Category: Emotions

The Beginning: 1962-1963

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

yearbookIn September of 1962, I entered Mt. Carmel High School as a freshman. I was not quite fourteen years old and looked as though I was only about ten. At under five feet tall and only about seventy pounds I was a tiny girl who didn’t appear to belong. I was both excited and terrified as I walked down the wide gleaming halls in the two story building that still looked as new as it had when it was built only a few years before. I had been warned that members of the upper classes might try to sell me an elevator pass and that I was to politely refuse to purchase one because there was no elevator in the building. It was easy to tell the fish from those who had already spent a year or more studying in those classrooms. We wandered with dazed looks on our faces as we attempted to take in the magnitude of our new phase of life.

The girls looked a bit uncomfortable in our brand new uniforms which seemed to have been designed to make us look as unattractive as possible. We would eventually grow to hate the brown and white pleated skirts, white button shirts, and brown flannel jackets that were our daily wear but in those early days it was all brand new and we did not yet understand how weary we would become of donning the same outfit every single day.

Our teachers were no nonsense as they outlined the requirements for each class. They insinuated that we would have to demonstrate our mettle or be left behind. It felt as though we were in a military boot camp as we wondered how it was even possible to read and report on a book each week while also writing two hundred word themes that would be due every Monday morning. It was difficult to work the combination locks on our lockers and still have time to rush to class from one floor to the next. There was so much to remember, so much to do and learn. I don’t recall much from the beginning because I felt as though I was in a daze but soon enough we all had adjusted to our routines.

The best part of being in high school was a new found freedom that we had never before experienced. Nobody was treating us like babies any longer. We became responsible for ourselves and it was exhilarating. There were also so many new faces with people coming from all over southeast Houston to join us in our adventure. At first I felt shy and self conscious, especially around the older students, but before long I was enjoying brand new friendships that would only grow as I worked my way through the next four years.

This was a year of profound change all around the world. Pope John XXIII died during that school term and would many years later become a saint. A little musical group from Liverpool, England would score a music hit with a catchy tune called I Want To Hold Your Hand. Rachel Carson would alert mankind to the dangers of polluting our environment in Silent Spring. Charles Schulz would introduce Happiness Is a Warm Puppy and Crick, Wilson, and Watson would earn the Nobel Price for Medicine and Physiology for determining the molecular structure of DNA. In my hometown of Houston Dr. Michael DeBakey used the first artificial heart during surgery.

I loved my teachers and my classmates almost instantly. Father Shane, my English teacher, would become a beloved icon and inspiration both for my writing and my career in education. Sister Wanda somehow made Latin fun and Father Bernard opened up the heavens for me in our Physical Science class. Father Franklin did his best to teach us Algebra I but I still suspect that I mostly self taught myself when I went home each evening to unravel the confusion that I felt after each of his lectures. Sister Francina was as sweet as can be but I often experienced stark terror whenever she began shuffling the index cards that contained each of our names so that she might randomly quiz us on the reading that we were supposed to have done the previous night.

Mostly though I loved all of the extracurricular activities associated with a high school. I joined the newspaper and became a cub reporter, although my contributions were minimal. I traveled with the Medical Careers Club on field trips to the Houston Medical Center thinking that I might one day pursue a degree in medicine. I loved our class journeys to the Alley Theater and to the Music Hall to hear the Houston Symphony. I became a member of the Student Council  and for a time marched with the Cadets drill team. Best of all were the Friday night football games where we all met to blow off the stress from studying and to just laugh and yell and be ourselves.

Mt. Carmel sponsored a dance every Saturday night in the school cafeteria. It was open to anyone willing to pay the small entry fee. Disc jockeys from radio station KNUZ played the latest music and sometimes even secured live bands. They advertised on the radio so we usually drew a nice crowd. I went almost every Saturday night and loved listening to the music and visiting with my classmates. I learned the true meaning of being a wallflower as I often found myself relegated to sitting in the metal chairs that lined the perimeter of the dance floor. Somehow I still managed to enjoy the evening even when I never got the opportunity to hit the dance floor.

