Continue to BE Uncomfortable

In returning from a year-long academic sabbatical, one of the lessons I learned that I want to carry forward is the importance of being uncomfortable—of reaching outside my comfort zone to allow myself to be exposed to different people, ideas, and experiences. As a teacher, as a nurse, as a person, these are the sorts of things that help me to keep learning and growing.

I was reminded of this yesterday as I listened to an amazing panel of Black women playwrights discuss their work and lives at the Black Woman Wisdom Summit at the University of Washington. They spoke about their experiences with institutional racism, of having their plays labeled "not Black enough" or "too Black" by (mainly) white male critics. Of what we as White allies can do to fight against racism, to overcome the self-indulgent paralysis of White Guilt. As I listened to their stories, as well as the stories of young Black actresses and authors from the audience, I was simultaneously inspired, awed, and uncomfortable. These are uncomfortable conversations to have. These are uncomfortable times that require all of us to be willing to step out of our comfort zones, to be willing to listen to people whose lives are different from our own.

Here are my top ten lessons learned from my sabbatical (and yes, I do fully recognize my own privilege in having a sabbatical—thank you, University of Washington):

1. Continue to read widely and deeply.
2. Commit to dedicated time each morning for writing (as I am doing now...)
3. Contain email! Check email once in the morning and once at the end of the day.
4. Disconnect from school/university politics: It Doesn't Matter!
5. More puppy time (note: by puppy I mean my geriatric sweet sweet corgi)
6. Continue doing at least one week per year of solo retreat time on an island near my home.
7. Continue spending daily "fireside time" (a fake electric fireplace), or "hammock time" or Virginia Woolf's "Wool-gathering time" daydreaming without any electronic devices in sight or hearing.
8. Spend more time (daily) in nature.
9. Spend more art/creative/ "way out" time.
10. Engage in more outside the box thinking, reading, learning, such as in the Health Humanities (which I adore).

And here, below, I include my original post "BE Uncomfortable" from this time last year, pre-sabbatical. Pepe's words ring so so true!

“BE uncomfortable. That’s how you learn!” was one of the final exhortations to our students by Pepe Sapolu Reweti at the conclusion of our "Empowering Healthy Communities” study abroad in New Zealand program this past summer. She was describing the fact that there are many Pakehas (‘white’/European descent New Zealanders) who do not personally know any Maori people, much less ever been on a Maori marae (‘meeting place’ similar to our U.S. Indian ‘reservation’ except that it is the ancestral home of the Maori iwi, or tribes), much much less ever have been in a Maori home. She pointed out that our students had all been on a marae (several, in fact) and had been inside a Maori community meeting house, and had shared ‘kai’ (a meal–several, in fact). That’s an honor and a privilege and something for us to learn from, to take back home–to apply in our own country, in our own daily lives. If the students learned nothing else from this study abroad experience, I hope they learned this.

I was reminded of Pepe’s words this past week as I listened to Ta-Nehisi Coates talk about his latest book Between the World and Me, written in the form of a letter to his son about being a black man in the deeply scarred and racist modern day America. His talk was in the sold-out 2,900 seat McCaw Hall at the Seattle Center, as part of the Seattle Arts and Lectures literary series. The interviewer asked Coates about his article “The Case for Reparations” in the June 2014 edition of The Atlantic, and why he thought it had ‘gone viral’ and been so popular among white people. He replied that he thinks people like the fact he doesn’t sugar-coat things, that “It’s a sign of respect the way I talk directly about things.” And he added, “Reality is uncomfortable. Period.”

Looking around the packed auditorium in one of the whitest cities in America, I wondered how many of us white audience members were now wallowing in white guilt: white guilt which is itself a white self-indulgent privilege. How many of us white Seattleite audience members are willing to push past white guilt to do anything constructive to confront racism in our country, in our city, in our neighborhood, in our own homes? And what are we as health care educators doing to teach meaningfully to the effects of personally-mediated and institutionalized racism?

“…as Americans we are so heavily invested in shame, avoidance, and denial that most of us have never experienced authentic, face-to-face dialogue about race at all.” (“To Whom It May Concern” by Jess Row in The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind edited by Claudia Rankine, Beth Loffreda, and Maxine King Cap, Fence Books 2015, p. 63.) In this same essay, Row states she once saw a book on classroom management for college teachers with the title When Race Breaks Out. “As if it’s like strep throat, as if it has to be medicated, managed, healed.” (p62.)

We need to allow ourselves–and our students–to be uncomfortable, to confront uncomfortable truths in order to learn any lessons that are worth learning.

Note: Here is the list of the Black women playwrights from yesterday's Black Woman Wisdom Summit at the University of Washington (sponsors include: Forward Flux Productions, Hedgebrook Writer's Retreat, Marjorie, and the UW School of Drama). Check out their work: Kathya Alexander, Amontaine Aurore, C. Rosalind Bell, Alma Davenport, Lydia Diamond, Chisa Hutchinson, Domanique Morisseau, Regina Taylor, Lisa B. Thompson, Shontina Vernon, Sharon Nyree Williams.