“If you’re not hopeful and optimistic, then you just give up. You have to take the long hard look and just believe that if you’re consistent, you will succeed.”
John Lewis
Many days, it’s just me and the heron on the beach. The weather has been that bad. It’s matched my unclear thoughts.
Who’d have thought you’d sit having a chat and a coffee with your face mask hanging off your ear? I looked twice. Main topic of conversation, COVID-hair. How are you managing yours? You feel on a stopwatch – have I reached my contamination threshold yet? Is this all others really talk about? You’d think there’s nothing happening in the world. Another alien 101 moment.
How fitting is it that Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre’s offering this week was ‘City Of Rain’? A dance for grief as a whole race embarks on the journey. How brilliant is it that Rep. John Lewis and Rev. C.T. Vivian keep each other company on theirs? I’ve noticed that black men have this beautiful gesture of holding both your hands out front. Like they really have you – there is nowhere else to look except into each others’ eyes.
Now I understand why once more I’ve been unable to read my beloved black writers. This always marks a moment of pending. I’m beyond questioning why as a small white Irish woman I feel so connected? To a race on the other side of the water which I don’t have any knowing link too. I just always know now when I can’t read their words something big is coming.
A race has lost their heroes and I don’t feel wise enough to make any comment. I know where my next Audible credit will go. I’m fully in learning mode. Was the last 50 days enough of an insight into a legacy of belief? I loved Barack Obama’s words;
“And it’s because he saw the best in all of us that he will continue “
Naoisé 19th July 2020