I was in awe of the older students in the school. I thought that Gerri Gallerano was the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen and since she always smiled at me when she passed in the hallway I knew that she was also quite sweet. I formed a new friendship with a girl named Claudia who had gone to my previous school but whom I had never really known that well. Her sister Camille was a senior who kept us well informed regarding the dos and don’ts of high school society. She was so down to earth and would serve as a major inspiration for me for years. I never really got to know many of the juniors but since my cousin, Ingrid, was in the sophomore class, as was my next door neighbor, I felt more comfortable with them. I had major crushes on several of the sophomore boys but their names will go with me to the grave.

The freshman year of the Class of 1966 would prove to be quite wonderful. Somehow we managed to meet all of the impossible deadlines that our teachers set for us while we were being transformed from babies into bonafide teenagers. We had little warning that the our innocence and that of the world would soon be put to the test. For the time being we lived in a comfortable world where the halls were filled with our laughter and we were certain that the hopes and dreams that we whispered to one another as we walked from class to class would surely come true.

I now look at the cute little faces of my classmates in the yearbook for 1962-1963 and I wonder how I possibly felt intimidated and shy around anyone. All of the kids wear expressions that are so sweet and eager to please. Their smiles are genuine and inviting. It is easy to see that we were all good people beginning a four year journey in which each of us would be forever changed.

Big Girls Do Cry

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

woman-cryingI didn’t cry much when my father died, not because I had no emotions but rather because I somehow believed that I needed to stay strong for my mother and my brothers. I don’t think that it was particularly healthy of me to prevent the natural feelings that were causing me so much internal pain from becoming public. For a great deal of my life I have tended to be stoic. I’ve often put forth a strong face when what I really wanted to do was allow myself to sob. Over time I realized that tears and sadness are a natural aspect of our humanity that is to be celebrated rather than hidden. We are made to react to hurt and loss and pain with a release of our real feelings. Big girls really do cry and it is not just an okay thing to do, but a therapeutic release. When our minds and bodies urge us to set our tears free, we should feel comfortable responding to the instinct.

Of late I have been crying a great deal, but still not so much in front of other people. I’m in the process of becoming able to do that. It have been through a difficult three months as have so many. I find myself reliving the moment when my husband had his stroke, and I cry, mostly because I am relieved that he is still alive and thriving. I have cried almost every single day for the last month because invariably I see or hear something related to the horrible flood in my city, and I sense the struggles that so many are still enduring and will face for months to come. I can hardly watch the news reports of the conditions in Puerto Rico, a place that I recall being so friendly and beautiful. The images that flash across the screen are heartbreaking, and I feel helpless, so I cry. I have cried for my friends whose relatives have so recently died and for those who are reliving the anniversaries of such losses. I cried for my father-in-law who had an accident that has left him barely able to move. I shed twelve hours of tears while watching the Ken Burns series on Vietnam that ran for the last two weeks on PBS. The memories of that era of my life are still raw with emotion and the poignancy of the presentation brought long past feelings to the surface once again. I have cried for the state of our country today which seems as divided and angry and confused as it did back then. Problems that I believed to have been solved were evidently just festering beneath the surface. All of it has made me feel weary because I know of no magical solutions to make things better, and so I cry.

I am by nature a peacemaker. I have always wanted to help people to get along. I have loved living the role of a supporter, a motivator, an inspirer. I feel uncomfortable when people are angry and fighting. I suppose that this is because I learned so long ago that our lives are quite fragile. We simply do not know from one moment to the next how much more time we have on this earth, and so I believe that we must make the best of however many hours that we have. My heroes have been individuals like my Uncle William who was the epitome of kindness. I would be quite surprised to learn of even a single time when he purposely set out to hurt someone. He was a man who mostly set aside his own thoughts and did his very best to consider the wants and needs and dreams of everyone else around him. He was always willing to listen and to love. In that regard as a child I viewed him as the strongest person that I ever knew and my assessment of him has never changed.

