I’M STUCK
Someplace between sad, tired, and fed-up. In an effort to avoid the boredom that sits next to me, I looked at my most recent copy of The Sun, December 2018. On the cover is a photo of two black people standing close together. I am not black. I am white. Just writing that gives me the most ugly feeling. To write that is to declare that what we all have to face in racism is a divide. I saw the two figures on the cover standing together close. Bruce Horowitz took the picture with a camera of some value I suppose at a lake in Geneva, New York. 1984. I wonder if the people are still alive and what they look like now. Bruce Horowitz was born in 1949. I wonder if he still lives and what he looks like now. Mostly I think about the two people in the photograph. Internally I examine what I feel when I look at them from that place behind my navel, my gut, out through my eyes.
Today is a strange day for me. Raining, cold, the noisy little oil heater keeps running and running to keep this house warm as well as cover the scream of silence. The end of November. Two nights ago was a full moon so bright it startled me and left me terrified of what I am not able to comprehend in this world. In the case of the moon, I wondered why it was so huge and bright. This feeling I had must be what it felt like for my predecessors when they faced noises and visions in the night. The feeling comes again when I think of that moon.
The people on the cover of The Sun magazine haunt me. Their eyes are haunting. I sense the photograph is a Rorschach test. I am being examined just as I am examining them. I have trouble looking at the woman in the photo. Her eyes tell me nothing. I correct that. They tell me I am of no interest to her. I have a sense of discomfort looking at the man’s hair on his head and on his face. His eyes speak a lot. He tells me that he doesn’t trust me. I suspect this is the dark side of my life staring back at me. These images of the man and the woman are deep observations of what my insides have become through living in this country. They are calling to me for no other reason than to remind me how terrible life is for all of us, but mostly for them.
I suspect a lot of what I am feeling, as a result of this photo, is the sense that I am too late in coming to comprehending the meaning of my life. And I feel guilt for that. I didn’t try hard enough or I avoided the chance to come to a conclusion about the people of color around me. I don’t know. That is what is stuck. I can’t move off this knoll of ignorance. Everywhere I turn, I already have been. It is all old territory, like looking for my keys as I go out the door. I have lost my keys to my life and I am exhausted for looking for them. I have looked everywhere and they are not here. I cannot find the place to feel good about how I have been with people who are not white. I am a racist and that is hard to admit.
G. M. Goodwin
25 November 2018
Playing Fair and Being Kind 
That was absolutely the brightest and fullest full moon I can remember! Didn’t leave me terrified of anything, just in awe of the ultimate mystery of everything, the wonder of being here, however we got here and wherever we’re going.
I too feel the divide of racism, wish I didn’t, but I’m always aware of someone I see being of color, never aware of someone being white. The divide only vanishes when I come to know the person really well. Don’t blame myself. It’s just the way I am. If you feel ugly that’s proof you on a deeper level are Not ugly!
Sent from my iPhone
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When I was raising my kids, I was very careful to never verbally identify anyone by race, disability, religious affiliation, or sexual preference. Consequently, at least one of my kids grew up “colorblind” to racial identity. When I am asked to check off my race or ethnicity on some official application, I always check “OTHER” and write in “HUMAN.”
Now I am learning that some African Americans, and some people in the LGBTQIA community feel as if those of us from a more privileged group are erasing their identity when we do those things.
*sigh*