Keep Going

Hannah’s pace slowed to a stop as she scrolled through her phone contacts trying to remember what that woman’s name was from soccer practice. She’d already checked facebook with no luck. The names zoomed swiftly as she muttered “nope, nope, nope” under her breath. She thought it started with a B. Someone bumped into her shoulder slightly, and Hannah looked up, realizing she’d stopped on the busy walking path through the park. The wind was picking up, and the smell of fall was intense.

She moved to the guard rail at the edge of the walkway to minimize the barrier she was creating to the traffic flow. Everyone seemed in a hurry, but Hannah had no reason to rush through life.

“Bianca? Bella? Bridgette? … Bee, short for Beatrix!” Hannah felt a rush of satisfaction — that was it! Her thumb flew as she scrolled back up to the B’s, confident. Despite the speed of text flying up, Hannah noticed weird characters. She paused and scrolled back down to find the weird symbols again. Maybe it was just because she was scrolling too fast?

No! There among the B names in her contacts: ᛒᛖᚨᛏᚱᛁᛪ.

Weird.

Hannah had worked hard to grow her phone contacts but didn’t need extra fluff in there. She deleted the contact. Just above the weird letters was Bee’s name.

Hi! It’s me, Hannah from soccer. Want to meet for coffee before our next practice?

Hannah texted. Bee replied immediately.

Yes! I’m so glad we met. How about tomorrow at Them Beans on Oak St?

Love it! See you around 10?

Hannah responded. Bee sent back: 👍☕️

You know how with some people, you just click? That’s what it was like between Bee and Hannah. Hannah recently joined an adult soccer league as she was feeling like her friends were moving on with life — getting married, buying houses, having kids … Hannah wasn’t interested in that — maybe ever. She was enjoying life on her own terms, but she needed to broaden her social circle. Soccer was her answer, for now.

She kicked at the dry leaves that dispersed readily as she walked slowly back to her apartment, a small smile living in place on her face. She was all about living in the moment, and right now, the moment was fall. The leaves rustled satisfyingly, mostly faded to rust brown in color.

She let herself into the red door next to the bakery entrance she lived above. She took the dingy stairs two at a time to the third floor. In her apartment, weak light flooding the apartment through its floor-to-ceiling windows, Hannah sighed contentedly. It was happening! Her friend group was expanding in the most delicious way.

It was much more blustery and Hannah lost control of the door as she entered Them Beans. The bell on the door jangled obnoxiously as Hannah grabbed at it and finally wrested it closed against the wind. She turned to find everyone looking at her. She laughed in her care-free way.

“Sorry, everyone!” Hannah apologized warmly. “The wind and the door conspired against me, clearly!” she laughed comfortably again and walked confidently to the counter. The noises of the coffee shop bubbled up naturally again.

“I’ll take a cappuccino, double shot, extra sweet,” she ordered. The barista smiled warmly as Hannah handed her cash. When the barista turned to make Hannah’s drink, Hannah glanced around the coffee shop for Bee and saw the petite coffee colored bundle of warmth walking towards her.

“Hi!” Bee said with a big grin, and reached for a hug. Hannah embraced her warmly. Then Hannah grabbed her cappuccino that the barista had placed discreetly on the counter between them. Hannah followed Bee back to the table Bee had been sitting at.

“I’m so glad we met!” Hannah effused. “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about more and I think I have some ideas for who to reach out to.”
“Great!” Bee responded, “me too! Let’s compile a list.” Bee practically disappeared into our slouchy soft leather yellow bag, resting against against the leg of her chair — the thing was about half Bee’s size! She retrieved a glittery notebook and opened to a page with five names already listed, with their phone numbers printed neatly beside them. “I was thinking we could call each of them, explain our idea, and see if they want to meet. I’m not sure where — but sharing a meal seems like a good idea. Too much?” Bee asked uncertainly.

“No, I think that’s great!” Hannah replied with enthusiasm. “I think any time you get people eating together, it’s a good thing!”

“I agree,” Bee said simply. “Do you have a list?”

“uhh,” Hannah said, “in my head, ha!” she replied. “Maybe we should add it to your list so everything is organized in one place?”

