"White Privilege" ~ the phrase that probably doesn't mean what you think it means

I loved this post and shared it:

http://www.upworthy.com/one-easy-thing-all-white-people-could-do-that-would-make-the-world-a-better-place-5?g=2

When I shared the above on Twitter it was retweeted bunches of times. When I shared it on Facebook I got one favorable comment and 2 white men saying, basically "hmmm." One a sort of defensive "I got asked for my ID too."  I should probably say, before I go any further, that my facebook friends list is more local, more "friends and family" than my Twitter list, which cuts a much wider geographical/cultural swathe.

The response on my FB page surprised and saddened me. These are "my people."  I was expecting a more enthusiastic response. What I got was pretty lukewarm, almost defensive, and I have been puzzling over what that means. These are hard-working, good, kind people. But yes, most of my FB friends list is white. And I think we have a long, long way to go when it comes to even understanding what "white privilege" is, and until that happens we, as a society, will likely remain stuck.

I think many white folks, as well-meaning as they are, still do not understand what the phrase "white privilege" even means and often confuse privilege with being born into a wealthy family or being a member of "high society." White privilege, to a lot of folks, means "Kennedy" or "the Hamptons."  People think "I can barely pay my bills, I'm not privileged" or "I wear clothes from Goodwill and eat Ramen, how am I even remotely privileged?" It's a very defensive response, and the subcontext is not only "Black people aren't treated differently!" it's also "I hate to think that anyone would think me better than anyone else, because I'm not!"  In a lot of ways, I believe this type of response comes from a place of desperately wanting to believe that we live in a post-racial society. Unfortunately, this is not helpful at all to progress.

It's an incredibly humbling moment to finally understand that white privilege is something far more basic and often invisible because you were born with it and take it for granted. I can say this because I can remember when I started to truly understand what the phrase meant - as opposed to what I hoped it meant - and I am embarrassed to say it wasn't too many years ago. I was brought up by good loving people but growing up in Maine there isn't a lot of interaction with people of color so my assumptions about how people of color were treated elsewhere were tremendously naive and optimistic.  So, I can say that the misinterpretation or denial of "white privilege" often means that as much as you want to believe that we live in a post-racial society, wishing doesn't make it so. If you don't see examples of overt racism on a daily basis it might be because you live where you don't actually see black people on a daily basis. "White privilege" means that you are still being treated better in many many ways, simply because you are not black. It means that even if you are driving a falling-apart car to the store to buy your Ramen, you're less likely to get pulled over on your way there because you probably stole that car or it's unregistered/uninspected/has dope in the glovebox. Nobody "kept an eye on you" as you shopped because you were probably going to shop lift. You weren't asked for 2 forms of ID and asked to wait while the cashier feverishly looks through her "bad checks book" because she's convinced you just wrote a rubber check, for no other reason than the color of your skin.

I would also refer you to a post from my friend Nancy a few days ago:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151777302283446&set=a.40374233445.49108.781938445&type=1

We still have a long way to go, and just wishing it were otherwise won't make it so. The woman in the Upworthy video is simply saying that if we can use our "white privilege" to speak up when we see these instances of racism, we can help move everyone forward. It's a simple suggestion, which should almost go without saying. In order for our "white privilege" to be of any use to move things forward, we will first have to get over ourselves and acknowledge that it exists. No better time than the present.

Serendipity and Karma

I received an email a while ago from someone who visited the Woods Hole Aquarium in Falmouth, MA. While there she happened to spy a tiny piece of paper on the floor, and picked it up to see what it was. It was a poem about a skunk cabbage, hand-written in tiny letters on the front and back of a little scrap of paper. The poem? My poem, "Song for the Skunk Cabbage.”  The finder was thoughtful enough to look me up online, and send me an email to tell me about it. That email really made my day!

So often we all go about our business, day to day, and never really think about the fact that something we have done, said, or written, might actually be rippling out away from us and touching people beyond our doorstep. Or windshield. Or desktop.  As someone who writes, I can say that I often wonder if anything I have thought out loud “on paper” has touched anyone or even been heard. I write because I love to and also, quite frankly, because I can’t help it. But I have to confess that knowing someone liked that little poem of mine enough to take the time to hand-write it out on a little piece of paper is very heartening. And the fact that someone had an inkling I’d feel that way and cared enough to let me know – really just, well, it kind of blew me away. I have just been walking around grinning over this for days and days.

