen next.

There are so many events that require our attention and that we should be correcting today - Black Californians are taking the first step, and there are other people seeking to repair, including First Nation people, Korean women brought into sex enslavement during war, Filipinos and Mexican people who are among those who were forced out of homes in L.A., today's Palm Springs, and many other parts of the southland due to restrictive covenants.  Their stories of displacement are just now being revealed and understood in relation to the role that individuals, the old laws, and governments played.  

To unwind all of it can be overwhelming so, the approach for the individual has to remain where it has always been - to be open to first learning, then sharing stories, then noticing where the heart begins to beat deeply, then recognizing the things one has capacity to do, and act.  Even if the act is to engage others to raise the questions and impacts, or to seek another point of view to learn, or to make a gesture of contributing to change in some way.  It is all one big unwinding - life, living, and then departing.  At the end of the time one has, the spiral that started as you, turns into a straight line, releasing all that has been held inside.