NaBloPoMo 2020 — Today’s Lesson

It’s Election Day Eve.  Big day tomorrow.  What do you need? 

A few of us asked each other this question today.  I need to stay connected to my tribe and get good sleep.  Another needs to form a tribe, learn to reach out and connect on her own terms.  Others need safety.  Crystal ball, genie, group hug (but COVID GRRRRR), a certain election outcome…  I suggested maybe we need an hourly, one song, Zoom dance-along throughout the day.  The playlist is growing.

After multiple queries it becomes clear, as it always does, that more than anything, we need each other.  My Facebook friend, a Trump supporter, told me how a colleague came to work crying the day after in 2016.  He hugged her.  No matter what I think of his politics I need for him and me to stay friends, to commit to not abandoning each other as fellow humans and fellow Americans.  I’m not sure if that’s what he needs… I should ask.

We all need, once again as always, to feel seen, heard, understood, accepted, and loved.  And we need to help others feel it, too.  This does not mean we are not held responsible for our words and actions, and the harm we cause with both.  Compassion and empathy are not exclusive of accountability and reform. 

We need vulnerability and courage.  We need to come alongside rather than come at.  We need to monitor and manage our own assumptions, to hold a mirror to ourselves and own our contributions to current state.  We need calm, discipline, breath, and self-control.

We need to heal.

We need grace—to give and to receive.