We sat in our rooms for weeks.
We have been quiet, even wearing fabric over our mouths.
We sat quiet for a long time.
We sat quiet with less distractions.
We sat quiet and saw people all over the world with fabric over their mouths. Just like us.
And then, we sat quiet for eight minutes and forty six seconds and something inside of us broke and woke up.
Something that might have needed the quiet of the previous weeks to feel its full dark red pulse.
Something that made it impossible to stay in our rooms and to stay quiet.
Now, after weeks of rest and quiet, we are loud and we are out of our rooms.
We are heart broken and we are powerful.

🟡 Like maybe never before.

I am sorry for having felt nervous, that night in Paris when having taken the last metro home we saw a group of black men gathered on the sidewalk ahead of us.⠀
⠀
I am sorry for having been deeply uncomfortable my first day in Marrakech, surrounded by crowds of veiled women whose eyes was all I could see. ⠀
⠀
I am sorry when months later and having by then lived among women who wore the burka, I was impatient with a friend’s own discomfort at their presence in my car.⠀
⠀
I am sorry that I did not understand how my living in a tiny hilltop medieval village in Italy created some unease in the lifelong residents. ⠀
⠀
I am sorry for any time I have raised my voice at my children, using my chronological age as a justification to do so. ⠀
⠀
I am sorry that I sometimes get impatient when on the phone with a heavily accented customer representative. ⠀
⠀
I am aching to my core for every one of my relatives who has been insulted, terrorized, humiliated and murdered because of their religion. ⠀
⠀
I am sorry that I brought up my children in a place where they had very little chance of meeting a person with dark skin (and so grateful that as they grew up they fixed that) ⠀
⠀
I am sorry for any harsh words I have said to myself. ⠀
⠀
I am sorry for any time I have allowed a seed of lack of compassion, dominance, judgement and hardness that lives inside of me to sprout and take over my words and actions.⠀
⠀
I am crushed and sorry for any time in the future when I may forget to remember how very, very sorry I am today. ⠀
⠀
I am promising to do better⠀

We’re quick to decide whether something is good or bad.

We take a looksie around a situation, add in a few metrics, layer in a few comparisons and then out pops an opinion.

We may like the opinion or not. But there it is.

And pretty soon The Opinion starts to grow roots. It finds validation, confirmation and self importance.

It stands taller, speaks more loudly.

The stronger it becomes, the tighter its hold on us. Funny thing is that this hold does not feel all that good, deep down, in the quiet parts of us.

Our hearts shrink in the shadow of this certitude.

Exclusivity grows tendrils of grief.

The Opinion has gone from something we birthed to something that pretends to be us.

We’ve been taken over.

But in the softness of our humaneness, in the tenderness of our vulnerability, we can find the courage to wiggle our way out.

And stand in the sunlight, almost naked but free.

🍋 And with a deep, deep lemon-mint infused breath, we can fully feel the pleasure of a wide open I Don’t Know.