The Warmth of Other Suns & 2021

I am reading The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, a brutal and necessary book about how Black people in the southeastern United States who descended from slaves migrated to the northeast, midwest and west coasts. They left barbaric and heinous treatment (see pages 60-61) behind them for "the warmth of other suns." For thirty years from the late 1880's to the early 1900's, a Black person was lynched every four days. Some events described in this book are so horrific in terms of the violence inflicted by white people onto Black people it made me wonder who could come up with ideas so vile. I can't even repeat what was done to these people, it is that repulsive. Horror movie directors wouldn't add these types of scenes to movies. Speaking of entertainment: white people would come for miles to watch lynchings. Crowds of hundreds, thousands, would show up to watch as if they were going to the theater. Did they play music, like an opera? Or just chant?

"Oftentimes, just to go away," wrote John Dillard, a Yale scholar studying the South in the 1930s, "is one of the most aggressive things that another person can do, and if the means of expressing discontent are limited, as in this case, it is one of the few ways in which pressure can be put."

And so it goes: "oftentimes, just to go away is one of the most aggressive things another person can do..."

Sometimes problems are seem insurmountable. Sometimes they are insurmountable. They can't be fixed or changed. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try and how much we want things to be different, they aren't and they can't be.

We need to know when it is time to leave. First, we need to believe that there is a better place, that there exists warmth of other suns.

This book has been haunting me for days. After reading it, it can't be unread. I'm about 20% done, and it has already made such and impact.

Speaking of warmth, I was at Office Depot the other day. I love office supply stores. You know how some men (and women, too) love hardware stores? I love office supply stores like that. In the pre-COVID days, Anderson my work friend teased me that I had a mini-Office Depot at my cube. Compare that to my old co-worker Jason who had one pad of paper and one pen.

Anyway, I was at Office Depot poking around planner section and I saw two things that caught my eye:

I love "Escape Plans," with the scooter and sunglasses. It reminds me of trips to New York which are now on hold indefinitely. The second one is a planner for 2021. I don't use paper planners anymore. Instead, I use electronic calendars to keep my schedule.

This bright, cheerful, pink one I could not resist. I bought it anyway. 

I didn't buy this calendar to avoid having Big Brother know all of my important life events, like when I get a haircut or have a PT appointment. I got it because I wanted some hope, some cheer, something to look forward to. Sometimes, the warmth of other suns doesn't come necessarily from a change of place, but from a change in time, like spring to summer, or winter to spring.

Let's hope 2021 brings better and brighter times.

Calls and $300K

Every now and then, Jack and I will get a call from a parent.

"A friend said I should talk to you. My teenage son/daughter (check all that apply)..."

• stopped going to school
• lies in bed all day
• doesn't come out of room
• watches videos and Netflix all day
• is defiant
• smokes pot
• can be violent 
• withdraws
• doesn't eat
• doesn't connect with friends
• is on meds that aren't working

"I heard your son had similar problems. What can I do?"

I wish my gut response wasn't: Do you have $300K laying around that you aren't using? Because that is what it is going to cost to get similar treatment for your kid that we got for the Boy.

Ballpark estimates:

• One day in the PBMU at Seattle Childrens Hospital (if you are lucky enough to get in): $5,000
• One day in Wilderness Therapy (11 weeks): $620
• One day at Therapeutic Boarding School (2 years): $300
• Individual and couple/family therapy: $1340 a month or $44 a day

Plus travel to remote locations whose airports have less than 5 gates.

• Airfare
• Lodging
• Food
• Car rental

That doesn't even include my second response, which is "Are you okay with becoming an early empty-nester? Letting someone else finish raising and launching your child?

Back to money. Health insurance only pays for acute care in the hospital and then a minimal amount for the clinically billed therapy for one-on-one appointments with their specific therapist at Wilderness and at a therapeutic boarding school. Nevermind that the therapists hang and eat lunch with these kids. Nevermind there is round-the-clock support so if these kids fall of the rails, there are resources available. Nevermind that these kids need to get out of their current home environment in order to survive.

I wish there was something I could tell these families to make their lives better without breaking the bank. I wish there was a societal collective place where these kids could rebuild their souls and spirits, like a monastery, kibbutz or an ashram where we could send these kids for affordable treatment. I am talking something like YMCA camps on steroids for a year or two, not just two weeks in the summer.

And I am lucky. I am can bitch about how much this costs, but Jack and I (mostly Jack, TBH) can afford it without draining our savings, our retirement, or the equity in our homes. We don't need to ask the Bank of Grandma and Grandpa to foot the bill. We didn't have a "Go Fund Me" campaign.

Nevertheless, if I had known what to do to have kept my kid at home, I would have. What would I have done differently that might have avoided this? I don't know what would have changed the Boy or Jack, but I wish I had gotten into Al-Anon sooner. I wish I would have recognized earlier how I was reacting to Jack's addiction, and that I needed to change. Would that have made a difference? I would have been more serene, but I don't know if it would have changed the Boy's path.