The other day my editor at Moon Pie Press forwarded an envelope to me. The finder of the poem had forwarded that little piece of paper with my poem on it to her (with the return address: "a lover of serendipity and karma,") and my editor, in turn, forwarded it to me. This is such a gift! My poems are like children to me; I do the best I can with them and then send them out into the world. This one traveled to the Woods Hole Aquarium on a tiny piece of paper, then came back home to mama for a visit, thanks to a few lovers of serendipity and karma.

If you are a lover of serendipity and karma, wear it proud! I know it might be more hip to instant-message, insta-gram and reach out and touch technologically. But don’t forget to hand-write, send something snail mail, stick a poem under someone’s windshield wiper, print out a photograph and give it to someone to magnet onto their fridge. I know it is the thought that counts, but for my money a thought in the hand is worth two in the cloud.

A Sign of Acceptance

I have a wall in my office where I post pictures and notes that my clients (all troubled kids and their caregivers) have given me. One of them says "YOUR AWESOME!" Some days I find myself fighting the urge to "correct" that note. What would it hurt? A crayoned apostrophe, an added letter "e," to make things tidy and "correct?" My undergraduate degree was in English and I have corrected grammar and spelling right along with the best of them. I am sure I have been plenty annoying to perfectly well-meaning folks who have no need to know what an infinitive is, let alone what it means to split one. So that's why I have left that note on my office wall exactly as it is. It's a reminder to myself. When I get that urge to "correct" I can be almost certain I am not focusing on what is really important. I am not doing my job. I am trying to “fix” things, and it is not my job to “fix.” It’s my job to help people find more effective ways to navigate through this life, not to show them the “right” way.

I have started to wonder about this habit of correcting others and what it says about who we are. I have seen conversations among friends come to a dead stop when someone interrupts to say "It's LIE not LAY!" I have watched people completely miss the point of a heartfelt expression, because someone used "ain't." It makes me a little sad. Not because the English language is being "mangled" or that "those kids today" sound "ignorant." It makes me sad that we can become so focused on a colloquialism or punctuation mark that we forget the original point of language which is to communicate. Can you really not get past the grammar to continue the communication? This is my gentle challenge to think about why. Why is it so important to correct that you can no longer be present, can no longer listen to your fellow human? I get it -- some of us are editors, proofreaders, writers. We have to have an awareness of these things. Yeah, I know sometimes we think we are "helping." We are not. My challenge to you, fellow writers, editors, proofreaders, is to keep the work at work and not bring it to the coffee klatsch where "correcting" is just superior douchebaggery.

As for myself I am not perfect but it has been months now and I am almost at the point I can look at "YOUR AWESOME!" and not feel the urge to “fix” it. Some days I still see a “mistake,” but most days I see an opportunity to let go of the need to be right. I see an opportunity to accept that things are messy. People are flawed. Have I ever helped even one person by pointing out their flaws? The only person that ever helps is me, and it's a temporary buzz for sure. When the self-righteousness of “correcting” someone wears off, all you're left with is the discomfort of knowing you're still firmly ensconced in an imperfect world in which no one gives a shit where you put your apostrophe.

When I can completely let go of that need for everything to be "right," I am going to celebrate and make my own sign, adding an R at the end. "YOUR AWESOMER," it will say. "YOUR TOTALLY AWESOMER RIGHT NOW."

I have my 64 pack of crayolas and a poster board at the ready.

WHO'S WITH ME?!*

*totally had to resist the temptation to write "WHOSE WITH ME?" Just to mess with you.

resurrection of the blog.

Something happened after I finished graduate school and got my license and got a new job and got married. I was TIRED. So many wonderful things happening all at once but with new beginnings other things must come to an end and for me that was a lot of things. To make room in my life for an all-encompassing job that requires 40-50 hours a week, I had to let a lot of things go. You would think that would be liberating, but frankly, there were things I was not prepared to let go of and things I could not. I left them hanging, suspended, unfinished. Because saying goodbye was too hard.

