Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Someday I hope to find my Inner Sydney...

Someday I hope everyone will discover their “Inner Sydney”.  In the world we live in with all its fears and uncertainty, its frailties and capriciousness, having an Inner Sydney is a necessity.  

Sydney is my eight year old granddaughter, and she was born with a sensitivity to textures and sensory experiences. As a very young child,  everyday experiences often created a landscape of deep and immediate emotional reactions. 

One would think that being wired this way would create a young woman who would be trapped in fear and anxiety.  But Sydney is one of the bravest people I know.
As I write that, many memories surface of when I witnessed this first hand, but the freshest example is from the first day of third grade this year.

For the first time, Sydney was facing elementary school without her older sister, whom she adored.  When we pulled up, the sidewalk was nearly empty and the school loomed large. 

I felt her momentary hesitation and took her hand.  “Syd, do you want me to go in with you?”  

She stared right into my eyes, totally clear and open.  I saw the beginnings of tears forming.  Then, she took her hand away and smiled a weak smile. 

“Oma, I got this.”  

She closed the door of the van, squared off her shoulders, readjusted her backpack, and headed for the door.  

Alone. 

A night later, she was standing on the field of the local high school stadium preparing to sing “The Star Spangled Banner” acapella before the start of a soccer match.  

“Are you nervous?”  I asked her. 

“Yes,” she replied without hesitation and strode off with her mother towards the field.  She was led off by an official to be in position for the start, and I saw that once she was settled in, she stood there silently holding her mic, waiting.  

Alone. 

When the player introductions finished, her name was announced over the PA system,and the crowd stood.  Standing by herself on the field, she seemed even smaller than her eight years.   I felt her inhale, and then she sang with a confidence way beyond her years.

When she was done, I asked her how she handled her nervousness.  

“I held a stress ball in my hand.”  

That was all.

As a parent, as a wife, as a friend, as a grandma, when others express their fears, I often find myself giving pep talks, or at least what I think are pep talks, to help them “get through”.  But this little girl has learned what many of us never do.  

Strength has to come from the inside.  

Strength from the inside is a strength that sustains.  It is a strength that admits frailties and marches ahead anyway.  It is a strength that gives voice to fear and then walks through it, head held high. 

It is an "Inner Sydney strength" forged in the crucible of fear.

Someday, I hope to develop my own Inner Sydney and stare down the voices of resistance - to acknowledge my fears but not let them own me. 

Someday, I hope you find her too.


Friday, January 26, 2018


A white senior citizen's attempt to understand racism through the lens of sexism.


Not a single person who knows my husband of 30+ years would ever describe him as a misogynist.  Words used to describe him are often "kind, compassionate, respectful, a good listener." Women have told me he is a “safe” person, someone who will honor them as women and hold their souls in quiet, gentle hands.  He is slow to anger, abounding in love, and a man of integrity.
But his journey into the landscape of truly understanding the importance of respecting  women has been a long one.  Yes, he was brought up to respect women by a mother whose own gentle soul made its imprint on his.  But he was also a product of his environment – an athlete who grew up in a locker room culture and a young man who came of age during the 60’s and 70’s when objectifying women became an accepted cultural practice.
When we married, he would say things or talk about experiences with fellow athletes that made my heart cringe.  Each time I would express to him that what he had just shared was inconsistent with the man I knew him to be.  And generally, his response would be, “But that’s just joking around.”  I had to explain to him that joking around at someone else’s expense wasn’t funny.
Over the years we examined issues like the use of sarcasm, which I explained to him this way:  If you stab someone in the heart with your words, saying “Just kidding” afterwards does not stop the bleeding.  But the turning point came, I think, when he told me how some of the men he had been golfing with were flirting with a young waitress at the restaurant on the course.  It had made him uncomfortable, and he was processing the experience.  
To put it into context, I asked him how he would have felt if it had been one of his daughters serving them that day.  How would he have felt about the table of men filling the air with innuendo and seeing her only as an object?  He was horrified, and from that day forward, I believe he changed as he saw through his own eyes and felt through his own heart as a father the damage that could be done to a woman by the actions and words of men who would excuse their behavior as "just joking around"  or "boys being boys".
Here is what he did NOT do.  He did not dismiss my feelings or experiences because they were not his own.  He did not suggest that because women were more present in all places of society, they just needed to be patient .  And he did not accuse women of creating divisiveness because of their desire to draw attention to their struggles.