I remember our neighbor Mr. Barry who everyone seemed to regard as a living saint. There was nothing wimpy about him. He had served in the Navy during World War II. He managed a large bank for years. He knew how to get things done, but he always accomplished them with an eye toward being sympathetic and good. He was one of those people who noticed the individual who was unseen by everyone else. He didn’t know it, but he was the male role model that I needed after my own father died.

There is a tendency these days to admire people who possess what I call a false bravado, individuals who bully, blame others for their mistakes and take pride in demeaning those who do not agree with them. I personally find such folks to be offensive and weak. They remind me of a student that I once had who found joy in hurting other kids. When he went after a blind girl in order to increase his own popularity I put him down with a vengeance that I never used on another student before or since. I was unwilling to allow him to parade like a champion when what he had done was so vile and cowardly. For that reason I have cried a  great deal of late, because our society appears to be mesmerized by those who behave the ugliest. It is something that I can’t understand.

Social media was a lifesaver during our Houston floods. I kept my sanity because I was able to stay in touch with friends and family members during the long days and nights when the waters filled our streets and homes. Unfortunately there is a negative aspect of that same wondrous means of communication that is hacking away at our decency. I suppose that it is simply too easy these days to dash off a quick and dirty reply to any person or situation that offends us. When we don’t have to look someone in the eye it is more likely that we will be willing to vent in ways that are hurtful. Too often we forget to think about how our comments may affect someone else. Too many among us don’t take the time to consider the impact of our words. When I see the fighting that ensues among people who were once friends and family members it makes me cry. There is simply no reason for any of us to be hateful, and yet even some of our leaders are not able to control their basest tendencies.

I am weary of hearing epithets about snowflakes, commies, ingrates, sons of bitches, entitled kids, abominable people, fascists, racists, homophobes, rednecks, ignoramuses. I listen as we devour one another with words and accusations that often have little or no basis in fact, and yet we speak as though they are gospel. I grow tired of seeing memes and tweets that trivialize serious situations or poke fun at entire groups of people. We seem intent on boiling a pot of furor, and so I cry.

I remember a time when I went on a civil rights tour with my students. We sat in the church in Birmingham where little girls were murdered because of hate. We crossed a bridge in Selma where fire hoses and snarling dogs had once been let lose on protestors whose only crime was asking for the same rights as their white counterparts. I walked down the street toward the capitol building in Montgomery and remembered the hateful rhetoric of  George Wallace. I cried as I looked at my students and remembered the violence and racism that I had witnessed when I was young. I stood in Dr. King’s kitchen and ran my hand across the very table where he sat and prayed for God’s guidance. I cried as I thought of his courage and wisdom and I knew that he too would always be one of my heroes.

I cry when I think of Jesus and the lessons He taught us, the sacrifices that He made. I wonder why it seems so difficult for us humans to follow His very simple message of love whether we believe He was God or not. What is it in our natures that makes us complicate and misinterpret His words? Why did we not learn how horrific hate can become from His death on the cross? What prevents us from being like my uncle or the man who was my neighbor?

As I grow older I find that I remember the kindnesses that were extended to me and I cry tears of joy and gratitude when I recall the people who touched my heart so beautifully. I also think of the ugly things that I have witnessed. They make me cry as well. I had hoped that we would be evolving toward a better way of living with one another by now. Unfortunately we are instead being taunted to take the low road, to dialogue with our fellow men and women with rancor rather than understanding. We give power to the rabble rousers instead of ignoring them and siding with those who would challenge us to bring out the good that resides in our souls. The fact that this is happening makes me cry.

