Between A Petal and A Soft Space

Making room for empathy

My best friend lives in Maine, and even though she is 80 miles from Lewiston, news of the shootings and the at-large shooter this week made me nervous. And filled me with other assorted emotions, like a Pu-Pu Platter of anxieties waiting to be devoured with duck sauce so that I might feel a little sick to my stomach.

My sister ran the 2013 Boston Marathon. We were following her progress on a race app on our phones. The app updated at intervals — but with a slight lag time. When the bombs exploded, the app stopped updating. We knew my sister had been close to the finish line.

It was almost two hours before we heard — via her running group’s FaceBook page — that she was okay, that in fact she’d been in the first group of runners who were stopped by the police before the finish line, immediately after the bombing. She was slightly off her pace due to a leg cramp and could easily have been crossing the finish line when the bombs went off. And only later did we learn that her friends who had come from Washington to cheer her on had been very close to the finish line before moving down a block to get a better view of my sister. They could have been badly hurt.

When the school shooting occurred in Newtown, Conn., I had been living on the Vineyard for four years but was still editor at large for Fine Cooking magazine, based in Newtown, where I had worked for 11 years. My brain instantly ran through a list of fellow editors and former co-workers who had elementary school children. I remember standing in front of the TV, pacing back and forth, waiting for news. I was simply horrified. And I still am. Horrified.

And somehow uncomprehending.  

Here, today, so much life and wonder: crickets and rosebuds and leggy geraniums and extraordinarily sweet late Sungolds in the hoop house; a black dog rolling on his back in the warm grass on a perfectly brilliant roll-down-the-windows-and-go-for-a-drive October day.

While these acts of violence are more proximal to me than others that have commanded front page headlines and set cities afire, I’ve had similar feelings (what person with even an average supply of empathy wouldn’t?) upon hearing reports of other atrocities. In particular, the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Armery made me sad and furious and frustrated. And more confused.

In a cascade of beach-umbrella colors, the spent dahlia’s petals spill to the ground, leaving a tight cluster of papery-skinned seeds, a treasure chest of genes and possibilities.

But this shooting in Lewiston really set me off. Once again, I can find it in my heart to have empathy for a mentally ill person, but I don’t understand the lawmakers and citizens who feel that it is everyone’s right to own an AK-47 (or an AR-15), weapons that are good for only one thing – killing large mammals like homo sapiens. My husband, a lawyer, has tried to explain to me how the gun lobbyists and conservative courts have completely twisted the original intent of the constitutional “right to bear arms,” but I can’t articulate it back to you. It’s why I don’t write about issues very much. I hate to be yet another person screaming about something he or she knows very little about.

Coming up and over the hill on my way to Beetlebung, the stone walls politely stumble to reveal the pearly sheep bobbing in the tall brown grasses on the slope down to the pond, the ocean beyond green and grey like dusty emeralds.

Instead, I tend to dwell in the spiritual realm, wondering (as Paul did in his letter to the Romans (7:15)) why people do what they know to be wrong even when they don’t want to.

“For I do not understand my own actions,” Paul wrote. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

Why do people do this? Why? The conundrum of evil and the machine of hatred are weighing so heavily on me right now as the nobody-wins conflict between Hamas and Israel unfolds, and the entire world is affected as if a distant earthquake were sending a tsunami thousands of miles across the ocean. Here, uninformed judgmentalism abounds. But imagine the horror of being in the epicenter of it? I read the stories of individual mothers and fathers who have lost children and I’m profoundly sad for them.

Wondering what that tabby cat is saying, mewling a sing-song hello as it stretches out on the warm granite step flanking the farm stand. I reach for a straw basket, place a tiny bulb of fresh fennel in it, wink at the cat.

It feels as if nobody listens to each other.

Why is it people (as history records) are so bad at conflict resolution? Why is it that we always have to blame the other, that we always must have what the other has, or more than the other has? Why do we fear the other? Why do we crave having the upper hand rather than being on equal footing? It’s animal behavior, I guess. But most animals don’t kill unless they need to for their existence.

In early sobriety, my sponsor suggested that I not look at people superficially, especially in meetings where I might be bothered by a particular person’s affect. Instead, she suggested that I look past the physical exterior of a person and visualize the scared child within. I try to remember to do this now when I am engaged with someone I don’t quite understand. Fear is so powerful.

A full moon tonight; three deer and a daddy skunk in the field, two owls in the oaks. Menemsha sea scallops sear in the skillet while greens from the garden dance with tahini dressing in the salad bowl.

I am rambling, I know, trying to figure out if my focus on Lewiston is a dumping ground for all the frustration and confusion I feel. I understand that I am naïve in certain ways, and know I’m inarticulate when it comes to writing about issues because my brain cannot focus on the details that support a good argument. And I am in no way writing to add noise (in the form of ignorant opinion) to the cacophony of dunces already racing to the written page.

I’m simply sad and angry and awfully distracted by these events. They stir up my own anxieties – and that’s selfish, I know. Maybe I’m just a too-comfortable (but slightly loopy) Island dweller who’s resentful of the world intruding on her hard-won (imperfect) peace. But I really don’t think that’s it. I think it is possible to feel genuine and appropriate empathy even for people and situations you are not directly linked to. Empathy is a powerful, blessed, and underrated emotion. It’s what allows you that teeny tiny opening to find true connection on this earth – whether it's to other people or to your natural surroundings. It’s necessary for the survival of kindness and the potential for a life that lights up like the full moon on a cloudless night. And without connection, we are doomed.

In the morning, I padded barefoot across the cushiony green moss, dodging the marbles of acorns and the spider’s gossamer work stretched between two saplings. I noticed the pattern of pooling brown leaves at the base of the two big oaks and went closer to inspect the unspectacular colors for myself. They surprised me with their blotches of fuchsia and streaks of mustard. Tips curled and stems rigid, they had found each other, awkwardly transforming into a blanket of truth.

🍂

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I chose Sandy Hook Promise as the organization I wanted to support in the wake of the Newtown shootings. While I’m not always able to donate, I’m always up for signing a petition.