Some of the main reasons I kept a blog then became moot - I had been using this blog to promote my sewing and crafts, to share process, to talk about poetry and the arts and my family. FUN STUFF!! So, dear readers, you can imagine what my life looked like that I could no longer participate in those things, let alone have the time to blog about them.

let me pause here to google-image a visual for you:

The straight line of a week of work heading off into a bleak distance of Friday. This will not do. This will not do at all.

Persistence is a virtue, but so is knowing when you are no longer on your own life path but need to find your way back to your own. It's time to get out the compass, watch the weathervane, measure the caterpillar's stripes.

Hiring Freeze is Off on Account o'the Pixie!

Well, we said we had a full house. We said that until I finish my thesis and/or my internship we just don't have the TIME FOR ANOTHER DOG.

Then we saw this face: 

Along with the words: WILL BE EUTHANIZED TOMORROW.

Pixie had been found on 108th and Park in New York City. Scared, lonely, and alarmingly skinny. Who knows how she got there, who owned her before, who bred her for puppies and then left her to fend for herself on the streets of Spanish Harlem? Who knows how she felt, or if she wondered if they were going to come back for her? We'll probably never know. But in spite of all that, like many dogs Pixie is forgiving and trusting. She was friendly and affectionate to the folks who handled her at the Manhattan Animal Control Center. She passed her behavior tests with flying colors and the volunteers who walked her said she was gentle, polite on the leash, and good with men, women, children, and other dogs. In spite of all that good faith in the human race that had so let her down, the ACC was going to let her down again; they put her on the euth list for having kennel cough. That's the part that really pisses me off. Kennel cough? Seriously? They were going to euthanize this dog because she HAD A COLD. I will save my ire for the NYC ACC for another post.

Seriously. Look at that face.
And then tell me we could have just let her die.

Pixie says "Goodbye ACC!"

It is thanks to an amazing network of dog-loving volunteers who diligently post photos and descriptions of these stray, homeless and rescued animals on Facebook and EBay, that we saw Pixie's info. And it is because of their efforts that we were able to contact a rescue group that very night who was willing to put a hold on Pixie for us, and it is because of them that instead of being euthanized that Sunday morning, Pixie got a new shot at having a family. We drove down to NY the next morning to pick her up. And when we did, we could not get out of that sad depressing place fast enough. And neither could Pixie who, when we stepped out the front door, took a deep breath of fresh air, hacked a bit with the kennel cough, peed on the nearest patch of grass, and then hopped into the back seat of our car like it was already hers. She alternately slept and gave us kisses the whole 5 hour drive home. Once here she quickly endeared herself to every being in this house - including our shy big black cat (she licks his ears like he is her "puppy"), our sometimes-cranky resident geezer dog Mr. Tim, and our other lap-sitting, bed-hogging  mushface bully, Django. She sits with my kids while they do their homework. She curls up next to us at TV-time. She likes to sleep on the bed and has perfected the art of weaseling under the covers where she IS NOT ALLOWED! (yeah... right...;-)  ) 

Here's Pixie, cozied up with my 13 yo boy.

("mmmmmm...... teenager feet!")

Welcome home, Pixie.
  We are so very glad you are here.

If you are reading this, and you have any room in your heart or home for a critter that has done nothing wrong but to be homeless, please consider adopting from a shelter or rescue. Some people have commented that we "lucked out" that Pixie is such a good dog, and while I certainly agree we are lucky to have found her I also fervently believe that the shelters are full of GREAT DOGS JUST LIKE PIXIE. She is not the exception!  Unspeakable numbers of dogs who are JUST as wonderful and adoptable as Pixie are euthanized in these shelters every day. So if you have been thinking of adding a pet to your family, please consider that right now, a dog as wonderful as this is just languishing in a steel cage with the clock ticking. Please go get them!

Dog Days at the Magic Cottage

Did you know October is
Adopt a Shelter Dog month?

I grew up with shelter dogs and never thought twice about it; in fact, I guess I just always assumed that's where everyone got their dogs! My very favorite dog in the world, Mr. Tim, came from the Animal Welfare Society in Kennebunk, Maine. The AWS does an amazing job with their animals and one of the things I love most about AWS is that they participate in the Paws Across America program; click on the link to read more.

my man Tim, Animal Welfare Society Alum

Mr. Tim says "Throw the ball already!"

