maples at the Washington Park Arboretum
berries of the iris foetidus
Oh, the news. The bad, bad news out of Ferguson. It’s a gloomy day here in the northwest corner of the country; rainy and dark without much chance of clearing either in the skies or in the newspaper.
In this week of Thanksgiving, the differences between the haves and the have nots seems even starker. In our warm and comfortable home we are happy to have our older daughter home from college for the holiday. It’s such a joy to hear her excitement in what she’s studying, to see her embrace the life of the mind. At dinner I watch as she and her sister tease and laugh, sharing puns and the clever inside jokes of a lifetime raised together in a home with easy access to education.
a decaying gunnera leaf
Seattle is a segregated white city, and getting whiter and more segregated all the time. We are generally spared seeing overt images of racism in our day-to-day lives. Or maybe it’s just the blinders we are wearing as we go from task to task in our reliable cars to our well-paying jobs.
I had a rough time growing up. My parents divorced early. We were on welfare, got food stamps. I was ashamed to be on the free lunch program at school. My mother moved us from place to place, always thinking some place else was better than where she was. Her struggles with mental illness still color my experience.
the fruit of the medlar tree
But somehow I escaped those circumstances. Being smart helped. And being white helped, too. I got some higher education, (didn’t graduate but that’s another story), got some therapy, and remade my life. I met and married a wonderful man, had two beautiful, intelligent girls, and live a comfortable middle-class life. Not everyone is so lucky.
My younger daughter is taking American History in high school. Right now they are studying the Constitution, reading it and transcribing it into modern English. Last night, after hearing the news the the grand jury in Missouri had declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the death of MIchael Brown, she came to me as I folded laundry. She said she just couldn’t do her homework, that reading the Constitution was just too depressing. That those beliefs that our country is founded on still don’t apply to people of color. She’s right, of course.
Our lives are a walk in the park.
fallen leaf from a plane tree
Thank for a beautiful post Cameron. I didn’t know the difficulty of your childhood. However, my mother had some kind of mental illness piece going on and it was confusing. We were living a comfortable life as you do now. However, her depression and despair, sharp temper and critical nature had to be somehow integrated with her brilliance, and great love for us, and wonderful friendships. I don’t think I’ve ever fully dealt with that side of my life, and even now I think it would be helpful. Dealing with my daughter and her addictions and serious mental illness that had such a huge impact, was so consuming there was only acknowledgment that my mother probably had a serious depressive component, and it led to her drinking. Guess I “bookended” by mental illness.
All the Best!
Ann