So it is with understanding white privilege, I think.  For those of us who are white, we do not have the background or experience through which to evaluate the depth of racism in this country.  And we cannot dismiss the concerns of people of color simply because we have not walked in their shoes, just as my husband could no longer dismiss sexism just because he didn’t have the experiences of being female in our culture.  
We will not understand until we listen to the experiences of people from other races and cultures and place our own lives in that experience.  How would I feel if I knew that if my son was lost on a street, he would be viewed with suspicion because he is Black?  How would I feel if it was assumed my parents were illegal farmworkers just because they were Hispanic?  Would I want my daughter viewed with suspicion because her faith required her to wear a hijab?
I think we need to stop being offended when someone uses the terms “racism” or “white privilege”. I think, instead, we need to be open to asking questions.  I think we need to be honestly willing to consider the possibility, just as Tim did, that our own personal experience of our culture does not equate with the truth because our vision is limited.  
But more than anything, we need to stop and examine our own lives in light of the pain being expressed by people whose lifelong experiences of the promises of America are diminished because of the external expressions of race and culture. 




Saturday, January 20, 2018

“Some of us want to be shamed,” the NBC personality said Thursday on “Megyn Kelly Today.” 

Dear Megyn,

I have been following with some interest the reaction to your comment about the benefits of fat-shaming and your subsequent clarification (“It works for some people.”)

I will not be joining the bandwagon to crucify you for this remark, though I must admit as a mother and grandmother, all I could picture were my beautiful daughters and their granddaughters.  One of them is entering adolescence, by the way, and by all accounts, she is one beautiful girl from the inside out. She is a gifted thinker and athlete, but what impresses me most about her is her kindness and compassion towards others and the world.  

Sadly enough, she is already worried that she is “too fat”.  So you can imagine my visceral reaction to your comment.

But now, to be honest, I am just feeling sorry for you.  I feel sorry that your culture sent you the message that your worth was tied to a number on the scale.  I feel sorry that when you made that request of your step-father, he did not pull you over and give you a hug and a heart to heart talk about how important it was to not place your value in your looks.  I feel sorry that you are now the recipient of cruelty on social media, which, as you know, is just another form of shaming.

Megyn, I used to think like you because I am a product of the same culture. I was young and thin and obsessed with “looking good” as defined by my culture.  And I held in disdain those who fell short of the mark I tried so hard to achieve.  Though I never said anything out loud to anyone, I knew the thoughts I harbored in my heart.

But I would like to share with you a pivotal experience I had on a commuter bus in downtown Seattle that forever changed me.  From my vantage point about one half way down the row of seats, I saw a woman who could barely fit down the aisle gently coaxing a young girl of about three in front of her. They took a seat behind me, and while they passed by, my head filled with critical thoughts about her appearance and the effect “her lifestyle choices” would have on her young daughter.


As we approached my stop, I moved to the side-facing seats in the front, and from that vantage point, I had a clear view of this woman.  The young girl who had boarded with her was now fast asleep on her chest.  For some reason my vision shifted.  I saw this young girl enveloped between her mother’s breasts.  I could almost touch the warmth that emanated from the mother’s face as she stroked her daughter’s hair and smiled down on her. 

In that frozen moment, I saw what my critical self had missed in judging this mom by her appearance: she was a harbor of love for that young girl.  She was warmth and safety, and she had a peace and a calm about her that invited affection.  Somehow, I could not imagine that her little girl ever noticed anything about her mom except her capacity to love.  

And now, because of her,  it is that quality I seek to notice and celebrate in others.

Megyn, I want you to always remember this: our size never defines us as women.  And our individual stories can never be reduced to a cultural stereotype.  Let us celebrate our competence and our courageousness and not qualify it through a number.  Let us encourage and support each others’ gifts and not let them by hampered by external expectations.  But more than anything, let us stand together against the real enemy – any words or actions that seek to diminish us in any way because of artificial notions of what it means to be acceptable as a woman. 

We are beautiful,we are worthy of respect,  and we are  enough - no matter what our size.