Floundering

Today I floundered just a bit…not too badly, but slightly off balance. The housekeepers visited, and they did a mediocre job. I’ve switched from a service provider to an independent lady. She’s a bit cheaper than the provider, and I enjoy paying her directly rather than the company that only gives her a fraction of my payment. It will be fine, although I may have to ask directly for certain things. They took care of the big stuff, like bathroom and kitchen, so all was not lost. I had a headache after they left, however, because the dog felt compelled to bark and wrestle with me the entire time they were here. She then went to sleep, but my head kept throbbing.

I guess the reason I was so off kilter today had to do with this dental saga. Just as I was about to plunk all my chips down on the last dentist I saw, I suddenly had the bright idea to get one more opinion. The big hesitancy is the cost, so I’d like to feel as though I’ve done my due diligence about that. I contacted another provider for a 3rd opinion, so I will see if they can see me for a consultation and then I will make a final decision. I need to get on with this.

Beyond the dental mess and the housekeeping issues, I was just out of synch and off my game. I had no real clarity of thought, about much of anything. Nothing particularly bothering me but I felt rather flat. Fortunately, that feeling dissipated a little while ago when I heard the speaker at last night’s 10pm meeting. She was fantastic, and I related to her in a huge way. She could be one of my cousins, judging by her appearance, and for the first time on a meeting anywhere anytime there was talk about race because she identifies as Black, like me. I shared that I have not heard race discussed outright at a meeting in many, many years if ever. Race is not what caused my addiction, but my experience with it certainly contributed to the feeling of not fitting in anywhere, not being able to relate to people, feeling as though I had to be someone else to be accepted and to succeed, not knowing exactly who I was. Making those connections was huge, and I am still learning how to be comfortable in my own skin and not wasting time attempting to be someone else.

How race is handled in this country is truly phenomenal. Racial inequity has been a part of us since the very first day, and though we’ve done better at acknowledging that it’s still a divisive issue. White, or European, supremacy came to the New World on the first ship that landed here. All these years later, how I walk through the world is vastly different from how white people walk through the world. When it comes to things like addiction, however, substance abuse knows no race, creed, color, or ethnicity. It does, however, add another layer to issues of needing to self-medicate, anesthetize, and heal. But when Alcoholics Anonymous began, Blacks and Native Americans were not welcome at meetings, and neither were women. It took a minute for all that to settle out, and sometimes non-white people find themselves buried in crowds of dominant culture participants. It ultimately doesn’t matter to the issue of recovery, but it’s another layer to connect in becoming who you’re meant to be Finding others who share your particular experience enhances the process.

I’m still looking in all kinds of places for where I can find people to whom I can relate, don’t have to explain or justify my experience. Having the people of color group at the Fellowship is serving that purpose for me these days. The social cues are different between cultures, I find. Often the humor is different. The references and their significance are different. It’s little things, like having a discussion about Ruby Bridges desegregating a public school in New Orleans at the age of 6 – people of all races knew the historical reference, but many white people said they did not know protesting white parents pulled their children out of the school after the federal authorities escorted Ruby inside. She was literally the only student in the school after the news cameras had vacated the scene. We all knew that in New Orleans, but most white people in other parts of the country did not have any idea about that part of the story.

The other thing I found incredible was that a white woman from New Orleans, who I met here in NC, was present at that chaotic and hateful demonstration at the elementary school. She is the same age as Ruby Bridges, and was a student at the school. As she told the story, the adults around here were screaming horrible things – “2,4,6,8 we don’t want to integrate! 8,6,4,2 we don’t want no jigaboo!” I know the the word jigaboo. The story-teller knew the word jigaboo. People here in NC and from other parts of the country had never heard the word. That was sobering, because we were living that history as children, but others were seeing it on television, with selective media coverage, and were totally detached many of the more unpleasant details.

I suppose that’s how it is with things going on in other parts of the world now – I’m watching the war in Gaza on television and live cam, reading coverage and opinions, but I’m not living with drones flying overhead in real time, or bombs exploding nearby, or not having clean water or food. Mass media is a great and wonderful thing, enabling us to have images from thousands of miles away nearly immediately, but still we miss so much due to selective reporting or the inability of the medium to transfer the authentic experience. We have no frame of reference for war on our soil in my lifetime. The attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, horrifying though it was, was just that – an attack. It was not active combat; there was no fighting or foreign combatants on the streets of American cities. Active retaliation took place in the Middle East, not here.

We are hard-wired for competition and control, and consequently for war. Humans have always fought, usually for resources. In more contemporary times, however, the battle is not for resources but for power. Power enables us to amass capital, and that gives us the ability to control and live life on our own terms. Or so we think. Most people can describe a time in their lives where they felt unfulfilled, unsatisfied, and believed the remedy for their dis-ease was to acquire more control, evidence by acquisition of a desired material thing. A new car, the dream house, once in a lifetime job opportunity, vacation to die for, etc. Unfortunately, once those immediate goals were fulfilled, the satisfaction was short-lived. It was only a matter of time before the malaise returned and a new target was generated. Ultimately we are never satisfied by acquisition of circumstantial control or material gain.

It would be easy to say that only spiritual development will ultimately satisfy us. I believe that’s what so many are searching for in houses of worship, adventure, and mind-altering substances. But we are not finding that expansion in religion or control of others or anywhere else. I wonder if we are simply too far removed from spirituality, if we have lost contact with our spiritual selves in favor of promoting our self-will and our self-aggrandizement. The vehicle for that is usually the mind, and it’s as simple as “I want what I want”, and then we’re back to the competition bias. In our current time, what we want is usually what someone else has – oil, money, power, control. If you have it, I want it, and I’m going to figure out a way to get it. I deserve it more than you do, because I’m better than you are.

That’s how this country started – Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, and when he got here to North America he claimed land that was already occupied for “God and the Queen”. Because he could, and because he was instructed to do so, and because it was deserved. To dispel any doubt about the deservedness, God spoke through agents of the deserving. Just to set the record straight, God was on the side of the colonists.

The New World had many highly desirable commodities, and certain people deserved to have benefit of them. People who were already here disagreed, and it’s went downhill from there. Ill gotten gains rarely prove to be of perpetual benefit without a fight, and that’s about where we are. We’ve upped our game, though, and taken the colonial show on the road to other lands and there’s even talk of intergalactic exploration for further expansion of our deservedness. If God is still on our side, I hope there is help coming forthwith.