Enough

There’s a lot going on right now. For all of us. For the world, for individual countries, for families, and for each individual human. It’s just been a lot, you know? To process it all. And then to find ourselves swirling around in this wild recovery/re-entry into living. But for all that transformation, it’s amid a great deal of political turmoil. And violence. On the South island of New Zealand, I feel like people don’t fully get it about Covid. They locked down for six weeks and then things sort of went back to normal. Like kind of quickly. I remember arriving last September and being in the period of still adjusting to being able to walk down the street like normal, shake the hands of people I met, teach mask free, and enter/hang out in indoor spaces with strangers without utter trepidation. At that time I heard a woman in the bank say something about “when all this Covid nonsense ends.”

I suppose she was referring to the fact that there were still hand sanitiser stations in every business, still signs with QR codes encouraging people to sign in to each place they visited in order to track potential outbreaks. Maybe she was talking about the tape still on the floor to encourage social distancing, or the ban on gatherings over, I think it was, 100 at that time; that restriction was reinstated for a couple of weeks in September because of a handful of community cases in Auckland after a sustained period of not even one. I’m sure she thought it was all a bit excessive. All that really struck me in that moment was the relativity of everything. Like yeah, this was some ‘nonsense’ to her. Covid felt far away. She probably didn’t (and maybe never will if we’re all lucky) know anyone who had even had Covid, let alone who died from it. With only 26 deaths in the entire country, only two in the Otago region, it probably just felt like a blip on her radar. A very small one.

For me (and perhaps for the 60,000 or so others who had entered the country since the borders closed in April—mind you, more than double that number had left during that time), it was different. I had been locked down in California for about four months when I flew to New Zealand. I was well and truly radicalised to the ways of the mask (and the social distancing and the hiding away from everything and everyone). I had watched (from a distance) in terror as the Covid cases and deaths in Italy rose well beyond the capacity of its healthcare system. I then watched the same thing happen in New York City (also from a distance). I feared it was only a matter of time before my own hometown was inundated with Covid-19 cases and we too were having to store the bodies of our deceased in refrigerator containers lined up in empty lots. I had no reason to believe otherwise. Our flight to Auckland was cancelled twice in the interim between booking and boarding; one of those times was after I had completed our within-twenty-four-hours-of-departure check-in. We found out about that one standing at the United counter in the San Francisco airport, all of our earthly possessions in slightly overweight suitcases and duffels sprawled around our feet and the keys to our surrendered rental home securely lodged with our former landlord.

In April of 2020, my nuclear family was separated on two different continents, and we were torn: do we bring our younger son back from New Zealand where they seem to be managing the virus better than almost any other country in the world and risk him having to quit university because he can’t get back into the country? Or, we reasoned, was it time for our family to reunite in New Zealand, the country of my husband’s birth, where we would be likely to escape a long, drawn out battle to manage not just the virus but the restive, resistant, and politically polarised people of America? Notice I don’t even mention the option of being separated from our baby for an indeterminate amount of time while the world sorted the pandemic. It just wasn’t even an option. And then there was the president of the United States. I mean, do I really even have to say it? There was a man in charge of the country who not only fell short of embodying our own moral values but whose every word and every action was like acid thrown on the face of my moral compass. It wasn’t an easy choice because of our extended families and friends still residing in the U.S., but every other consideration was a no brainer.

So the lady in the bank. Honestly, I was too grateful to be in a place where people are so sheltered from the ravages of Covid-19 and saying shit like this to be annoyed by her in any way. I had been received here with kindness and generosity. I had sought refuge, and I had been allowed, with my New Zealand citizen husband and older son, to enter the country. My brother-in-law had housed us until we could get on our feet and find our bearings. I remember feeling terrified that somehow I would’t make it onto the plane, or that I’d be turned away at the border. I felt this all the way until we had arrived in our managed isolation hotel for our mandatory 14-day stay. Never have I been so happy to be told I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything (okay, the last time that happened I was 16, but you get the picture). We came with clothes and shoes, important documents and keepsakes, photos, my grandmother’s china, and my mother-in-law’s quilts. That was it. And the relief upon getting here with even those few things was tremendous.

Since then I have watched with wide eyes the incredible changes taking place in the U.S. and across the globe. The sudden and immediate fall of Donald Trump from ‘grace’ with almost everyone I know who was still holding out in support of him. The shift of power and the inconceivable attack on the U.S. Capitol, which I watched live on my computer, mouth agape, for several solid hours. The murder of George Floyd and now the trial of his killer (I hold my breath even as I type this). The thinly veiled Jim Crow activity and new legislation, not just in the South. The unabashedly racist and seemingly hateful legislative activities in France. The horrors of second and third waves of Covid-19 with its new variants…in Europe, in Central and South America and now, in the U.S. where the waves seem to have merged into a single set: talk of a fourth. Outrageous and violent suppression of protesters in Myanmar. Horrific attacks against elderly Chinese in the U.S.—scrolling through my Instagram feed yesterday I stumbled unexpectedly upon security footage of a racially motivated attack on a 65-year old Asian woman near Times Square. It happened so fast; suddenly I was seeing it with my own eyes. I nearly vomited, my reaction was that violent. And then I just felt despondent. Do I even talk about the attack on the officers at the Capitol yesterday?