“Good idea,” Bee agreed, and disappeared back into her bag to find a pen. She emerged with what looked like a quill with a compartment for ink and everything. When she saw Hannah’s questioning look, she explained unapologetically: “I love stationary supplies — so random pens are part of that.”

Hannah nodded, somewhat dumbfounded. Pen varieties never occurred to her as a thing to be into. “Oh!” she said, realizing that Bee was waiting for her list. Hannah pulled her phone from the pocket of her turquoise windbreaker. She opened up her contacts.

“Definitely Summer and Freya,” she said skimming her contacts to find their numbers. Bee dutifully wrote down Summer and Freya and then looked up waiting for Hannah to provide their phone numbers.

Hannah paused suddenly. “What the heck?” she asked baffled.

“What?” Bee asked inquisitively.

“Oh!” Hannah said, seeming to be jostled out of her own thoughts and feeling startled that Bee is there. “I just have this weird contact, see?” she asked, showing Bee the contact that says: ᛒᛖᚨᛏᚱᛁᛪ.

“Is that a contact I should add?” Bee asks innocently.

“Oh! No,” Hannah responds, surprised. She’d forgotten that she was looking for contacts for their idea. “It’s a contact that I saw in my phone yesterday, but I don’t know who it is. So I deleted it. I’m almost positive. But it’s here again …” Hannah trailed off. Then she shrugged and deleted the contact again. Then continued to scroll. “Okay, Grace …. Emma …. and …. Jess,” Hannah said. Bee wrote these names down and then wrote down their phone numbers as Hannah shared them.

“Great!” Bee said, capping her pen. “Let’s come up with a plan on how to explain this to these women.” She tossed her pen into her bag and reached back inside for another one. “It helps me stay organized to use different colors,” Bee explained when Hannah looked at her inquisitively. This pen was pink and had a tiny marker tip to it.

“So I think we should say,” Bee said looking straight into Hannah’s bright green eyes, “we want to do something effective in response to the racial unrest. Not in response in a big way, but in a small more sustainable way. We want to encourage meaningful deep connections between people of different races. When we met we realized how much we clicked, and we want to replicate that among our peers. We recognize that this doesn’t happen “naturally” because of how systems have been set up. This seems like an effective way to improve race relations across our city.”

“That’s great!” Hannah enthused. “I heard on some podcast that the comfort around homosexuality was incredibly fast and relatively recent. So when compared to race relations — what’s up??! We’ve been working on that for so much longer, I think? Anyway, what people are concluding is that when homosexuality was more normalized and more and more people came out — everyone had a sibling or parent or professional that they looked up to who was gay. So suddenly it was obvious that homosexuality was not only prevalent, but many already had relationships with gay people — and surprise!- they were awesome friends, colleagues, and family members. That explains why it has been accepted relatively quickly. I mean, I know it’s far from perfect — but when compared to the huge issues that we still face when it comes to race relations ….” Hannah’s voice trailed off for a moment to make her point. “So why hasn’t it happened in this area?? Because you can’t hide that you’re black or brown. And our society has been set up to keep us divided, to minimize cross-race friendships. So one way we can push back … or pull forward? … is to break those barriers erected by redlining and other strategies by consciously making cross-racial connections.”

“Yes! I love it” Bee answered. “Do you have time to start calling people right now?”

“Oh! Yes!” Hannah said glancing at the bustling coffee shop, “but should we do it somewhere quieter?”

“Do you want to come to my place, it’s about 4 blocks from here?” Bree asked.

“Sure!” Hannah said, somewhat surprised. If she was being honest, she’d never been to black person’s house in her adult life …. which was exactly why they needed to do this.

Hannah moved curiously into Bree’s apartment. Where her apartment was sparse and painted bright white with walls only concealing the bathroom, Bree’s apartment was full of warmth and plants. The cozy red walls throughout we welcoming, a place where friends surely gathered. The windows on the far side of the apartment could be seen from the front door and let in a soft glow behind gauzy flowy curtains. Open shelves went almost to the ceiling in front of the windows and was overflowing with all kinds of plants. Skinny leaves and fat ones, dark green, light green, and even purple leaves. Some plants had flowers, but most weren’t flowering.

“This is amazing,” Hannah breathed, moving towards the plants without thought.

“Thanks!” Bree responded lightly, “do you want any tea? Coffee?” she asked, moving into the tiny kitchen that was divided from the living room by a half wall.