I would so much rather cry over a beautiful sunrise or sunset. I want to shed tears when I see people helping people. I want to release those positive emotions when I watch a toddler so innocently embracing the world. I would prefer feeling a heave in my heart from listening to music or sharing a wonderful time with friends and family. I know that there will be uncontrollable events like natural disasters and deaths, but I am so tired of seeing the kind made by people. It really is up to all of us to begin to demonstrate the kind of understanding that was the hallmark of Uncle William’s and Mr. Barry’s lives. Those two men were so loved because they never hesitated to love.

Perhaps the most telling story about my uncle came when he was delivering mail along the route that had been his for years. He came upon the mother of a notorious serial killer and the emotion that he felt for her was unadulterated love. He spoke of how sad it must have been for her to lose her only son under such circumstances. He did not judge the woman nor consider that she might have somehow been responsible for how her son had become. Instead he simply cared for her, and worried about how she would be now that her son was condemned to prison for life. My uncle taught me how to love. I’m still trying to be as good as he always was, and while I am learning I sometimes cry.

Tree

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

tree1024x1024There is a tree in Rockport, Texas that has been growing in the same spot for centuries. Some wise soul thought to save the old oak forever by declaring it an historical treasure and building a fence around it. People travel from all parts of the world just to stand under the shade of the sprawling limbs and to marvel at the girth of the ancient trunk. They snap photos of the wondrous image and try to imagine what the old tree has seen in its time on this earth. If only it could talk we might hear of native people pausing under its branches to rest after a day of hunting and fishing or learn of explorers from Spain who traveled along the Gulf Coast searching for cities of gold. Did the tree once see vast flocks of whooping cranes wintering in the area in their annual journey from Canada? How did it manage to withstand the forces of tropical storms and punishing hurricanes? What is its secret to long life?

We humans have love/hate relationships with trees. We plan trips to Vermont in the fall to marvel at the glorious colors of leaves but also cut down beautiful specimens to make way for factories. We plant trees in the yards of our new homes that once sat in forests that we eliminated to build our suburban communities. We enshrine trees in metaphorical poetry even as we topple them in real life. We use them for our own whims often forgetting that they are helping to provide the very oxygen that we breathe. They cool us and shelter us and we all too often take them for granted. When we flee from natural disasters we abandon them to bear the brunt of wind and water and fire.

Along the Big Thompson Canyon on the road leading from Loveland, Colorado to Estes Park is the dead stump of a once mighty tree. It is bent and gnarled into a contortion created by the power of the river that took homes from their foundations and turned nature’s bounty into piles of rubble. Somehow that tree has become a work of art. Its determination to hold fast to the rocks in which it once grew is a testament to its strength and flexibility. It stands as a sentinel as rugged as the huge boulders along the face of the canyon. It has somehow withstood the onslaught of both nature and humans.

We personify trees. They teach us lessons. We track our human history in their branches. We have a special kinship with trees, especially when we are hot and weary. We sit under their branches cooling ourselves and dreaming of futures that we may never see but they are more likely to enjoy. Trees remind us of ourselves as they travel along with us through the seasons and the years. They are our silent partners in a lifetime journey.

My paternal grandmother was a child of nature. Her father and her grandmother are buried in a national forest in Arkansas where their homestead once resided. It seems fitting that her ancestral home is now protected and allowed to return to a wild and unfettered state. She so loved to walk in the woods under a canopy of trees that sheltered the birds and critters that she enjoyed. When she died my grandfather handpicked a spot in the cemetery that sits under a grove of oaks whose limbs reach gracefully over her final resting place. She would have loved the serenity of the area. In life she marveled at nature’s wonders and seemed almost to be a mischievous sprite as she wandered in the forest behind her farm naming every tree, plant and bird that crossed her path.

