April Thoughts 2024

Hello,

Happy April! It finally feels like spring is really here and I am so ready. I want warmth and sunshine, external inspiration to get out there in the world and keep moving forward.

Over the past month, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we keep going. Things are hard and heavy right now. There’s so much fear and division in the world and, all too often, in our personal lives. Friends or family members who hold beliefs that put us at odds with them seem to be more prevalent than they used to be, or maybe we just didn't notice.

I’ve been doing a deep dive into this and talking with others about why we are at this point. While the reasons are certainly numerous, I think there’s an underlying truth, we’re all afraid. We’re either afraid that things are changing or we’re afraid that they aren’t, at least not fast enough. Fear is an incredibly powerful emotion and not one that, broadly speaking, we’re taught to do anything other than avoid. 

We’re not taught to engage with our fear. We’re not taught to consider if our fears are rational or warranted. Add to that the problem that fear triggers the most primitive part of our brain and it’s not hard to see how we got to where we are.

When I was thinking about this the other day a memory from my early teenage years surfaced. I remembered how much I loved the song The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha. My mom had the album, on vinyl, and I would play The Impossible Dream, loud, and lie on the floor of our living room like a starfish and feel the music and lyrics in my body. I would play it over and over, which meant hopping up and going back to the turntable every time. Up, pick up the needle and put it on the track, then back on the floor arms and legs spread wide to absorb as much of the sound and words as I could.

I wanted to live that song. I wanted to be that brave, that committed. I wanted to be that good a person.

I was not a happy teenager. I was awkward and, all too often, the only Black kid in my class which was a very isolating experience. I didn’t know where I fit in the world. But I knew that I believed in The Impossible Dream. I still do. I don’t think the dream’s impossible, I just don’t think we get there without tremendous effort. What I know now that I didn’t know back then was that we have choices in ways that aren’t always apparent when you’re 13.

I know that I can move through this world focused on fear or I can move through this world with my eyes on the Beloved Community that the late John Lewis spoke of so often and so beautifully. I can decide to look away from what’s hard (I have that privilege) or I can engage with it and make the difference I can. I can decide that what I can do isn’t enough or I can decide that I’m going to do what I can and let go of whether it’s “enough”. It’s what I can contribute.

If you stop and think about it you’ll notice that fear is used as a tool every single day. Watch TV and notice that even the commercials are pushing a tiny fear button. Are my teeth white enough, did my deodorant quit, am I too fat, do I have wrinkles? I could go on and on and I didn’t even mention the news. That we can’t even watch the most innocuous TV without being manipulated by fear is important. It’s like our baseline of existence is to be low-level afraid and then it gets ratcheted up by things we actually should be afraid of like the destruction of the planet or our democracy.

I’m not saying that we should seek to eliminate fear from our lives, that’s neither desirable nor possible (unless you have a diagnosable disorder). Fear has value, it helps keep us safe, but when we don’t inquire into our fears we risk being run by them without even realizing it. We risk writing off other people because their fears don’t match ours, so they must be the enemy.

I don’t think we hate our way out of the crises we face. I don’t think we get past them by demonizing others. Honestly, this is the hardest part of the work I do. The conversations with people who seem to me to have drunk the Kool-aid. The conversations which require me to put aside my certainty that I am “right” in favor of understanding their concerns and, maybe, finding some common ground.

Over the next several months I want to talk with as many people as I can about democracy and why this coming U.S. Presidential election is so critical. It’s such a fraught time and there are days when I can feel my anxiety spike at the stakes but I am going to persist. I am going to have the hard conversations. I am not going to tolerate hate, but I am also not going to assume that everyone on the other side of an issue is filled with hate.

The other day I heard Maria Ressa, the Filipina woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, say that we have to inspire people. That landed so powerfully for me. That’s what 13-year-old me felt as I lay on the floor listening to The Impossible Dream over and over.

In one of life’s funny occurrences, some years later I was living on West 58th Street in Manhattan and one of my neighbors was the actor Richard Kiley who sang The Impossible Dream on the recording that I wore grooves in. I never told him about my obsession with that song, I’m sorry now that I didn’t.

Lastly, if you’re looking for inspiration read John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community by Raymond Arsenault. It’s an important biography of a beautiful man and some of the seminal events of the Civil Rights Movement.

Things are hard right now. That’s true. It’s also true that we have millions of allies in these struggles. Let’s lean on each other as we keep moving toward the world we want to live in.

Thank you for all that you do.
xo,
Omkari