I’m still learning. Three little words from a friend’s Facebook post. So perfect. So honest. So humble. She wants to help, to be of support, and affect change after the racially-charged events of the last few weeks. She is wasn’t sure how to do it, nor was she sure what to say that wouldn’t accidentally offend or hurt. So she admitted: I’m still learning. I was born in a suburb of Minneapolis. Soon thereafter my family moved to small-town Minnesota, and then on to central Iowa. All lily-white. Practically see-through white, given the northern-European heritage of the region. For as…

I’m sitting on our patio overlooking a tree-lined canyon. The hummingbirds dive at my red-headed husband. The ground squirrels peer suspiciously at our dog, passed out in the shade of a Ponderosa pine. And it’s still, so very quiet. Peaceful. And the guilt washes over me. My family is safe, ensconced in our little tiny bit of southwest Colorado real estate. No death, no protests, no destruction. No illness. But not no worries. Facebook has been ablaze for seemingly forever. And of late, the flames get fanned on a minute-by-minute basis. There’s always a cause to defend, there’s always someone…

I was soooo ready to take the reins on this. When we got word that our school district was going to start remote schooling in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, I went about setting up a schedule for my kids to follow while they homeschooled. They needed structure. They needed to do their chores. They needed free time. They needed things laid out neatly so they could do school as best as they could. But what they really needed was for me to get out of the way. Wow, was this a tough realization for me to swallow. I had…