Hanging on the wall at the entrance to my home is an image of an enormous tree spreading its limbs across a landscape of green. I have placed it there to welcome my guests and to remind myself of the glories of the natural world. The painting calms me and makes me smile. Gazing at it takes me to my roots. I think of the people whom I never met who had to live in order that I might now exist. Like the tree they once began with a tiny seed and then reached to the heavens with their dreams, becoming ever stronger with each new branch. I know their names but not their stories. I can only imagine what their lives had been based on what I know about the places where they lived. I wonder what they would think of me and the world in which I exist. I suspect that they would be happy that things have turned out as well for me and my extended clan as they have. After all, each of us wants the best for our children and grandchildren. We want to know that they will be safe.

One of my favorite books is Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. I have presented it as a gift many times over. I never tire of its story of unconditional love and sacrifice. I have now travelled through almost seven decades from the time when I was born. I have been the child, the teenager, the young adult, the middle aged individual and now the old person described in the tale. I have known both the exuberance and the drudgery of life, sometimes forgetting the people who have brought me to the place where I now linger. Like all humans I sometimes take my blessings for granted and even abuse the kindnesses that have been shown to me. I forget to be thankful and to simply enjoy the shade and the sound of the wind whispering through the leaves of the tree of life.

Trees keep me optimistic. They remind me that there is a continuity in this world that is bigger than our individual human efforts. We may falter and even become a bit full of ourselves but the ebb and flow of life remains essentially the same. We all benefit from being a bit more like trees. It is important that we “Stay grounded. Connect with our roots. Turn over new leaves. Bend before we break. Enjoy our unique natural beauty and keep growing.” (Joanne Chaptis) If we remember these simple rules we will surely find more of the contentment that we seek, especially in a world as seemingly mad as the one that we now face.

That tree in Rockport has seen more than we might ever imagine and still lives on. There is something rather nice about knowing that it is there and will be even when we are gone. Like the giant sequoias of Yosemite, the groves of Aspen in Rocky Mountain National Park and the countless shady lanes that soften the highways and byways across the land trees are the constant that we all wish to be in the world.

The Test

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

56750d678ee6c-imageFridays in the fall always meant one thing to me. There would be a test in on of my classes and a test of our school’s football team on the gridiron later that night. I was always feeling exhausted after a long week of assignments and high expectations from my teachers. Even though I was a Hermione of sorts when it came to academics I just wanted to get through the educational part of the day as quickly as possible and move on to the possibilities of the weekend, a time for taking a deep breath and avoiding the stress of study if only for a moment.

My school didn’t have a band but we did have an all girls drill team with a drum and bugle corps. It was considered a big thing to belong, a way of forming endearing friendships and being part of something revered by the student body. Surprisingly I wasn’t a member of the group. My decision was a huge disappointment to my mother.

My mom had spent money that she didn’t have to provide me with baton twirling lessons from the time that I was in the third grade. In my middle school years I had performed as a twirler in the drill squad and had eventually risen to the rank of Captain. Mama had assumed that I would continue the quest to become the drum major in high school but in an uncharacteristic fit of rebellion I had refused to try out for one of the coveted twirling positions and had instead chosen to become a lowly marcher on the team. Due to my then diminutive size I was in the very last row of performers, a kind of afterthought.

My downfall from the glory of leading the group as a twirler was more than my dear mother could handle and she announced that if I wanted to be on the team I would have to find a way to pay the fees and attend the practices on my own. Since I barely had enough money saved to purchase the many school supplies that I needed it became quickly apparent that I would have to drop out of the coveted drill team group and become a nameless member of the horde of students that freely trolled the stands under the Friday night lights. I chose the unconventional road and it ended up being not so bad after all.

I never had a car or a driver’s license. Such luxuries were not included in our very tight family budget. I bummed rides to the football games with anyone that I could find and thoroughly enjoyed our free and easy excursions. We had no uniform code or rules. We were just out and about for the evening. We’d crank up the volume on the radio which was always tuned to the popular stations of the time and rock to the songs of The Beach Boys and The Animals. We’d laugh and sing and swear that on this night our team was going to topple the opponents. We’d whisper our hopes of encountering  certain male someones from our classes and scoring romantic conquests of our own. It was all so glorious and magical.

