clearing head
I am going to attempt to write and get things cleared out and sorted in my own head. there's a lot in there. i don't claim that it will make sense, but i need to do it. so here goes. deep breath. ready? ok, let's dive down together...
reflecting back on the past few months...names that come to the surface: zake, mark, irving, izze, laura, missy..places that come to the surface: oregon, bend, washington, bellingham, tennessee, nashville....things that come to the surface: love, travel, covid, sadness, happiness, confusion, hope, dreams, contentedness, roots. the next bit of writing will focus on all of this and probably more.
I shall start off by diving into Bend and how my last few months there left me feeling: content, lost, happy, sad, disappointed and loved all at the same time. in retrospect i realize that no matter what you do, you can never please everyone, no matter how hard you try, in the end you may wind up causing hurt and bringing harm to those you love the most. try and grasp the truth and you realize sometimes you'll never see it. Zake and i are no longer friends. that hurts. why are we no longer friends? i have no idea. i feel like i also lost mark as a friend in the process. why? i have no idea. it has been hard to distance myself and look at life and friendships from a distance when you're caught up in it and people who once called you their best friends, and people who said you would always be friends, are no longer there. and how to pick up the pieces and carry on when you're not entirely sure how you fucked up at all? i have come to learn a thing or two about decency and how the expectations you hold out for others, common courtesies and things of this nature are often times not reciprocated. moving forward, you try and let it go. keep carrying on. 998 people tell you that you are a good person. 2 people you consider close friends tell you otherwise. and those are enough to tip the scales. obviously those opinions carry much weight. but how to leave that be? i don't know. i simply woke up one day and became the accused. to what end? for what reason? how is it that i can simply be one day and the next i am entirely written off? where is the world going where this is the norm? it's hard to move on from things like these. and this is where i was going with common courtesy and decency. to write off 5 years of friendship, 6 years of friendship, without giving me the chance to explain myself? that just hurts. and in these cases it's easy to respond with: "well then go ahead and fuck right off, if our friendship doesn't even warrant a a face-to-face discussion on the matter, on whatever wrong i have done to hurt you, then go ahead and fuck right off because i don't have space in my life for people like you." and that is all very true. but it's hard not to notice the empty space in your life when people up and leave like that. and so i wind up here. wondering about old friends and mettle and whether or not i should make more effort to leave them in the past. maybe someday our paths will cross again. who knows? i may revisit this later. i def have more to get out. expand more on specifics. but for now i will leave it alone and move on to the next subject.
it was 2 days ago. i'm waking up in bellingham: my new home. i am feeling grouchy. i drop izze off at her doctors appt and head to haggen to pick up some necessities. as i'm walking out of the store i cross the street towards Jeep. as i get to the other side an older Indian man is approaching me. i glance at him and quickly look away, darting away to his right to give him space to pass. he looks at me and says: "why so scared?" once back to Jeep i erupted in a fit of fury. threw on some angry music and sped off to fume and rage in private. questions are raised here, lots of questions, lots of concern as well. if my crossing the street, glancing your way and subsequently giving you space as we pass each other constitutes racism then you have a big problem. my first question is: why is my attempt to give you space as we pass one another a problem for you? aren't we still in a pandemic? aren't 1000's of people still contracting and dying each day worldwide from this virus? isn't the 6 foot rule still an actual thing? what the fuck is wrong with you? secondly, did my eyes somehow betray me? did my eyes tell you: "i'm scared of you"? it makes me wonder. how is it that someone feels the need to dig this deeply to perpetuate their assumed feelings that everyone around them is a racist? and please don't get me wrong, i can never pretend to know what other people of color have been through. i am sure it has been hellish and traumatic and frustrating and infuriating and everything else, but to call another human being out like that is just absurd. and i could have gone off on him. explained to him that i am in fact a native american. that i have friends from all over the world from all walks of life. that he is gravely mistaken, but to what end? my point here is that with many things in life, where is the line drawn? when did assumptions ever become an "ok" thing? the fact that one person can assume so much about me and my life in one flash of a second disturbs me greatly. as if this person is manifesting his fear of racism upon me and perpetuating it outwards to prove his deeply seated beliefs? as if he will go home and tell his family about another "white dude" he encountered at the market who showed that he has fear of people who have differently colored skin. and so the cycle continues. and where does it end? how can this situation be avoided? perhaps it would have been better if we could sit down and talk. have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea and talk. but i was honestly so angry there was no way that was going to happen right there on the street. it disturbs me that in this case, racism is perceived and in his mind confirmed and there is nothing there to disprove otherwise. where does it end? where does it begin? i just don't know.
for now i think this is it. i wanted to touch on a few other subjects but i think this is all i can do for now. i'll circle back around later on and touch on all of this again. this is the first layer of many that proceed deeper and deeper and deeper. lets dive down there again together, but later. goodbye for now.
zach
reflecting back on the past few months...names that come to the surface: zake, mark, irving, izze, laura, missy..places that come to the surface: oregon, bend, washington, bellingham, tennessee, nashville....things that come to the surface: love, travel, covid, sadness, happiness, confusion, hope, dreams, contentedness, roots. the next bit of writing will focus on all of this and probably more.
