If there is one thing I’m soaking in right now – it is the importance of balance. I notice it in all of the little ways that are necessary for my sourdough journey, in fact it is an ever overlapping circle graph. The importance of time, temperature, flour quantity, water quantity, type of flour, type of water, storing vessel, attitude, all balanced to make a delicious loaf. If one thing is out of balance – no problem, the other multitudes will show up and handle the bulk of the matter. Two things out of balance? That’s fine, the loaf will not feed your desire, but it will feed your hunger. Three things out of balance? Still nourishing though starting to overwhelm on the shadow side: it hurts your jaw to eat, instigates (or rather fails to instigate) your bowels.
Balance is something that I struggle with in every aspect of life. I suspect most of my fellow humans do as well. So while I am proud to make the effort for balance, I am very forgiving when things become out of kilter. This, I realize, while necessary, is a privilege.
This week, when sitting down to start e-therapy (something I feel strange for getting used to: therapy via the internet) my therapist said, “Each time we meet I feel like the world has shifted so dramatically in the time between our last meeting, that I want to recognize where we’re currently at and how you’re feeling in your body.” And it’s true, since our shelter-in-place began here in Oakland, the narrative of our time has shifted – dramatically – and with a regularity that at first seemed frightening and overwhelming.
Coronavirus and it’s illness, covid-19. The failure of the state to address it adequately in time. Hundreds of thousands of lives lost to the inability of the state to act. The failure of our fellow humans to recognize themselves in each other and practice empathy instead of “but what about me?” Capitalism’s operating as, honestly, it was built to do, prioritizing the bottom line over lives. Our government’s complicity in propping the bottom line up over thousands of lives. Again our fellow humans’ inability to recognize that the people they are fighting for, don’t actually care about them. White supremacy being called out in all the places it hides in plain sight. Black lives ended violently and short, still. Black trauma ignored, still.
This feels, while living it, fast-paced and I’ve been finding it uncomfortable. The balance that I’m seeking currently is: living within the discomfort of how quickly things are moving for me while recognizing how slowly this deadliness has moved for the oppressed whose lives and land we traded without a second thought for anything but ourselves.
Part of my work in therapy has been to heal my ancestral traumas so that I don’t carry and pass along ideologies that no longer serve me or my fellow humans. I think one of those traumas is the belief that racism is something that I can eradicate. I believe this is something my public education taught and implied – that racism could be tidied up into one neat definition. That racism was a black and white issue, lacking a grey area. I say that realizing the irony, but cannot think of a better way to put it. And I bought into it, for way too long. One of the leaders I’ve been looking to in this time, I’m looking for their name and this exact reference right now, pointed out that racism will likely exist for at least our lifetime. That the insidious ways in which racism lives in each and every one of us (us being white people, I will not speak for others) will continue to be something we need to educate ourselves on, ask questions about, excise out, lather rinse repeat. If you think something can be eradicated, you become complacent. We see this with measles. Sure the vaccine MANAGES measles outbreaks, but measles still exist. The vaccine does nothing to educate on the importance of participation in public health. It doesn’t address the nuance of communicable disease. We became complacent on public health, and look at us now.
We cannot become complacent on racism, ever again. The ancestral trauma that I can work to heal for future generations is complacency in the face of racism.
Coming back to balance. The other night, S and I watched as a woman walked up to our grocery store’s doors, only to realize at the same time as us, that they had closed early to protect their employees from the implications of our county’s curfew. This woman stood at the door in disbelief for a few moments. She was clearly agitated and mean mugging one of the employees through the glass door. She left her cart right in front of the door (approximately six feet away from the cart return) and walked away. S and I looked at each other like “WTF is this lady’s problem” and watched her as she walked away. At this point, her phone fell out of her pocket and smashed on the sidewalk and it was like watching a quick karmic adjustment. Plant a bad seed and you will get some rotten flowers, lady. But what is so interesting about this situation is that I could almost see the stress roiling off of her and I felt mostly empathy.
I’ve been that stressed before. I’ve been that frustrated before. I’ve taken it out on other people, sometimes people I love. But lately I’m trying (and sometimes failing) to stay balanced – making sure I’m well-fed and rested before venturing out into the world. Taking care of myself in this way takes care of the people around me because I find that nine times out of ten, when shit goes wrong, if I’m not hungry and I’m not tired, I can easily avoid being an asshole. If you (again white people) have the privilege to have access to food, water, and shelter with regularity, you too can work to make sure you don’t show up in public, an asshole. And if you feel yourself start to be one, stop what you’re doing, check your privilege, apologize, and go take a fucking nap.
This recognition of my own behavior when I’m imbalanced is the same reason that I feel scared when I see these images and videos of white women being disgustingly violent and acting out behaviors deadly towards Black persons and persons of color. While these situations are clearly examples of both racism and privilege overlapping, when I look at these women’s faces I can also see myself staring back at me. The stress – the high pitched voice – the irrationality – the weaponizing of language. I have not been above resorting to these tactics when encountering fellow humans while imbalanced. Ask the poor soul who had to tell me something stressful about a work situation while I was home sick with the flu. I lost it. Then I apologized and took a fucking nap. Then I apologized again. And thinking back now, WHY WAS I WORKING ON SOMETHING WHEN I HAD THE FLU? Bigger better question, to be gotten to, next loaf.
To be very clear, this is in no way to say that I think “balancing stress” is the root of these women’s racism. No. They’re racist plain and simple and they need to address it and how it shows up in their day-to-day lives. We all need to address it and how it shows up in our day-to-day lives. But the harried way these women look while they are simultaneously being violent racists? That look is familiar.
So like all of the important things that overlap in varying balancing acts to make a delicious sourdough loaf, our society requires balance. As individuals, we require balance. I can show up for the Black community at protests, and read the appropriate literature to learn more about dismantling my complicity in white supremacy. I will shut the fuck up and listen when Black persons are speaking, and I will listen for the ways that racism can show up in conversation and speak the fuck up when that happens. I will get rest and I will encourage people to rest. I will be well-fed and I will work so that my community is well-fed. I will work to heal the damage of complacency and when I think that healing has made progress and I can focus on something else I will remember that THAT is the trick of complacency. It will always be there waiting for you to become distracted…and I will keep going and doing the work.
What we’re experiencing right now is the result of too many years of imbalance and there are a lot of reasons for it, but I’d point at least one finger at complacency.
itinerant gastronomer 