Day 92: There's No App for This
June 12, 2020
Day 92
Thoughts on running, writing, the work of anti-racism, how we talk to ourselves and each other, and our love of all things measurable.
“When we liberate ourselves from the expectation that we must have all things figured out, we enter a sanctuary of empathy.”
I. Running
The first few days, maybe the first week, of quarantine, Pearl and I took some long walks together. Everything was so surreal and new and poignant – empty streets, signs in shop windows announcing indefinite closures, strangers waving at each other from across the street. We counted the other people we saw walking, a handful each outing, and joked about how there was going to be the sudden surge of “quality time” between parents and their kids.
On the days we didn’t walk, I started running. Mind you, I had been running already, but sporadically at best. My usual run was in the two-mile range, though sometimes I stopped after 1.8 and called it good. Occasionally, I’d gone up to three miles, which always felt like a feat of great endurance.
My walks with Pearl phased out as we started finding some semblance of a rhythm to these new days of being home together. He lost interest in going out with me, choosing instead to FaceTime or play on the X-Box with his friends. As the weather began to get warmer, long bike rides became his preferred way of being outside on his own.
I don’t know exactly when or how it happened, but I began going for longer runs. When the app I was using showed me that I had run five miles, I was so proud of myself. I thought I was running about a 15-minute-mile. For those of you to whom that number means nothing, for comparison sake, 11 years ago I ran a half-marathon and was running closer to a 10-minute mile. In other words, I was a decade older and a whole hell of a lot slower.
Then Pearl got a new app that tracks these things. “You should get it, too,” he offered, so that we could give each other “kudos,” this app’s version of a thumbs up. So I did. And I learned something. I was actually running faster and further. That first five-mile run was really more like six, and my average pace was considerably speedier than I had thought.
The best part about this revelation was not that it motivated me to keep going, though it did. The best part was that before learning this, I had been perfectly at peace with what I thought was a much slower pace than that of years past. The best part was that I had not been thinking anything critical about my running. I had just been enjoying it.
Now, I am all about this app. I like seeing the route I ran; I like being able to see my pace, which has gotten steadily faster over the months; I like seeing the miles accumulate over time – 109 since May 10, which was the first time I used it. I’m not running towards any particular goal, though I have done 2 virtual 5Ks, but still, tracking my distance and pace is satisfying in a way I didn’t expect it to be.
Also, if you had told me in March that I’d be running upwards of 20 miles per week come June, I would probably have laughed. If you had told me I might as well quit because of how slow I was, I would have thought, well, that was a shitty thing to say. But if you had said, wow, cool that you’re doing this consistently, pushing your edges, and seeing what your body and mind are capable of, I would have thought, yeah. It is kind of cool.
II. Writing
The other thing I started doing when the pandemic began was writing these dispatches from daily life. Not daily dispatches, mind you – I never commit to writing every day. But notes from the kitchen table or the couch or wherever I plunk my ass down to see what is it I’m thinking about, to reflect on what’s happening inside of my own home and heart as well as in the wider world, and hopefully to make some connections between the two.
Generally speaking, the vast majority of my writing just happens when it happens. I put it out there and move on. I’ve been relating to writing as a practice, not only in stringing sentences together but in other things, like impermanence and meeting my own perfectionism, for about 15 years now. I think of writing in many ways the same way I think of baking; I write, I share, maybe it is nourishing, and then it just kind of disappears.
But something has happened over the course of these past months. I have seen the way showing up here has amounted to something, in terms of quantifiable things like pages and word count. This is a 78-page single-spaced Word document, with about 38,000 words. I am not sure this means all that much to me, but it is evidence of time spent doing a thing. Like the running app that shows me how many miles I’ve logged, I admit there is a pang of something like satisfaction about that. It reflects a commitment back to me, as if the numbers are saying: You did that.
What is not measurable is the impact of my writing on anyone other than myself. It never will be. Even stating how showing up to write affects my own life is difficult to say in concrete terms; life is up and down, and writing is how I steady myself through the storms, return to myself when I feel lost, and reach out to say, let’s not do this alone. Beyond that, though, it is little more than an act of faith every time I share my words.
If I caved to a punishing and harsh part of myself that questions whether it matters or makes any difference, I would likely stop writing altogether. That voice is ever-present, but we have an unspoken agreement; I will offer it a seat at the table, as long as it behaves.
III. The Work of Anti-Racism
How do we measure and quantify social justice work?
One thought I have is that we measure and quantify this work by seeing the “wins.” Changed policies. Reopened cases. Criminal charges. Ousting racist elected officials. Removing police from schools. Funding. Protests.
These outcomes are why we do the work, because each victory represents a move towards a just society where Black lives matter, where "mattering is the minimum," as one sign I saw this week declared, where Black people can live and breathe and move and celebrate and mourn and work and pray and bird watch and run and play outside and create and love and travel and work and exist safely.
Continuing to fight for this change in our country requires so much. And we can’t do any of it if we don’t know who we are and what we are bringing to the table.
All week long, I have returned to these words Desiree Adaway wrote on June 7: “When I say all white people are racist I am not talking specifically about your character. I am talking about your socialization. This work is way more nuanced than that.”
We have to start where we are. Where on earth else would we start?
There is a lot of talk out there. A lot of articles and documents and spreadsheets telling people how to do this work and how not to do this work. That is not mine to say – as a white person, as a person socialized into racism by virtue of my whiteness, a big part of my job is actually to talk less and listen more, a lot more, to what Black people are telling me, telling us. No one is asking me to “make a difference.” That orientation continues to center my whiteness, with its not so subtle indication that I know what difference needs to be made.
The other thing I keep coming back to this week is something Ericka Hines shared at the Town Hall for reimagining small business: “Be humble and ready to fumble.” She went on to say in no uncertain terms, “You WILL fuck up.” Whiteness has conditioned me to a) want to be a good white person, b) want to “help,” and c) want to know that my efforts mattered. All of this makes it about ME.
Unlearning this is a process.
If I get hollered at that I’m bad, that I’m doing it wrong, I will likely shut down. But if you tell me only to be gentle with myself, to take all the time I need, that fails to address the very real, very urgent reality that we have taken too long already.
Thus, Desiree’s word. Nuance.
So, what does it look like to meet myself and you with love? Accountability and love are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are profoundly related. As someone pointed out in a comment yesterday, “holding people accountable is holding them capable—it’s affirming, not negating.”
Does this appeal to me because I want everything to feel good – be affirming? Or because I find it to be true?
This is not short-term work. This is not "write a bestseller" or "run a marathon in record time."
There is no app for this work.
There is no super mileage club.
There are no medals for “best ally.”
There are no prizes and there is no finish line.
Find your way to start and start there. If you started a long time ago, figure out what it will look like for you to keep going and never, ever give up. Set aside thoughts of doing it right or being good at it. Focus on the why. The why is freedom. The why is justice.
Seek out spaces outside of your comfort zone. Take a class. Read, read, and read some more, then read some more. Watch documentaries and films. Chip away at the burning trash heap of lies you thought was American history. Notice when you are trying to drink from a firehouse and turn your head – not because you are turning a cheek, but because you are human, and you can only absorb and process so much at a time. As Nailah Blades Wylie wrote, "Many white Americans have NO idea how much white supremacy is baked into every single institution we have." We have so much to learn.
Integrate being anti-racist into your life, one day, one conversation, one action at a time. We must keep loving, supporting, and encouraging each other. Otherwise, who are we?
I’ll close this with these timeless and timely questions Rabbi Hillel asked in the first century:
If I am not for myself, who is for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, when?