Sometimes I wonder if humanity is just a series of poorly edited takes. Some people march, some make laws, some argue on the Internet like Wi-Fi prophets. To me? I prefer the slow way. What happens over burnt coffee, years of awkward silence and working hard not to mistake love for consent.
My mom once bought me a book of quotes at a garage sale for 25 cents. On page 32, Desmond Tutu whispers, “My humanity is tied to yours, because we can only be human together.”
This line should have been printed on every family dinner table, especially ours.
I think of Richard every time I read this. Richard with kind eyes and a dark opinion. He still calls his mother every Sunday, remembers birthdays I forgot, and once drove in a snowstorm to fix my broken mailbox because “it looked sad.” But for years he told stories about people like me—old myths that clung to his kind heart like a spider's web that refused to burn.
And I carried mine. Different myths, the same stubborn dust. I thought people like him couldn't change. That some hearts were brewed. It turns out I was wrong. It turns out that welding can be undone with time and laughter.
We never had a huge confrontation, no presentation about privilege, no emotional exorcism. We just stayed. We argued. We built trust one terrible cup of coffee at a time. The myths between us began to lose their grip, dissolving like sugar at the bottom of a broken mug.
Nonno, my grandfather, would not have liked such patience.
He was part Archie Bunker and part saint, depending on the hour and the moon. If you've ever seen Archie grumble in an episode, you know his type: convinced that the world is ending because someone changed the channel. My grandma was not happy about this. He was loud, stubborn, and loved me like a man trying to force God into submission.
He once told me that I was too dark to be Italian and I told him that was okay. I wasn't trying to be one. I was just trying to survive Sunday dinner with my grandfather. We argued until our throats were tight, until tears replaced words, and then he brought rigatoni as a peace offering. That was his theology: repentance with sauce.
And yet I knew that he would take a bullet for me.
I am not saying: stay and argue cruelly, there are enough ghosts of this error in the world. I'm talking about Richard's stubbornness, who believes that friendship can survive disagreement.
During the pandemic, Richard and I stood on opposite sides of the same storm. We couldn't meet, so every day I sent him tiny drawings, little pieces of light in an envelope. He said they made his walls feel less lonely. I told him these were breadcrumbs to find my way home.
Maybe that's all we can do for each other. Leave crumbs of compassion and hope someone else is hungry enough to follow.
Because sometimes “different” doesn’t mean “stranger.” Sometimes the “other” is your friend, your grandfather, or the version of you who still believes the world can’t change.
I learned that fear is a miser. It makes us small, it hoards our humanity, like change in a jar labeled Not today. But curiosity is a thief who breaks in at night and leaves a note saying “Try again.”
When old myths die, the world gets bigger. The streets are breathing out. Neighbors wave longer. Children grow up to be curious, not cautious. Even the air seems different, as if it has finally forgiven us for breathing incorrectly.
Fear costs more than we think. It eats up art, joy, second chances. This turns our hands into fists, even though they are meant to be held. Eradicating these myths is the slow work of rebuilding our own reflection.
And the magic is that you don't need a revolution. You just want a conversation that goes better than expected. You just need to linger a little longer after the first awkward silence.
Because, as Tutu said, we can only be human together, tinkering, learning, laughing in the dark, still arguing about nothing and still somehow finding each other.
And maybe, just maybe, this is what healing sounds like. Two old friends chuckle through the static, ghosts and saints, and Archie Bunker watches from the couch, waiting to see if we can get it right this time.
Bella Luna Zúñiga is a writer based in Winnipeg.
