A Spring Walk

I love Spring.

This may seem cliché, but something about Spring gives me so much hope. The winter has killed off what was left outside. It remains cold and dark in the world for so long. And then, the sun begins to shine. New things begin to bloom. And just like that, life looks bright and beautiful again.

The weather is straight up perfect for several weeks. If you can bear to be outside without getting completely obliterated by the pollen in the air, then outside is the only place you want to be. And the Spring nights? Forget about it! There is nothing better to me than being able to get outside as the sun is setting and the nights are just that perfect temperature. 

Every year when Spring rolls around, I start taking walks on a regular basis. It’s a habit I developed almost 13 years ago when my sweet friend Anisa was pregnant with her first daughter, Ava (who is one of the great little loves of my life). In the Spring just before Ava was born, Anisa and I would go on post-dinner walks almost every single night. We’d head out on the same path through her neighborhood each night, hear nearly 8 months pregnant and taking those hills like a champ. 

Their neighborhood at the time was fairly new so there were homes under construction all over the place. Anisa is the best interior designer I know and I love to dream about what I would do with nice, new homes if I were rich (#ihopetthosedreamscometrue), so on a lot of our walks we’d venture off the street and into under-construction homes. Sometimes we knew the people who were building those homes, sometimes we didn’t. Either way, we’d walk in, explore, talk about what the layout looked like, dream about what kinds of cool furniture we would put in the homes if we lived there, guess what kinds of families might be moving in if we didn’t know them, and give our friends the progress on their homes if we did know who was building it. 

For almost all of April and well into May, we went on those walks. That’s almost eight weeks of neighborhood walking and under-construction exploring. And never once did anyone stop us, questions us, or make a judgment on who we were or what our motivations might’ve been. 

To be honest with you, that’s a detail I’ve never thought about until recently.

If you’ve been following the news the last week or so, then you’ve probably seen the story of Ahmuad Arbery. A man going for a jog on through a neighborhood on a Spring afternoon in broad daylight who was tailed, approached, and subsequently killed by two white men. This happened months ago, with no arrest or investigation coming until the release of a video of his death sparked nationwide conversation. The conversation started with outrage over the way in which he was killed. Then, the conversation moved to the cry for justice over the fact that these men who pulled the trigger should be arrested. Finally, they were.

And then, the conversation shifted again. This week, a new video came out of Ahmaud that day walking through an empty house under construction during his run. Now the conversation has shifted to questions of motive. Maybe he wasn’t innocent. Maybe he was breaking and entering. Maybe he was trespassing. Maybe those two white men really were just trying to stop a burglar.

As the conversation shifted, so did my mind. My stance on what I believe I see happening in that video of his murder hasn’t changed on bit. What my mind shifted to instead is those eight weeks of Spring walks I used to take with my friend. The houses under construction we’d walk through. The cars that would by and see us. The many neighbors, some we knew and some we didn’t, who saw us walking, investigating, looking around. The amount of times anyone ever questioned, approached, ran us down, or tried to kill us.

The answer, by the way, is none. Zero. Not one. Nobody ever looked twice at us. We were two blonde, white girls doing the exact same thing Ahmaud Arbery appeared to be doing that day he was killed. 

I feel like I’ve always had an awareness of my privilege as a white person. My parents grew up in the deep South during the 1960s and did a great job teaching us through the experiences and memories they shared. I went to a very diverse public-school system and had friends from all races, backgrounds, ethnicities. I experienced my privilege there in a lot of ways. I graduated with an English degree and a concentration specifically in African-American literature because the books, the words, the poems those writers wrote gave a voice to an experience that I will never have. I have tried to educate myself, ask questions, listen carefully, use what little (and I mean, little!) platform I have to speak out when I see wrong in the world. 

But this? This showed me my privilege in an up close and personal way this week. I could’ve been Ahmaud. I’ve done exactly what he was doing. I am him—except for that, I’m not. I’ll never be. Privilege grants me that unfortunate assurance. 

The weight of this privilege has sat heavy on me these last few weeks. I have done the things I usually do when stories like this break (because unfortunately this is pattern in our culture). I cried. I prayed. I talked to some people I really love and respect for perspective. I called my state government to ask for action. I listened to my church leaders wisely share their thoughts.

And still, it felt so heavy. 

During this quarantine, I’ve been going for a lot more spring walks than usual. It’s the only way to get out of my apartment. And lately, those walks have been taken with the weight of privilege on my back. I can’t stop thinking about it as my feet hit the pavement. Each step I take is one I get to take freely, and that is only because of the color of my skin. That’s just messed up. 

I keep walking, but the weight won’t leave. 

My friend Courtney wisely said to me this week that maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe it’s one of the good things we as people with privilege can do. We can see it. We can look it right in the face. We can own it. We can ask what do with it—what will make it better for other people. 

And then, instead of trying to outrun it, we can just sit in the weight of it. We can let it make us really uncomfortable. Because we have to be uncomfortable with our privilege in order to really understand what it is, and how it works, and what it does for others. What have to be willing to feel the weight of it.

So right now, that’s what I’m doing. I’m not trying to outrun what makes me uncomfortable. I’m taking it with me in hopes that I’ll recognize it, learn from it, and be able to better for myself and for others because of it.

Yesterday, I pulled on my shoes for another Spring walk. The weather has really shifted here and the chill of winter is nearly gone. There are so many new things in bloom. So many colors, so much life. 

And with each step, I’m praying for new things to bloom in our hearts.