the other

What do you see when you see me?

Your mind writes a story that may not be mine

And in a glance, you think you know me.

But you don’t know me.

How could you?

How could you see the years that brought me here?

The stick in the eye

The many careers

The six babies, three children who pull at my strings.

No need to talk—you’ve figured me out, you’ve got this thing.

All it takes is a glance—one side view look. The story is clear, but like the rear view mirror, we are always larger than we appear.

But you do not account for that—and so your calculations are off.

SO waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy off.

And perhaps it’s not just you, I do it too.

We may all be guilty of this act.

We believe our beliefs are certainly facts.

Convinced that the other has no idea

It’s easier to write them off and fear—all that they represent, though not grounded in the present.

Because in this moment, if you cared to stop, you may find out that I am not,

the reduced image of what you’ve created in your mind.

I am more complex, you’d most definitely find.

a little note

I wrote the first stanza of this poem nearly twenty years ago, I want to say it was 2001, when I was a local TV journalist in Canada.

I had been toying with this theme of not belonging, since I was a child.

Growing up Mennonite in a community of non-Mennonites made me feel othered.

My parents were students when they had me, were much younger than many of my friends’ parents, and hadn’t achieved the financial stability I perceived my friends to have.

I felt different and this feeling persisted for decades.

I often think about universalities—if they exist or if that’s just a little something with which we soothe ourselves to feel less other and more belonging.

I’ve come to believe though, that the feeling of being different may just be universal.

And certainly in these times, we see the tool of othering, weaponized to control people and to achieve political gains.

We prey upon people’s insecurities and provide targets for their frustrations and fear—and this is not right.

We must fight the urge, the laziness of othering. We must pause long enough, be curious, open, and willing to see through the many facades we throw up to hide and protect what is truly there within us and know that others are doing this too, to protect themselves.

We must not other.

Because yes, we are all different, our unique perspectives built up over years, over generations of lived experiences—that is true.

Equally true is this: We are all human and deserve each other’s respect, kindness, and to feel we belong.

We all actually do.