Our football team always tried but never ranked with the greats around our state of Texas. I went to a Catholic school that was rather small by public school standards. Our arch rival was St. Thomas High School, an all boys institution that prided itself in both academics and a championship athletic program. During my high school years they dominated football, winning the state title several times. Still with the optimism that was mine in my innocence I always dreamed that my team would one day be David to the St. Thomas Goliath. It never happened but it was fun to keep the faith and cheer for our guys even in the face of defeat.

I was an enthusiastic supporter of my classmates who braved the gridiron. I saw them as superheroes, young lions strutting their physical acumen. I yelled so long and hard at those games that I often returned home with a voice so weak that I was barely able to relate my adventures to my mom. I never scored with any of the guys with whom I self consciously flirted even though I often tried. I should have been disappointed by so many of those Friday nights but instead I remember them as being the highlight of my week. Win or lose it was glorious to shed the stresses of studying and taking tests and just hang out with friends. Screaming for my team and laughing at the antics of my fellow students freed the pent up frustrations and emotions associated with my attempts to successfully meet the sometimes daunting demands of my teachers.

Our football team’s most successful year came when I was a senior. For a brief moment I imagined that we might actually topple the might St. Thomas Eagles but that was not going to happen. Back then I had no idea that I would one day meet a young man from St. Thomas who would steal my heart and teach me how to love my one time foes. We would become parents and then grandparents cheering new teams and still enjoying those Friday night challenges that light up entire towns across Texas on cool fall evenings.

Tonight we’ll be at the Pearland Oil Rig stadium to watch the clash between Dawson High School and George Ranch. We will be torn in our allegiance because the kids in our neighborhood attend Dawson. In fact the young lady next door is one of the cheerleaders. On the other hand our grandchildren attend George Ranch.  We’ll wear the George Ranch colors and sit on their side of the field but in the end we really can’t lose because we have grown to love all of the young people who live around us who catch the bus for Dawson each morning right in front of our home. It’s a win win situation all around.

I rarely have any kind of tests these days other than those to explain my medical ailments. I have left the stress of long academic weeks behind. I am retired so even work is no longer a worry. I have new concerns over which I have little control. I fret about friends who are sick and suffering. I tutor my grandchildren and students at local high schools and middle schools and often think of them taking a critical exam. I feel a bit nervous for them when I look at the clock and realize that they are in the midst of taking a test for which I helped them study. I pray that they will remain calm and remember the ideas that we discussed. I mentally root for them as much as I did for the athletes who represented me and my school so long ago.

Life is the ultimate test of our wisdom, courage and endurance. As I attempt to make the very best of what will inevitably be the final phase of my life I at long last understand that it is okay to be unsure of all the answers and to lose from time to time. We gain as much from defeats as from victories, from mistakes as from success. In the end we are tested not so much on our abilities as in how we have lived and treated those who have walked along beside us. I’d like to believe that most of us have passed with flying colors.

Facade

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

1902474be6161ed7fa088914cd72e4b7We all enjoy the world of make believe. As children we listen intently to stories from the imagination and we never quite lose our thirst for enchanting tales. In the adult world tales of dragons and dead people who reanimate excite us even as we understand that they are not real. We humans enjoy flights of fancy and we have become expert at creating visions so detailed and true to life that we are able to suspend our disbelief and fully immerse ourselves in fictions that distract us from the grind of daily living. We build theme parks where we escape for hours into fantastic worlds with rides that both thrill and frighten us. Somehow we need entertainment that is part unbelievable and part akin to our own lives. It is as though the comedy and tragedy of existence is not enough to stimulate our thinking. We humans are extraordinary in our thirst for creative genius.