“Oh, no, that’s okay,” Hannah responded, lifting her come from Them Beans to indicate that she was still working on her cappuccino. Hannah put the cup down on a low narrow navy blue table in front of the soft leather couch. She took off her coat and rested it on the overstuffed arm of the couch. When she dropped into the couch, she was startled to fall more deeply than she expected. She moved deeper into the couch to adjust, and tucked her socked feet up beneath her. She grabbed her phone from her coat pocket. “Okay, who was on my list again?” she asked Bee.

Bee grabbed her notebook and carrying a steaming ceramic mug, she joined Hannah in the living room. She put the notebook on the coffee table, and folded her small body into a perfectly proportioned floral lounge chair across the small living room from Hannah.

“Let’s do this,” Hannah said confidently. She decided to try Freya first. Opening her contacts, her eyes immediately saw ᛒᛖᚨᛏᚱᛁᛪ.

“No way,” she said, and showed her phone to Bee.

“What??!” Bee said surprised, “I thought you deleted that!”

“Me too!” Hannah said, “twice! This is so weird!” Hannah flipped her phone over, like a newbie who doesn’t know how phones work and might think this weird contact was being pushed into her phone from the back. She shrugged, discovering nothing helpful on the back of her phone. Then continued scrolling until she found Freya’s number. She listened as it rang twice and Freya picked up.

Across from Hannah, Bree was already in deep conversation with her best friend, Shea.

When Bree hung up her call, her grin was huge. She sipped her tea thoughtfully as Hannah wrapped up her own conversation.

“Right!” Bree heard Hannah say with enthusiasm. “I don’t know, when works for you? …. A Tuesday evening or Saturday afternoon? …. Oh, yeah, that’s great! Okay, I’ll text you when I know….. Oh yeah, good idea …. yeah! …. Okay, I’ll let you know. Thanks! Bye!”

Hannah’s grin matched Bee’s.

“What!!??” Bee asked, her body looking ready to spring with excitement.

“You first!” Hannah said, nearly squealing. “Who did you call?! What did she say??!”

“I called Shea,” Bee said, “she’s been my best friend since like second grade. She’s a little nervous because she hasn’t had good luck with white people, to be honest. But I can usually convince her to go along with any of my schemes.”

This dimmed some of Hannah’s giddiness. “This is a bigger ask for people who aren’t white, isn’t it?” Hannah asked meekly.

“It is, I think,” Bee responded thoughtfully. “White people, I think, tend to be uncertain of black people and relationships with black people because of an overarching pervasive cultural message that black people are less than — even dangerous. But white people don’t get close enough, unless it’s in maybe a professional setting? — to even know if those cultural messages are accurate.

Black people don’t have that luxury. They can’t insulate themselves from white people as effectively as the other way around. So they do have interactions with white people all of the time … but instead of white people being “background noise”, they are fully present and its pretty constant. And white people are actually dangerous to black people. Literally killing black people but also have shown that they aren’t safe by many many many microaggressions that white people are often naive to. It’s exhausting. So it’s a harder ask for black people because in general — they’ve done this. They’ve risked authentic relationships with white people repeatedly and been personally hurt emotionally or physically. So at this point, as grownups, they are taking the bigger risk, I think.”

“Wow, yeah,” Hannah said feeling deflated.

“But she didn’t say a hard ‘no’,” Bee reminded Hannah.

“Yeah, but wow,” Hannah repeated.

Bee waited a beat and then asked: “What about you? Who did you call? How did it go?”

Hannah visibly shook herself, a sort of reset. “I called Freya. We met about five years ago at yoga, and spent almost every day together! When she met Craig, her fiance, we stopped spending every day together, but we still try to get together once a week or so and we text constantly.

She’s in the midst of wedding planning and is pretty overwhelmed, but she said this is even bigger than wedding planning. She also had the idea of thinking of contacts she may have that might be into this too. Our circle overlaps a lot, but she has a few people that aren’t on my list. She wants to invite them to our gathering too, which I thought was a good idea?” Hannah ended with a question.

“Yeah!” Bee responded with a nod. She grabbed the notebook and added: encourage others to invite friends.

“She also asked when we’re getting together — which we should probably figure out?” Hannah asked.

