“You haven’t blogged in a while. What’s up with that?”

My friend Jeff and I were on the phone, old school: no Zoom, no FaceTime, 90 minutes and counting.

We met in the seventh grade. If I went back in time and told 12-year-old me that Jeff and I would still be friends 30 years later, I know 12-year-old Janet would look at me with clear eyes and say, A-doy, of course we will!

“I don’t know,” I replied to Jeff. “After George Floyd, I felt strange about blogging.”

“How so?”

I struggled for the words. “It’s sort of like what happened after 9/11,” I said. “The world shrank in that moment, yet the moment spread across the globe. We’re in the midst of a long overdue cultural shift. There’s serious work to do. Important moral changes need to happen. There’s so much to learn, especially about points of view. I only have my own, but I – we – have to learn to see the world from other points of view. It takes practice to be empathetic, to truly put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It’s the first step to truly becoming an ally.”

“It’s hard,” Jeff replied. “Especially if you have a limited imagination.”

“Generation X in a millennial world seems so pointless. I don’t think they’re handling BLM better than we are, I think it’s about the same. But they process it differently. They reflect and pour out their thoughts in real time. There’s no pause. I feel like Gen-X broods before sharing.”

“Why not write about this? What you’re trying to process?”

I snorted. “No one wants to hear a Gen-X white woman’s thoughts on Black Lives Matter.”

“No one,” Jeff agreed.

“How would I talk about processing the movement as me, but without it being about me?”

“How about just like that?”

***

My friend Melissa – also since the seventh grade – began sharing pictures of her family dinners again. She’d stopped because it seemed frivolous. “But, I realized a little frivolity goes a long way in trying times,” she wrote on Facebook.

I’m glad Melissa’s posting again. Her posts don’t take away from the serious issues of our world. They provide a break, a chance to breathe. We need the breaks to keep up the BLM momentum because it’s all uphill from here. Breonna Taylor. Jacob Blake.

Melissa inspired me. Look at her beautiful meal! She’s inspiring you too, I can tell. We’re lucky to have Melissa’s gorgeous meals and witty life commentary back on our social media feeds.

So here I am after a three month absence. Hopefully with a little frivolity of my own.

I’ve missed you! Leave me a comment or send me a message on how you’ve been managing with COVID, BLM, unemployment, and everything else going on in the world.