Be the change you want to see.

This morning it feels to me like I'm a failure at extroverting. That's not untrue. I love a lot of people, andat the same time I don't have a great habit of maintaining regular contact.

It's even easy now! Not like when I was a kid and you had to write long laborious letters by hand, or call someone on the landline. (Ye gods I'm old, yes that was a rotary phone)

Email and blogging and messaging systems... Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Tumblr...

People I love are in anguish. People are murdered by the police for their skin color, and riots are the voice of the voiceless.

I'd say this is not my America, but that would be a lie. This has always been what America is, but I had the privilege to not-see, not-notice.

I can dimly imagine the fear and the rage of their whole lives, the humiliation and stress of forcibly swallowing all that down to try and be allowed to live. To just live.

I have to do better. To get past my block about contacting people.

I have to do better. To manage my own discomfort about learning and acknowledging uncomfortable truths.

I have to do better. I belong to communities, and I have responsibility to those communities that I cannot dodge or deny. I will not be a coward.