It dismays me to write that things are not changing in Seattle, that the racial bias & police brutality is alive well there. I am glad that protesters have forced the police out of their precinct on Capital Hill, it should’ve happened long ago. The city has become a battle ground between peaceful protesters & violent police, something I have first hand knowledge of as it happened to me in the mid 2000.

I think it’s overdue that police departments lose their funding & are forced to restructure, it may the only way forward. If that’s even possible? The SPD has been notoriously biased & racist & they don’t have the training to deal with the population that suffers from mental illness. There’s a laundry list of things wrong with them. However, that kind of biased doesn’t seem to fall far from the tree, as here in Norway they have also been accused of being it towards minority groups & asylum seekers. Something that has come to the forefront with the protests here.

I think bad policing is a global problem, not just an American problem. You shouldn’t feel uncomfortable walking down the street in your own neighborhood or waiting for the bus. I saw man at the bus stop the other morning who took off his headphones when the teenagers arrived. The look on his face was one of trepidation, although there was plenty of us at the bus stop who would’ve stepped in if something happened. This is sad, that’s not how our world is supposed to be.

I think that’s sad & society needs to make a change, but I don’t have the answers. I only have questions. How can we act this way in the 21st Century, when we all know better. I think the hardest part is putting into practice, everyday. Like during the lockdown when I helped an elderly woman off the bus, when know one else would. The same goes for our judgements of others & stereotypes. There’s a man in Bergen who has the most amazing dreads & I have told him that. Pay compliments & be kinder. Maybe that’s the answer, a gentle way forward. Till next time remember we all have feelings & we all have rights, even when corrupt authority tries to take it away from us.

I have been at a loss as to what to write the last few weeks, but the first word that came to mind was Guilt. I’ve experienced harassment & bullying because of where I lived as a child in the US. It’s nowhere near what is happening to the minority population all over the world. Hence, I feel white Guilt, guilt for not being discriminated against in housing or in the work place.

In college over 20 years ago I took a class that focused on Afro American fiction & it was eye opener. My professor was white but knew what he was talking about. I took the class where I was the minority as a white person & I learned so much. We talked about all types of discrimination & racism both in what we read but also in the class.

The University where I was a student had the highest minority population in the mid 1990’s to 2000. Part of the reason I picked the school. I had grown up in a very white town & felt that I wanted to experience more than I had grown up in. I dated a Chinese guy, a black football player & many others; my goal was to learn about how other cultures functioned.

Today, I still feel guilty because we left before it came to what it did in the US. However, I feel that we made the Right choice 4 years ago. We saw that that things would go bad & they did. Do I have any solutions to the current turbulent global crisis we are facing, No; but I think if we can be open & honest with ourselves about our fears & our joy with Everyone we meet then we can get somewhere.

I will try to be more open & judge less, something I think we all should do. The only thing that should matter is that we are all Human & we all deserve Equal Rights. Period.

Our sweet four legged creature got the all clear from the vet this week, so that drama is behind us. He just needed to go down a pound & that’s what he did. Something we’re very relieved about. For a month we where dragging him out several days a week for long walks to get him to lose weight. He’s off of the junkfood though, those days are behind him.

During the lockdown I had very vivid dreams, stress dreams that where bordering on nightmares & I don’t think I was alone in that. I would wake up everyday & realize that COVID 19 was still here. It is still here but the cases are getting rarer & rarer in my part of Norway. I still rarely go into town & when I do, I have to have a purpose.

That is something the lockdown taught me, to have a goal, Everyday. No matter how small or big. I did do some stress baking, that is okay but you can only do so much of that until you get bored with it. You realize whenever your pheat is over that there’s still a pandemic. It was like ripping off a band aid for a little while only to realize that the wound hadn’t healed.

I realized to my great to surprise that I can handle stress rather well & that I am alright under pressure. I don’t think of the worst but when we where in the middle of the lockdown just took everything a day at time. One day, from morning to night. Then I would repeat the next day. I can recall the first time I took the bus under the lockdown to get groceries & I was terrified that I shed a tear on the bus.

Needlessly to say I didn’t catch COVID 19 on the bus, but I used hand santizer religioulsy. I still do. & probably will for a long time to come. Till we have a vaccine or it gets eradicated.

To all those still in a lockdown, breathe in & out. It will pass.
Till next time, stay safe.