You know, with everything that's going on right now....

That's become a common catch phrase, sprinkled into conversations, accompanied by a hand gesture towards the sky. Obviously people are carrying on, because what else are you going to do? ICE has been very active in our region lately, and this week they came around to our co-op and had a brief encounter with a group of kids out on a walk with some teachers, including one of my kids. My kids are at little personal risk especially if they "comply with law enforcement" which is kind of a gross way of describing the act of doing nothing while you watch someone get snatched up by anonymous armed and masked men in unmarked rental vehicles and ferreted off to who-knows-where for who-knows-how-long. In this case, nobody was taken in front of them, although a young person at a bus stop a few blocks away was not so lucky. He was not the only one to be arrested that day in the neighborhood. Sometimes arrests make the news, and they might even publish a Go Fund Me. But these highlighted stories are a drop in the bucket compared to what neighborhood watch groups are documenting. 

It turns my stomach to think about all of it.

Sarah Menkedick wrote this essay and it's long and emotional, a beautifully written account of a terrible topic. The news cycle is bonkers and I know it's hard to find reliable sources or make sense of what is real and what is click bait. That's why it's important to look around your own city, to take a minute to listen to a woman you met at a playgroup, whose kid you shared a snack with one time. Real humans of the news cycle, if you will. Obviously there are calls to action we all must respond to, but I think the very first step is bearing witness, listening, acknowledging, and believing, even when it is painful to hear.