Kimberly Emerson

So much has happened over the last few days.  Between trials in Florida and tampons in Texas (don’t ask – or just read Margaret and Helen‘s column about it), there is a tanker truck of blogging material.  Yet every time I try to write about it, a thought stops me: “Is this helpful?”

When I’m out with my nephews/godchildren/random kids on the street and they complain, I let them air their grievance once, and do my best to acknowledge their feelings.  By the second, third, or say, eighty-sixth time they repeat the lament, I ask them, “Is that helpful?” Sometimes they remain oblivious and my only recourse is to steer clear of pointy objects.  Every once in a while, though, they think about this, and then we talk about what they can do that might make things better (including knocking off the complaining so that they live to eat another bowl of mac and cheese).

Each time I’ve tried to put pen to paper this week, my own words echo in my head.  I’ve said and written a lot of unhelpful things over the past couple of days.  (Sainthood still eludes me.)  I was and still am angry.

Sometimes I think God must like messy better than neat, and therefore allows a lot of it.  It makes sense.  When my house is neat, my thoughts are organized, and life proceeds according to plan, I begin to think I am in control.  When I stick my head outside the door and see life for the tornado that it frequently is, I labor from no such delusion.

Some days you are the house, and some days you are the Wicked Witch.  Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time matching striped socks with ruby slippers and wondering whether someone has a license to fly that house.

I cling to the idea that somehow, somewhere, there is a plan to all this.  That requires faith, because I sure as hell can’t see it from here.  How do you cope?  No, seriously – I want to know.  I will be checking those comments every hour on the hour, people.  Give me some clue.

What can I do that’s helpful?

Like I tell my nephews, I should probably stop complaining.  A good venting session is nice, but it doesn’t accomplish much.  (Well, other than helping me not to eat my weight in Reese’s peanut butter cups or stab someone in the neck.  That is something.)

Okay, that’s a start.  The world is better for many people when they don’t have to listen to me complain.  Then what?  What can I do to actually make the world a better place?

Maybe it’s the same as any mess.  What do you do first? What you can.

I don’t know about tornados, since I live in California, but after an earthquake, you start by cleaning up what’s broken.  Every dish you own hit the floor and shattered?  Grab the broom and the dustpan.  Start at the outside, and little by little, work your way in.  Depending on the size of your kitchen, it may take all week, but eventually you will work your way through.

Of course, in our current situation we’re working in the knowledge that aftershocks can hit any moment, and there are an endless supply of dishes yet to break, but I’ll try not to dwell on that.

I will start with what I can do.

There’s a lot of hurt and injustice in this world.  Much more than a kitchen’s worth of brokenness.  I can’t make that all better in a day.  I can’t fix it in a lifetime.  If I don’t do something, though, I will go insane, so instead of trying to clean the whole room, I will start with my one tiny corner, because it’s what I can do.

I will look at the people around me, and try to understand what they’re going through.  If we’re every going to improve this world, we need a whole lot more empathy. Every news story goes deeper than the headline, and every person has pain behind their smile.  What would happen if we tried to find out what lay beyond the surface of things? How would things change if we listened to each other?  Dear God, when was the last time I just sat and listened to what someone else had to say, without an agenda, without plotting to see how I could talk them around to my point of view?

How would things have been different if George Zimmerman had talked to Trayvon Martin, without making any judgments about him beforehand? What if the politicians in Texas had asked the women in Planned Parenthood clinics, “What would make your lives better?  What do you need?” and then had actually shut their pieholes and listened, for once in their careers?

Maybe nothing.  Or maybe the world might change.

Not in a big way.  It wouldn’t grab headlines (which is precisely why politicians won’t do it), but in the small, barely noticeable way of tectonic plate shifts, it would move us a fraction of an inch closer to the place we long to be.

Sigh.

I can’t make other people change the way they live, but I can change what I do.  Talking to someone and listening without judgment may not change the world. It may not do a damn thing.  But it’s all I’ve got, so it’s what I’ll do.

Kimberly is tired, and her cat is fed up with having to comfort her.

Tags: complaining, helpfulness, Margaret and Helen, Texas, tornados, Trayvon Martin, women's rights