I thought I'd be able to be regular with this blog but it looks like life has sucked up all of my spare time again, so it's been a while. Oh well. No one's reading yet anyway. :) So. What have we been up to?
Today was an out-of-town field trip to tour a hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and then the Music Man museum in Mason City. I really enjoyed that. I think the kids did too.
Last week was a birthday for my oldest baby who turned 10!
And Thanksgiving is right around the corner. So, with that, I just want to say I'm thankful for the place I live. Today while we wandered around Mason City and found out about life in the 1910's for Meredith Wilson, I thought about how quaint and wonderful it all seems. I thought about how I like Iowa because it's quaint, and how familiar it is to me. We drove through harvest fields and cloudy skies today, and I just love how November looks after the corn's all been cut down and the fields have been plowed over. It's gray and brown and amber, with the steely sky all around and it's beautiful in one weird way.
I love how we're so proud of all ten famous people who came from our state. Meredith Wilson being one of them. Frank Lloyd Wright being another. Their genius was remarkable, and it was so fun to get a taste of it today.
But there's a deeper level of gratitude for where I live. Because it's a place that's in the middle of everything, with samples of all of the different ways of life from the country, the different races and communities, the different political views and world views that make up the rest of the country. There are pieces of it woven throughout the state, and sometimes you have to dig around to find them, but I've seen quite a few. That means there's ugly things too. The phrase "racism" is very charged these days, and it would be ignorant and naive to deny that it is still a problem. It would be foolish of me to think I live in a place where everyone happily sees everyone as equals and we don't deal with hateful police officers and people of color who are dissatisfied with their treatment. I mean, there was a crazy lady down at the market just a few weeks ago who couldn't seem to get a hold of herself, yelling at cops. And there were cops hurting people just a skip and a jump away last month too. I want it to all stop. But it doesn't.
But here in the middle of the country, where those little strings tangle together and cross paths easily, I also see things that give me hope. In my own little corner of the world, I've seen my little girls playing soccer on a team where they were the only white girls and loving it. I've seen harmony in unexpected places. Churches working together to help instead of protest. Neighborhoods coming out to look for solutions to violence. I like that it isn't a hopeless cause around here.
I don't usually go to Wal-Mart, but I needed some last-minute things the other night, so I ran in. While I shopped, I noticed an older white woman going out of her way to show kindness to a black mommy with her daughter. And throughout the store, several other interracial interactions. Maybe I'm a clueless white girl, but I like to see those as the norm around here. Not the exception. A black woman helped me with my four kids in the restroom the other day, and I kept thinking about how glad I was that she was there because I was changing a poopy diaper and the three year old was throwing a fit about washing her hands. I found it hard to imagine a time when there were separate bathrooms for people with different colored skin.
In Iowa there is definitely racism. There is anger and hurt and confusion and fear, but there is also unity and hope. And we are people who push through and do what needs to be done. We're slow to change, but we can be convinced. I hope that we continue on that path--the listening, growing, learning, and helping, and that our kids, who have no issue playing soccer together in fifth grade, don't grow up seeing us as separate people, but as... people.
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