Counting days is not the answer.

Most mornings when I wake up Nancy and I talk about something that's happening either in our city, in our country or our world. Yesterday it was the 114  families in Ohio who were rounded up by ICE and separated from each other, the new American standard. When driving home from Fremont on Tuesday, coming off of my exit onto Rainier, I drove by a man with a sign that said, "My name is Brandon. I need your help." Before class yesterday, one of my students almost started crying when we talked about the current state of the American South. Two weeks ago a 17-year old getting ready to graduate from Franklin High School was shot and killed in one of my favorite parks a mile from my house. There is a mini-billboard hanging on a porch a few miles from my house that the homeowners hung after the 2016 elections. They change it every day to show how many days we have left.

We talk a lot about just getting through this. Waiting until this terrible darkness is over. We can see what's happening. It's happening in plain sight, before our eyes. We are no longer in denial. We can't be. There is too much and it is too big. We find ways to talk about it, to make ourselves feel better. I walk the Seward Park loop and smile at the different faces, taking pleasure in connecting with strangers. I cherish my time at the studio. I often say, "We're so lucky to have this community." I try to give what I can by contributing to my little circle, by making a kinder, more gentler world for people in my orbit, but when I look from the outside in, my influence is tiny. It's not enough.

My sister Katherine has dedicated her life to social justice. She works relentlessly, constantly for her cause, which is truly all of our cause. I used to feel sad, rejected because she never had time for me, but now I see that she's compelled. She's driven because her eyes are wide open. Our limited time connecting is not about me. It's about creating a better world. I've gone from being resentful to being grateful.

It's not that I do nothing. I volunteer. I contribute money. I hold fundraisers. I promote specific issues through the studio to raise awareness. I am raising a feminist daughter with extreme left-leaning tendencies. But it's not enough. I woke up today feeling stressed about my little work problems--personnel disagreements, retreat enrollment, summer class attrition. But when I sat down to my computer to write, a luxury I give myself in the early morning hours whenever I can, all I could think about was that I'm not doing enough.

What's stopping me? Is it the hours in the day? The fear of seeing more? Seeing too much? Knowing more about the bad in the world makes my breath catch. I am afraid. When Nancy was sharing the details from the article she read about the Ohio ICE raid, I said, "Honey, we have to make our home available to harbor people." We have to do more. I texted my friend Michelle who does pro bono immigration counseling at El Centro de La Raza and said, "Tell me what to do!"

It's not okay, the world right now. It's not enough to just be grateful for what I have, for the freedoms I experience. Right now my chest is tight. I can feel the fear that I will fail, that I'll never be able to make a difference. And then I think about these families who are being separated and deported. I imagine the fear they must experience. It must be beyond fear-- terror, trauma.  It's true--"No one is free when others are oppressed." I might feel the freedom because I am financially secure and an American citizen, but I'm not free. This tightness in my chest tells me as much. I don't have the perfect answer for what I should do. I don't really have any answers right now,  but I know that counting the days is not it.

Take it to the limit....

I love harmony. I impose it on every song I sing, regardless if my addition makes the song more harmonious or more hideous. Singing is my church. I do it every week in my not-church choir and, next to Yoga, it is one of the true things that heals my soul. If I could, I would sing when I teach, but, unlike our gifted teacher Katy, who can sing solo and melt a room, I need other voices. I’m much more audibly palatable with a group.

My sisters Katherine and Amy and I, achieved relative kitchen fame in high school singing Ebony and Ivory by Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney. Later, in college, we hit the big time with Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls.

After college, my twin sister Katherine and I left our little sister Amy behind in Chicago and fled to Seattle to make it big, doing something, anything. One of the instigators for choosing Seattle was that my best friend from college, Allegra, had moved there. Allegra was a real singer. She grew up in New York, daughter of a jazz musician who played saxophone with Tito Puentes. Allegra went to the School for Performing Arts as a music major and she had a truly beautiful voice. She also actually knew how to make harmony.

During college, Allegra and I spent countless hours in the quad practicing harmonious renditions of songs Allegra deemed appropriate for our voice combo. After college, once we were both in Seattle, we started harmonizing the Eagles. Boom! As soon as Allegra launched into Take it to the Limit,  I knew that’s why Kat and I had come to Seattle. We were going to work with Allegra and master that song. We would win a Grammy with our twin-sis duo of Take it to the Limit. We studied that song. We practiced that song. We even choreographed moves to that song. There were opportunities to make harmony everywhere and we loved it.

“All alone, at the end of the evening….” On “alone”, Kat would go low and I would go high. Oooohhhhh. Yeahhhh. Incredible….. Amazing. Then, we’d hit that  A cappella madness again on “evening.” The song continued on like that until the end, with the sisters splitting those notes like two hands opening a closing from a prayer. We would move people, bring them to tears. “Where have these two been?” fans would say.  

We didn’t hit it big. Take it to the Limit never made it out of our apartment. I mostly sing Eagles alone now, or with the radio, but I can still hear Katherine’s voice every time I sing. Her low to my high. Even when I’m singing alone, there will always be that harmony. And, though it will be a very rare day that I ever sing alone in the yoga room, I know Katy takes requests. If I hear her singing Take it to The Limit I won't be able to help myself.  The harmony will grab me and I'll jump right in!