Another wonderful local shelter is the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland. They too do a fabulous job finding homes for their animals and participate in programs to relieve overcrowding in southern shelters. And then there is the MSSPA - the Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals. They are New England's largest equine rescue and rehab facilities, and I just can't say enough about the amazing work they are doing.

When I can, I foster dogs through Almost Home Rescue which, like the AWS, works with partner shelters in the south to find homes for strays/rescues here in NE. AHR does an amazing job! AHR is made up of a super-organized bunch of volunteers who LOVE dogs and spend countless hours and dollars on finding homes for these dogs. And on finding the RIGHT homes. AHR carefully screens applicants because what they don't want is for dogs to end up back at a shelter because the adopter didn't realize the energy level of the dog or how much time it would take to care for it. [sidenote: If you don't realize how prevalent this is, check out a bunch of shelter notes on why dogs were surrendered - overwhelmingly owners state "Not enough time."] But I digress. Please check out AHR and see who might be waiting to be your new best friend!

here i am smooching on foster dog Landon -

who has been adopted by a wonderful family!

foster dog Chili Bean,
who also found a fur-ever home!

Right now my household is in a "hiring freeze" at two dogs (@mrtimidity and @djangofullspot), two cats, and two wonderful kids. I am working, completing a master's degree, an internship, and a thesis, and my partner and I have decided that although we very much want another dog and to continue fostering rescue dogs, I should really put my nose to the grindstone and finish my thesis and internship first! Now THAT'S motivational! After making that commitment, I notice a definite increase of focus, HAHA! ADDENDUM: okay. hiring freeze may be off. stay tuned.

Tim and Django sharing the couch.

In the meantime, I continue to torture everyone on my Facebook friends list with numerous posts advocating for all of the beautiful dogs waiting for their forever homes, and I have a particular soft spot for the most over-bred and misunderstood breeds; the pit bull. And by "pit bull" I mean any of the various breeds that people tend to confuse and lump into the category of "pit bull." Turns out, lots of people think they know one when they see one, but they really don't. (Do you?) I have fostered a wonderful lab/pit mix (shout-out to Yoda!) and I live with an American Staffordshire Terrier and know what amazingly loveable, goofy, and loyal pets these dogs make. I also know that they are the most-euthanized dog breed - thanks to overbreeding and persistent myths about their personalities. In many states, even owning a pit bull is illegal but backyard breeders continue to pump them out, so guess what happens to them? They die by the millions in kill-shelters. I wish that were an exaggeration but sadly, it isn't.

If you are considering a new pet, PLEASE consider a shelter or rescue dog!

Welcome Home, Sajan!

Margaret is now a mommy! Sajan came home from Nepal in July and the whole family just couldn't be more thrilled. I wanted to make a quilt that would wrap him up in something as warm as a welcoming hug, as colorful as green grass and blue sky. I found some fabrics with pulltoys and kites and frogs and all sorts of things little boys love. And I found this super-fun strip-quilt pattern from the Quilts of Valor site. Quilts of Valor is an amazing group that creates and sends handmade quilts to comfort our wounded soldiers. They have a network of piecers, seamstresses, longarm operators, and quilters all over the country and they are also very generous in sharing their patterns. If you have a chance, check their site out and if you have a few dollars send them their way; they are doing very important work.

For this quilt you simply sew strips of fabric together in a 1,2,3,4,5 pattern, repeat the strips several times, and when you get to the end you sew the top and bottom together so that you end up with a big fabric tube.

Then you turn the tube and carefully cut strips the other way... so that you end up with a bunch of fabric "rings." By carefully "unsewing" the rings in order (between 1,2, then 2, 3, then 3,4, etc...), you end up with a bunch of strips that form a diagonal pattern of blocks. So clever, eh? Who thinks these things up!?

I am lucky to have a big porch and on the day i needed to make the quilt "sandwich" I was lucky to have a dry, sunny day with no wind! I pin a king-sized sheet right to the deck, and then I have plenty of room to smooth out and pin the layers. I had run out of acrylic "basting" spray, so i did it the old-fashioned way with a million safety pins.

For the backing I used this gorgeous vintage fabric I had on hand - I'd been saving it for something special and was so happy it blended perfectly with the colors in the quilt top.

Welcome, Sajan!
We are so glad you are here!