I shall start off by diving into Bend and how my last few months there left me feeling: content, lost, happy, sad, disappointed and loved all at the same time. in retrospect i realize that no matter what you do, you can never please everyone, no matter how hard you try, in the end you may wind up causing hurt and bringing harm to those you love the most. try and grasp the truth and you realize sometimes you'll never see it. Zake and i are no longer friends. that hurts. why are we no longer friends? i have no idea. i feel like i also lost mark as a friend in the process. why? i have no idea. it has been hard to distance myself and look at life and friendships from a distance when you're caught up in it and people who once called you their best friends, and people who said you would always be friends, are no longer there. and how to pick up the pieces and carry on when you're not entirely sure how you fucked up at all? i have come to learn a thing or two about decency and how the expectations you hold out for others, common courtesies and things of this nature are often times not reciprocated. moving forward, you try and let it go. keep carrying on. 998 people tell you that you are a good person. 2 people you consider close friends tell you otherwise. and those are enough to tip the scales. obviously those opinions carry much weight. but how to leave that be? i don't know. i simply woke up one day and became the accused. to what end? for what reason? how is it that i can simply be one day and the next i am entirely written off? where is the world going where this is the norm? it's hard to move on from things like these. and this is where i was going with common courtesy and decency. to write off 5 years of friendship, 6 years of friendship, without giving me the chance to explain myself? that just hurts. and in these cases it's easy to respond with: "well then go ahead and fuck right off, if our friendship doesn't even warrant a a face-to-face discussion on the matter, on whatever wrong i have done to hurt you, then go ahead and fuck right off because i don't have space in my life for people like you." and that is all very true. but it's hard not to notice the empty space in your life when people up and leave like that. and so i wind up here. wondering about old friends and mettle and whether or not i should make more effort to leave them in the past. maybe someday our paths will cross again. who knows? i may revisit this later. i def have more to get out. expand more on specifics. but for now i will leave it alone and move on to the next subject.
it was 2 days ago. i'm waking up in bellingham: my new home. i am feeling grouchy. i drop izze off at her doctors appt and head to haggen to pick up some necessities. as i'm walking out of the store i cross the street towards Jeep. as i get to the other side an older Indian man is approaching me. i glance at him and quickly look away, darting away to his right to give him space to pass. he looks at me and says: "why so scared?" once back to Jeep i erupted in a fit of fury. threw on some angry music and sped off to fume and rage in private. questions are raised here, lots of questions, lots of concern as well. if my crossing the street, glancing your way and subsequently giving you space as we pass each other constitutes racism then you have a big problem. my first question is: why is my attempt to give you space as we pass one another a problem for you? aren't we still in a pandemic? aren't 1000's of people still contracting and dying each day worldwide from this virus? isn't the 6 foot rule still an actual thing? what the fuck is wrong with you? secondly, did my eyes somehow betray me? did my eyes tell you: "i'm scared of you"? it makes me wonder. how is it that someone feels the need to dig this deeply to perpetuate their assumed feelings that everyone around them is a racist? and please don't get me wrong, i can never pretend to know what other people of color have been through. i am sure it has been hellish and traumatic and frustrating and infuriating and everything else, but to call another human being out like that is just absurd. and i could have gone off on him. explained to him that i am in fact a native american. that i have friends from all over the world from all walks of life. that he is gravely mistaken, but to what end? my point here is that with many things in life, where is the line drawn? when did assumptions ever become an "ok" thing? the fact that one person can assume so much about me and my life in one flash of a second disturbs me greatly. as if this person is manifesting his fear of racism upon me and perpetuating it outwards to prove his deeply seated beliefs? as if he will go home and tell his family about another "white dude" he encountered at the market who showed that he has fear of people who have differently colored skin. and so the cycle continues. and where does it end? how can this situation be avoided? perhaps it would have been better if we could sit down and talk. have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea and talk. but i was honestly so angry there was no way that was going to happen right there on the street. it disturbs me that in this case, racism is perceived and in his mind confirmed and there is nothing there to disprove otherwise. where does it end? where does it begin? i just don't know.
for now i think this is it. i wanted to touch on a few other subjects but i think this is all i can do for now. i'll circle back around later on and touch on all of this again. this is the first layer of many that proceed deeper and deeper and deeper. lets dive down there again together, but later. goodbye for now.
zach