Jeff, in my humble opinion the best postal carrier in the world, is a black man. I am a white woman. I’m sitting on my porch reading about the latest racist atrocities in America on my phone when he comes to bring me my mail today, and we exchange our usual friendly greetings.

“Where’s my buddy?” he asks, referring to my dog, who happens to be inside right then, alas. He gives her treats if she’s out when he comes – it’s basically the highlight of her day, and I suspect maybe Jeff’s too. She is pretty adorable, it’s an undeniable fact.

My mail today is just one of those annoying coupon flyers. “Sorry for the junk mail,” he says, “I have to deliver it.” No worries, I say, I understand.

“Have a good one!” he says, and I say “you too.”

And he continues on with his deliveries to my neighbors. And so ends one of the few live, in-person conversations I have these days, which have come to feel more and more precious as the quarantine goes on.

These kinds of surface level pleasantries are pretty typical between Jeff and me. And really, that’s all they should be. I don’t want to make him into some kind of token black symbol for my all-important white allyship. I’m sure he just wants to do his job and live his life as peacefully as possible and not have to walk around being a representative of anything more than anyone else does. He doesn’t need to participate in my Big White Feelings About Racism while going about his work day, or ever. Honestly, I’m not entirely comfortable even using this exchange as an example here without his consent, and am wrestling as I write this with an urge to change his name and particulars of this little story while also wanting to be truthful about my own experiences.

But at the same time, I feel like there are so many little interactions like this where I want to find the courage to somehow say to every person of color in my world, from Jeff to closer friends to total strangers, “I SEE THIS. I share in this grief and outrage. I agree it is unacceptable and I want to do my part in making it stop. It’s disgusting and absurd that we are carrying on as if this isn’t happening.”

I don’t want Jeff to have to wonder as he walks up and down my street – which let’s face it, for all the liberalness of my little community, is mostly white – whether all these seemingly friendly exchanges he has along the way are really dependent on some kind of fragile bubble of self-congratulatory assumptions that could burst any second at the smallest challenge. Whether we’re not all a bunch of closet racists who would stand by and do nothing if it was his neck under the cop’s knee, if he was the one birdwatching in the park while I was out walking my dog, if he wasn’t wearing his blue uniform like a shield of acceptability and was just a black man walking or jogging down our street. I want him to know that no, I wouldn’t be that kind of white person, I’d have his back. And I want to have the courage to face whether that is really true.

But also you know, all of us are walking around holding this sorrow and rage all the time, and so much more. We’re all also scared about the pandemic. We’re all also worried about the government, the economy, climate change. We all have people in our lives fighting cancer, HIV, addictions, depression, and more. And miraculously, at the same time we all hold in our hearts incredible beauty and joy, bubbling hilarity, deep abiding love, and glorious passions. We somehow manage to stuff all these things into the tiny shells of our bodies and carry them around with us as we do the mundane business of our everyday lives, valiantly holding back enormous floods of emotions as we make these small connections with one another. Somehow we don’t use every single encounter to say “OH MY GOSH YOU ARE ANOTHER HUMAN BEING CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?!??” Really, it’s stunning.

I don’t know how to better show my humanity to Jeff. I will always be friendly and hold profound respect for the important job he does for my community – which actually is not just life threatening these days because of the virus, but has always been for him just for existing while black. And I will keep looking for ways I can help change that (here are some), for him and for all of us. Maybe that’s all I can do.

But I wish he could somehow hear the waves of my emotion-flood beating at the edge of my words when I say “you too.” I really mean it.