Dear George,

Today I got an e-mail from a reader, sharing her appreciation of my blog yesterday. And, also, asking if I was intending my photos to be blacked out, or, was there something wrong with her browser? So, I told her, as I’ve said here before, I am keeping with my commitment to take my daily walk photos, post my daily walk photos, and then blackout my daily walk photos after posting them here in your memory. Then, putting my photos in a secret place for you. This is my way of protesting your death, and honoring your life, and what I am learning from my process of writing to you here in my daily blog. Posting my nature photos daily, on my safe, secure nature walks for the past four years has been my joy and privilege. I am taking this week in my blog to write this unsent letter to you, to ritualize my self-reflection on your life and murder and racism. I am changing my daily habits, my daily practice in a way that can be responsive to what’s going on in the country, the world, and not just my immediate habitat. As a poet and a writer, I am thinking about––and writing about and talking about––examining my own perspective, blind spots, bias. I have created a ritual, and I am experiencing a ritual, and I am documenting a ritual as it’s being experienced by me. And keeping the photos I take for you “secret” seems to have some important significance I cannot yet explain or define. I will know when I know, when the ritual delivers the knowing to me.

We drove to Fitzwilliam, NH today, early, very early, so that we could hike before any crowds on the trails. In the car, we talked about the protests, your death, and about race. One of the people in the car did not know what a microaggression is. And, so, we had a good, long talk about unconscious bias, white privilege. This person said thank you, after our talk, for explaining, and appreciated having a new awareness, an awakening of new ideas.

“What is a microagression?

Microaggressions can be intentional or unintentional and sometimes even well-meaning. But they communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial messages or assumptions to the receiver.”

“How to be anti-racist: Speak out in your own circles

The ability to even notice these instances requires educating yourself about the experiences of black people in America and the significance behind such remarks.” Excerpt from, Dear anti-racist allies: Here's how to respond to microaggressions, By Kristen Rogers, CNN, Sat June 6, 2020

At Little Monadnock, we went into the woods, and there was such a powerful, green peace under the broad, bright green canopy of trees, I took photos of the magnificence, and the gorgeous, broken and curling tree bark of the birch trees. So, later, in the afternoon, after we had returned home, and I was reading the poet Claudia Rankine’s book, Citizen, I felt very moved by her passage about needing to be among the trees:

“The rain this morning pours from the gutters and everywhere else it is lost in the trees. You need your glasses to single out what you know is there because doubt is inexorable; you put on your glasses. The trees, their bark, their leaves, even the dead ones, are more vibrant wet. Yes, and it’s raining. Each moment is like this—before it can be known, categorized as similar to another thing and dismissed, it has to be experienced, it has to be seen. What did he just say? Did she really just say that? Did I hear what I think I heard? Did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, your mouth? The moment stinks. Still you want to stop looking at the trees. You want to walk out and stand among them.”
― Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric

And, I found an interview the Guardian newspaper did with her when her book came out, and found that her quote about the imaginations of white people completely encompasses the horrible death you endured:

“‘Because white men can’t/ police their imagination/ black men are dying.’ What was in your mind when you wrote that line?

‘When white men are shooting black people, some of it is malice and some an out-of-control image of blackness in their minds. . . . Blackness in the white imagination has nothing to do with black people.’”

Excerpt from: Claudia Rankine: Blackness in the white imagination has nothing to do with black people’ by Kate Kellaway in The Guardian, Dec. 27, 2015