“We could send out a survey after we talk to everyone to see what day and time works for the most people,” Bee suggested.

“That works,” Hannah said cautiously. “I do find that it works better because there’s less ambiguity if we just pick a date and time and whoever can make it can make it. Otherwise, you lose people. Enthusiasm wanes.”

“Let’s pick a date then,” Bee suggests. “You asked Freya about a time?”

“Yeah, she said Tuesday evenings or Saturday afternoons but she also said she’d move mountains to make this work on any other day,” Hannah explained. “And where should we meet?”

“We need to think of the most accessible option …” Bee said thoughtfully. “If you’re inviting 5 and I’m inviting 5 and our friends each invite a few … how big could this get?”

“I know it’s getting cooler, but maybe we should meet outside somewhere … potluck?” Hannah asked.

“Maybe we should just bring snacks, so make it more welcoming,” Bee suggested. “I don’t want someone to feel like they can’t come because preparing a dish is overwhelming.”

“Oh yeah, that’s good,” Hannah agreed. “Let’s do Saturday at 4?”

“It’s a plan!” Bee agreed. “Who are you calling next?”

“Let me text Freya quick, before I forget,” Hannah responded mumbling and looking intently at her phone. Then she looked up, “umm, Emma,” she responded.

“I’ll call Durah,” Bee said affirmatively.

Hannah went to her contacts again and began scrolling through her contacts to find Emma. She gasped.

“What?!” Bee asked, hanging up her call with Durah before it could connect.

“It’s back!” Hannah said, incredulous, and turned her phone for Bee to see: ᛒᛖᚨᛏᚱᛁᛪ.

“What is going on??!” Bee asked. “Does it have any other info?

Hannah clicked into it and saw there was a phone number. She nodded to Bee, not looking up.

“Call it!” Bee said enthusiastically.

“Maybe I should text first?” Hannah asked in a tiny skeptical voice.

Bee rolled her eyes good naturedly.

Who is this?

Hannah texted.

It’s Hannah.

Came the immediate response. Hannah suddenly felt shaky. She stretched her arm out and handed the phone to Bee.

“Okay, that’s creepy,” Bee said, handing the phone back. “Do you know a Hannah?”

“I mean, yeah, but …” Hannah responded absently.

Hannah who?

she texted. She could see the bubble pop up as the other Hannah texted, then disappeared, then reappeared.

Hannah Jones.

Came the texted response. Hannah went cold.

“What?!” Bee asked, as she saw Hannah’s face go ashen.

Hannah showed Bee the phone again.

“What’s your last name?” Bee asked. Hannah gave her a look. “Jones?!?” Bee asked incredulous. Hannah nodded.
“That’s so freaky,” Bee said in a whisper.

The wind picked up eerily, creaking the old window panes. Hannah’s phone rang, making both women jump. ᛒᛖᚨᛏᚱᛁᛪ read the caller id. Hannah showed Bee.

“Answer it,” Bee whispered.

“Hello?” Hannah asked quietly into the phone.

“Hi!” Hannah heard a chipper voice respond, “I know this is weird, but I didn’t know how else to reach you.”

“How did you keep coming back into my contacts?” Hannah whispered, unable somehow to project her voice at a typical level.

“Oh, that,” the voice said, “sorry about that; it was the only way I knew how to reach you.”

“Who are you?” Hannah asked, still quiet.

“I know this is crazy, but I’m your great great great great granddaughter,” she said matter of factly.

“What?” Hannah said, dumbfounded. “I don’t even have kids!” Then she shook herself. Obviously a deranged person was on the other end of the line. She should hang up.

“I know it sounds crazy!” the voice said. “But you end up having one son, and a few generations later, I’m born and they name me after you.”

“But, what?!” Hannah said.

“I know,” the voice says carefully, “it seems impossible to someone like you. I’m from 100 years in the future, and we’ve figured a lot of things out — including how to contact past ancestors. But we’re only supposed to do it if it’s really important.”

Hannah, stunned, remained silent.

“This is important,” the voice says. “Your relationship with Bee might seem like a little thing, but this small spark of an idea makes a difference that lasts generations. I just wanted to encourage you, because I know you have doubts. But it’s worth it. All the work. This thing that doesn’t seem like a big deal now has such a huge impact. Keep going.”