The Lives Beneath The Numbers

Also summer reading and writing resources because, in spite of the world we live in, we've still got books

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In this issue:

• Those We Will Remember this Memorial Day

• Summer Reading Resources

• And then there were two…

Cracking the Shell Around My Heart, One Person at a Time

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

On Monday, Memorial Day, we will be remembering those who died in service to our country. I’m not sure, though, if I will be able to focus in the way I’ve tried to in the past. The faces of children gunned down at school look at me from the pages of every newspaper and screen. I’ve just finished reading about the funerals of the men and women gunned down in a Buffalo supermarket. And just after that, I’d read about the man who rushed a gunman at his church in Laguna, CA to save others who had gathered for a celebratory parish lunch. 

I have no personal connection with any of these people just as I have little personal connection with most of those who have died in service to our country. All, however, have a claim on me if I choose to acknowledge it. We share the same country. Some portion of my tax dollars supports a government who sends men and women to war. Another portion supports legislators - salaries, healthcare, retirement, operating expenses - who fail to pass even the most basic of gun safety laws. Worst of all, I am complicit when I allow myself to retreat into the numbness caused by the sheer volume of death and violence, impotent outrage, and cynicism about the possibility of change. 

Yet here I am, sinking into that numbness, keeping my distance. War, it seems, will always be with us and so, it appears, will gun deaths. 

The urge to look away from those faces, those headlines, is powerful. I wasn’t going to write about any of that today. What can be said that hasn’t already been said? But when I sat down to share with you the list I made to help you find summer reads, the backstory on our newest dog, and share some links that got me thinking, this is what came out. I am grateful in a way. There is an opportunity to talk here with you and to learn how you find your way to feeling and empathy during times like this. I am struggling. 

How do you find your way towards empathy when confronted with tragedy that happens to others?

My first reaction to the horrors the world serves up is to get angry. But outrage by itself is impotent and it burns out quickly. Nothing useful comes of outrage without empathy and connection. Empathy and connection, though, ask a lot more of me. I have to search my way through the layers of fear, cynicism, anger, exhaustion, and selfishness that surround me. 

Numbers don’t help me get there. They have a way of converting shocking human losses to streams of gray data. The number of those who died during each war we’ve been involved in are staggering. The number of those who died by gun are also staggering. There are 58,318 names on the Vietnam Wall in Washington D.C. In 2020 - just one year - 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries. That year marked the first time that gun injuries were the leading cause of death among children aged 1-19. 

I do, however, remember the feelings and connection that began to stir when I read some of the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I have written in the past about my late-in-life encounter with the magnitude of those we have lost to war. By chance I found myself at a Memorial Day ceremony which was simple and devastating: the names of the local dead were read out loud, one at a time, outdoors, all weekend long. Each name hung for a few moments in the shared silence and became a person. For the first time I felt the impact of all those losses. 

“I joined the small crowd in folding chairs on the grass on a beautiful San Diego afternoon and felt the noise of the park and holiday crowds recede. For a few seconds, each person’s name fell into my ears like the first word of a story and the last. For those few seconds they were not strangers but fellow humans who left the towns they grew up in, families that may or may not have nurtured them, or schools they may have loved or hated. They may have been saints, they may have been sinners. They may have died without a chance to know who they really were. The sound of each name traversed the distance to which I’d grown accustomed, and touched me with a sense of profound loss.” - What’s in a name?

Every year the names of the victims of 9/11 are read aloud . Throughout every protest of the past few years, marchers insisted on repeating the names of those who had died. It isn’t just the reading of each name, it is the pause we - I - take to hear it, and feel it. In that pause, I realize I have choices. I can offer a few thoughts and prayers and sink back into my illusion of safety. I can give in to the feelings of outrage and helplessness sparked by the latest deaths in this war we seem to be fighting among ourselves. Or, I can choose to see, hear, feel deeply the losses that are hidden in the statistics. 

It seems to me that the most important step towards caring or making even a small step towards helping is to turn at least one stranger into someone I know, to pick a name or a face from the gray stream of data, and bring that person to life in my heart and my imagination.

Every time I have ever taken action on anything important to me, I was driven not by anger as much as the moment I took to imagine how it must have felt to be on the receiving end of pain, loss, or injustice. It’s easier to do this for family and friends but so much harder to do for strangers. It seems to me that the most important step towards caring or making even a small step towards helping is to turn at least one stranger into someone I know, to pick a name or a face from the gray stream of data, and bring that person to life in my heart and my imagination. Then I can feel that loss the way I would feel the loss of my own child, parent, grandparent or friend. I can feel that jolt of connection that reminds me I am not immune and that what kills one of us can kill me or those I love. I will face those things I cannot change but perhaps, also, find courage to try and change what I can. 

Here are links to the names and a bit about those who have most recently died of gun violence. I have committed to sitting quietly with these names as part of my observance of Memorial Day when I will also think of William, a young former Marine and Iraq veteran I met ten years ago just before he took his own life. I invite you to share the names of anyone – whether they died in service, of gun violence, or other tragedy - that you would like us to remember with you. 

• What we know about the victims of the Buffalo shooting (NPR)

• What we know about the victims of the Uvalde school shooting (NPR)

• John Cheng was known for always putting others first

Photo by Stephen Lister

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Short reads: collapse of empathy and a really good question

• I’m not alone in falling prey to the numbing impact of large numbers. According to this research study and this more accessible article from Vox, the human capacity to empathize collapses under the weight of large numbers. Yet both articles underscore the capacity we have to find empathy in ourselves when confronted with a single person or maybe a single family. I’m not sure it matters how we get there as long as we get there. 

