Taking a beat from the mayhem ...

By JoAnne Young

 

For more than a year during the hideout heart of the pandemic, our homes became our inner sanctums. Our sweatpants and pjs were the uniforms of wellbeing. And we adopted such cute port-in-a-storm puppies. 

 

Now we’ve remodeled, moved on and rejoined the planet. Now we’re annoying the natural world once again. But we still need our sanctuaries ... those soothing places where our brains can take a beat. Where we have a minute to think rather than do. Where we can be comforted by the contemplation of our inevitable difficult thoughts. 

 

I surveyed my breakfast club this morning to learn about their sanctuaries: 

A predawn bike ride; a walk in nature; early morning at the office before anyone else shows up; a comfortable freewheeling discussion with an intimate gathering of friends; a beach at sunrise. 

 

Mine? My car is an excellent oasis, and I know many of yours are, too. I see you sitting in your Hondas, Toyotas, Chevy Silverados, the engines off, your faces reflecting the glow of your iPhones, your doggo beside you on the passenger seat, your cream cheese and onion sandwich on the dashboard. 

 

Oh sweet closed-in comfort. 

 

For 14 years I had access to one of the grandest sanctuaries in the state. I had an office at the Nebraska State Capitol, my sanctuary especially at night, after I had finished my work and all the others had gone home. I slipped down the 32 steps just outside my third-floor door and walked through a dimly lit hallway to the Rotunda. 

 

I would sit on one of the rockhard benches that seemed to soften in the quiet, and soak in the subdued aura of high ceilings and decades old tile and marble art, looking up to the dome and the seven winged virtues soaring above us, clasping hands and reminding those of us planted on the floor of temperance, courage, justice, wisdom, magnanimity, faith, hope, charity. 

 

Sometimes it left me with an ache that could be at once fill me with hope and with sadness. In December, when an evergreen from a generous Nebraska landscape filled the Rotunda with the scent of holidays and the primary colors of a string of lights reflecting on the polished marble floors, I could barely force myself to get up and go out into the night. 

 

I could have sat there until 4 in the morning writing love letters to Hildreth Meière and Hartley Burr Alexander. 

 

A few weeks ago, I discovered another sanctuary – for those who experienced in May 2020 the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, and the protests and turmoil that followed in that city and around the country. I wanted to see that piece of ground in front of Cup Foods at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, to stand on the sidewalk and contemplate all that happened on that day and since. 

 

What I found was a two-block square, the George Floyd Free State, that is filled with memorials to him and many others killed by police in our country. It is, as those who tend to it say, a place of peace, justice, mourning and healing. 

 

It feels sacred. I spent time walking and studying, talking to a guardian, and a woman who could easily recite the history of police brutality and injustices visited upon Black people in our country. I met an independent photojournalist who was the first to arrive on the scene and then continued to return and document events, experiences and people there. 

 

Words on the sidewalk (as written): ‘We march, ya’ll mad. We sit down, ya’ll mad. We speak up, ya’ll

mad. We die, ya’ll silent.”

 

From the abandoned Speedway gas station (now dubbed The People’s Way) across the street from the Cup Foods memorial area to the Say Their Names Cemetery art installation, it is a sanctuary for anyone who cares about the injustices that have happened in our country for centuries to our Black Americans.  

 

Paul Eaves, a volunteer caretaker, has said: “There are certain parts of the world that have a certain sacredness because of continued attention human beings give them. And this is one of them.” 

 

Wherever, whenever, you need your own sanctuary, you will find it. In a book, a library or a bookstore. At our favorite table in our beloved coffee shop. Behind a camera. On a deck or a bike trail, an 8-foot fishing boat or one-woman kayak. 

 

I wish you comfort and light or dimly lit joy. 

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