But I also see good. I see a kind of resilience I have not seen before…in people close to me and in ones I’ve never even met. And I see a kind of joy that is also new. I see my friends reuniting with their parents and grandparents after an entire year of separation, because they are all, at last, vaccinated. I see children returning to school, happier than they’ve ever been to do so. I see friends exploring new opportunities and emerging from long-held patterns that do not serve them…patterns held, in some cases, much longer than the year that Covid has held them hostage. I see people having hope for the first time in many moons, and I see companies and organisations uniting to oppose racist and bigoted legislation being proposed and passed in many American states. I see the galvanisation of many people from many different sectors in the name of justice…all of them fighting against what could easily consume us. Immolate. I see teachers rejoicing in the progress made by pupils who persevered and now approach summer with all its promises. I see people coming together and supporting one another in ways they never have. I see light.

But I don’t know where we go from here. It seems we are still very much hanging in the balance. Will the testimony of a police chief mean sanction to declare guilty one of the people who have for so long been shielded from accountability while they perpetrated crimes against humanity? Yeah, I said that. And I don’t say it lightly. There is no other way to describe abusing, indeed killing, those whom you are sworn to protect and serve. It’s like child abuse. Only in the family of humanity and with repercussions that extend far beyond a single generational bloodline. Will there be justice for George Floyd and his family? For Americans—all of them, that is: every colour, every persuasion, every political alignment? All are violated when such violence and betrayal are tolerated, even the perpetrators. And I’m truly afraid of what might happen if the verdict comes back as “innocent.”

So I am here at the bottom of the world. Or the top, right? Who made it the bottom anyway? Not God. But that’s a question for another post. I am here and I have my ear to the earth, like so many others in these delicate moments. 550 civilians dead in Myanmar in the past two months. 213 people shot to death by police in the U.S. in the first three months of 2021. 3,800 racist incidents in the U.S., mostly against women, in the past year. And the mass shooters of America are back at it: 126 mass shootings already this year. There is a lot of work to be done. And I pray. My prayer is a bit unconventional, but prayer is what it amounts to. And also, I keep doing what I do to make the world better. We all do these things in different ways. I’m pretty sure that teaching kids in the New Zealand equivalent of juvenile hall is not going to help anyone in Myanmar. It won’t affect the justice system in the U.S. And it certainly won’t shield my Asian-American friends from the hatred of their racist and cowardly neighbours. But it’s what I do. It’s where I am. I am also still raising my sons, even though they are pretty well grown. And so many of you are too. Many of yours are little. You are teaching them not to hate. Teaching them to share and to be indignant when something unjust happens. Not just to be indignant but to speak up. To act. In the name of humanity.

There is injustice here, where I live. And there is injustice, in varying degrees, everywhere. I don’t have to be in the spotlight in my fight to know that I am affecting the collective push for more love and less hate in the world. I am loving up those who have broken the law. I am showing kindness to youth who have been so hurt by others as to want to hurt someone else or even themselves. I am teaching them that knowledge is power (shoutout to Schoolhouse Rock). I am giving what I can where I am, and I am writing these little missives. Sending them out into the world, hoping they reach someone who wants them. Needs them in some way. That is all. We are all doing the best that we can. I really believe that. In these trying times, we may very well be faced with some difficult choices. But Don Juan Castaneda once wrote that Yacqui wisdom tells us this: a warrior does not regret. S/he acts. Then s/he looks around and sees where the action has landed her. If s/he doesn’t like it—if it doesn’t make her proud and also happy—then s/he forms a new action to land her in a new place. Full stop. Regret about the previous action is a useless sentiment. I am who I am, and I do what I do. I care about all of it. And I can’t fix it. I like where I have landed, and I believe it is making a difference in the world. It is changing lives. They are few, but I would do this work for even one of them.

I guess I write this because if you are like me, you feel guilty. In one way or another you think you should be doing more. Let me tell you this. You will know when it is time to do more. And if it is in your heart to do it, and you can do it without compromising the very important work you are already engaged in (for many, that is raising a family of strong, compassionate, generous humans), you will. You will use your gifts, your own strengths, to fight for the things that matter. Many fights are small. But they add up. Would I feel like I was making a bigger difference if I were a photojournalist exposing the atrocities in Myanmar right now? Maybe. If I were fighting the injustices against minorities in the American legal system? Sure I would. But I am not trained for either of these things. I have words, which I use. I am an educator, and I show up every day for kids no one shows up for. Like to spend time with them and share with them and tolerate the expressions of their woundedness, though they sometimes hurt me. And I do my best. It is enough. I am enough.

This is certainly an affirmation for myself. How could it not be? But it is also my encouragement to you. All of you. Yes, I do believe there are more than ten people reading these blog posts these days. Not a ton, but enough to say “all of you.” And besides, one of you is enough for me to want to extol the virtues of the work we do. Let us be vigilant. Let us know our worth. Let us send our perfect intention into the ether as we do our work each day. Whether that is to teach or to test soil or to practice law or to create art or... Let us know the value of our loving acts. Of our brave acts. And let us keep fighting, in all the ways that we do, for a world that is better and kinder than it is today.