Mankind began artistry rather simply. People decorated their bodies with colors from the earth and festooned themselves with feathers, shells, horns and animal skins. Some extended their inventive urges to paintings on the walls of caves and the oral traditions of tales that recorded history or taught important ideas. We thought to develop alphabets and refined ways of scrawling notations onto surfaces that we might carry from one place to another. We improved our tools and even while we eked out survival we paused for moments of entertainment. There is no other earthly creature that does such things. Our history is one of wars and violence and humane progress. We enshrine heroes both true and make believe. We speak of man’s fatal flaws in stories so universal that they ring true even centuries after they were written. We face down our tragedies at the same time that we cloak them in facades.

The truth is often so horrific and difficult to face that we deal with it much better if it is presented in metaphors. We are able to think and react to a movie when we might turn away from what is real. A sympathetic hero or heroine allows us to suspend our prejudices and judgements for a moment so that our minds are free to consider new possibilities. We forget that the view that we see in a play or a film is usually made of cardboard and the technology of computers. We sometimes believe a well crafted story with a cast of brilliant actors more than we do the evidence that exists right before our eyes. Sometimes we have to escape from what is real to find the truths that we need to hear.

Shakespeare said that we are all actors on a stage. We prepare our faces and our lines before we emerge from our homes each day to interact with the audiences who expect certain behaviors from us. We think before we speak. We dress in accordance with fashion and the dictates of our jobs. We strut and compete to win the best roles. We aim to please so that we might earn the accolades and goodies that allow us to survive. Few of us have the courage to fully be our true selves wherever we go. We wait to reveal who we really are to those in whom we trust. We have learned that it is risky to be any other way but we secretly admire those among us who shoot the finger to conventions. It is difficult to keep up a facade.

Social media sites provide us with a forum for truth. They appear to provide us with freedom, power and anonymity. It is easy to type in the words that are struggling to leave our minds and then walk away. There is nobody standing in front of us when we hit the send or post buttons. We do not feel the fears of confrontation and yet our spontaneous actions are not without repercussions. Others feel just as daring and verbal jousts often ensue. As we tear down our facades of politeness the world becomes littered with commentaries and insults that hover forever as evidence of our frustrations. We want to be able to own our thoughts but experience has taught us that to do so is fraught with dangers. After we are burned we replace the masks that we wear for protection. We feign ignorance of our mistakes and sometimes even turn away from the discussions that gave us a false courage. We learn that nobody really wants to know our ideas nor do they value our opinions. We only make others angry when we speak the truth and most of us dislike the battles that follow

We instinctively know that much of what we see and hear is as unreal as the fiction that entertains us. We desire good news and so there are those who manipulate us into believing that they are the bearers of good tidings when all they really want is power over our thoughts and feelings. Only the very confident and strong are willing to stand their ground and take the abuse that comes from nobly shouting the truths that we find uncomfortable to hear. They are the stuff of legend. They often suffer for their honor. We see their like both in fictional heroes and reality. They are King Lear and Martin Luther King, Jr., Kaleesi and Rosa Parks.

We humans are a funny lot. We are truth seekers who live behind our protective facades. We are brave and cautious. We risk speaking honestly and we lie. We walk into danger and we run away. Our very natures and physiology prompt us to take chances and to protect ourselves. There is a constant tug of war between good and bad, bravery and cowardice. Like Batman we are one person in the light of day and another in the dark of night. We hate our facades but understand the need to couch our words and actions in acceptable forms of behavior. All of us are prisoners in some ways and free in others. The facades that we build protect us from misunderstandings and judgements. They give us an illusion of strength and security but we always know that they are not real. It is only when we are with the people who allow us to remove our masks and the fake fronts that we feel the liberation that each of us seek. It is called unconditional love and we crave it.

It would be glorious if we were to one day find that tolerance had become universal. How invigorating it would feel to know that each person might fully embrace his/her uniqueness without fear of being misunderstood or ostracized. We are working on reaching that point but still have a long way to go. Sadly our facades will have stay in place for now.