• In a recent post, columnist Bill Murphy, Jr. asked a question that I’ve been thinking hard about ever since I read it: is there one thing that everyone can agree on? You’ll see lots of attempts to identify that one thing in the comments but it made me wonder what you all think. Take a look. Let me know if you think there is one thing in this world that everyone can agree on. 

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Resources for Readers and Writers This Summer

For writers: #1000wordsofSummer begins June 4

If you are a writer looking for a way to break through a barrier, get started, develop a practice, or simply to enjoy the encouragement of writing with others consider joining those who will be doing #1000wordsofsummer which begins June 4. Writer Jami Attenberg and a crew of writers she recruits will send you a brief essay loaded with ideas or encouragement as you dedicate yourself to producing 1,000 words a day for fourteen days. It doesn’t cost you anything except time. It’s a lot of fun and there’s something to show for it at the end. You’ll find all the details here.

For Readers: Summer Read Resources

I try to break out of my comfort zone each summer or revisit a classic I struggled with when I was younger or have simply forgotten. I scrolled through some of the newsletters in our Resources for Readers & Book Clubs to get some ideas. Here is the first installment of the great recommendations I found. I’ll share the rest of them with you next week. Take a look as see what you think or let us all know what’s already on your list for summer.

Summer Reading Bingo. If you’re up for a reading challenge and a chance to win some fun prizes, mark your calendar for May 31 and head over to What to Read If… to get your Summer Reading Bingo card. I had a lot of fun with this last year and found myself seeking out books I might not have otherwise.

Romance. I’m not usually a romance reader but I’ve promised myself at least one this summer. I’ve got this list from Nia Carnelio at Not Controversal: Romance Doesn’t Have to be a Guilty Pleasure.

The Beach Read. I can’t remember the last time I read a book at the beach but these five from So Novelicious look like perfect candidates: Emma Straub, Jennifer Weiner, and Sonali Dev who finds inspiration in Jane Austen. Speaking of Jane Austen, I’d like to revisit at least one Austen novel thanks to the insights I’ve been enjoying at The Austen Connection.

Memoir. From Reading Under the Radar: Rough Magic by Laura Prior-Palmer, the first woman to win the longest horse race in the world and this from Ashley Holstrom, Let’s Never Talk About This Again by Sarah Faith Alterman, a memoir by a The woman who discovers her father’s previous life as a writer of erotica when he develops Alzheimer’s.

Historical Novel. Maggie Shipstead’s Great Circle is going on my list thanks to What to read if … You Want A High-Flying Read by Elizabeth Held.

Books and Food. Two newsletters serve up recipes to go with their book recommendations and even though I can’t see myself baking, I enjoy the connection of food with the themes of the books. In Volume 2. No. 17: Best of the Backlist Part 2 + Candied Orange Peel from Laura Sackton at Books and Bakes offers Summer of Salt (Katrina Leno), Moon of the Crusted Snow ( Waubshegeg Rice), and Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of The Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots (Morgan Jerkins). Hannah Griffin’s Good Book/Good Bread serves up bread and a thriller involving a Colorado fishing guide which makes me think happily of my son’s years guiding on Colorado rivers. Focaccia With Red Onions & Rosemary + The Guide by Peter Heller.

Books to Keep the Muse Alive: Books To Get Your Creative Juices Flowing from Crooked Reads by Ashley Holstrom at Crooked Reads: Three books by artists and writers to inspire other writers and artists: Austin Kleon, Ross Gay, and Jason Naylor. 

Next week: coming of age novels, a king who won’t get out of the bathtub, and novels by Lizz Huerta, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Shirley Hazzard.

What’s on your summer reading list right now?

Special PSA: If you like what you see or it resonates with you, please take a minute to click the heart ❤️ at the top or bottom of this post — it helps more folks to find us!

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And then there were two…

Frida and Lily

Three weeks ago on Monday, we became a two-dog family. This was an unplanned addition but was not exactly thoughtless or spontaneous.

I first noticed the little black dog at the park where she was standing in the exact spot I’d sprinkled some of Rina’s ashes in the spring of 2020. She looked nothing like Rina except that she, like Rina, is mostly black. She looked back at me steadily, calmly as if to say, I’ve arrived, what are you going to do about it?

I resisted her at first even though I knew she was available - she was at the park with her foster mother who was looking for a good home for her. I went home and tried out the idea on my husband. We both lived with it for a few days. Frida appeared to have zero interest in sharing either one of us and life had just begun to be easier again now that she was approaching two. The little black dog — then named Havana, was barely a year and a half. Her story was largely a mystery except that she’d had puppies and was rapidly growing attached to the foster mom who adored her.

We took a long time to think it over. A family came to get her while we were deliberating. They left without her. I thought it was a sign. She came to us. We changed her name to Lily and she seemed to like it. Frida decided she could stay, mainly because Lily has turned out to be an expert guide to gopher hunting, enjoys a good game of tug, and was nice to her when Frida got a foxtail in her ear.

There was room, it turns out, in the house and in our hearts for two. We are all still adjusting to one another but there is a sense that we are now complete. A small blessing with four legs, sleek black fur, and silly ears that rise from her head like plumes: Lily.

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That’s it for this week. Please let me know how you are, what you’re thinking about, what you’re reading. If there is someone you’d like us to remember, let us know. You’ll always find plenty more books to browse at the Spark Community Recommendations page at bookshop.org where every sale supports local bookstores and any commission we earn will go to a literacy program we choose together.

Ciao for now.

Gratefully,

Betsy

P.S. And now…your moment of Zen: Green River Memory

Photo and memory by Greg Johnson

Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”

What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.

Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone  -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed. 

I can’t wait to see what you send!

And remember, If you like what you see or it resonates with you, please take a minute to click the heart ❤️ below - it helps more folks to find us!