Stories · Jan 06, 2021

I think this is the place

Name: SARAH BURNETTE

Pronouns: She/Her

What do the words "only human" mean to you?

“Only human”…. the one thing we all have in common; the one thing that above all else should bond us, make us want to encourage one another, lend us to want to help other humans with everything in our power: only human.

What are you passionate about?

Oh this one is going to ramble..In day to day life I am passionate about documenting the small moments in life. The hope is that I will be able to look back and remember how wonderful a typical, boring work day was because of how great the sunset was.. those clouds man! I am also passionate about staying healthy.. as someone with one slightly over active parent and one parent who was chronically ill, I’d rather stay on the more active side as much as possible! I tend to do this with cycling, rock climbing, weight lifting and working at an active job site. With these day to day passions I have learned that they can reach broader than my little world… Think about staying healthy; pretty easy to consider coming from a place where I can decide what comes into my house and what I get to do with my free time from my job. A staggering amount of humans do not get to make these decisions for one reason or another. Healthy food is NOT cheap, for starters. Why buy two apples for a dollar when you could go to an unnamed fast food restaurant and get an entire burger for a dollar? I have the luxury to choose to eat healthy and I believe that should not be a luxury. The idea of housing really gets my blood going as well, in a good way.. I think. It’s super easy to cook up a healthy meal in your kitchen, right? What if you don’t have a kitchen? I was recently approached by a man in my neighborhood asking for odd jobs, I told him I didn’t have any work but I’d be happy to go to the grocery store for him! Though he was able to give me a list, all he has to cook with is a very small camping lighter, so his dining options are pretty limited. He has no way to heat vegetables or meat and no way to keep things cool and safe to eat. I wish so dearly to be able to campaign in my region for a housing solution to homelessness and poverty. I’ve been sitting on these ideas for a long time now and am finally starting to put some ideas together.. any resources or ideas you’ve seen in your region would be so welcome!

What makes you the happiest?

Bringing happiness to other humans. Those little moments of uplifting banter, a good hug, remembering someones favorite ice cream and surprising them with it!

Also just being among the trees and the mountains.. its a refuge..

In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?

This past summer I lost my Dad to suicide. Since then I have started standing up for myself a bit more. First subconsciously then more outwardly. It made me realize that life can just pass you by and it’s so easy to just float on doing what pleases everyone else but never really realizing that maybe you’re not 100% happy. This is all mainly in the context of work..i.e asking for a change in position, asking for a raise, and not taking bad attitudes from employees or customer. Obviously all done in a nice way, but in a way that shows I am valuing my company, but I see my value in my company. (BTW I have like the best job ever. I was a bike store manager for several years and have now taken over as VP for our new warehouse and logistics. My boss is super amazing and lets me have so much personal time after the trauma we suffered this year..)

How do you keep yourself positively inspired during overwhelming times?

By remembering how darn good I actually have it. The world can feel like its absolutely crumbling, but at the end of the day I have a wonderful partner, two great dogs, a gorgeously annoying cat, a job I adore which provides me a steady income, I have beautiful, absolutely stunning friends, I have abilities (I can read and write and and see and hear and feel emotions and do other cool stuff), I have an amazingly dysfunctional family who loves and supports me, I have a house to put my dogs and cat and partner in, I have a car to help me get to see the people I love and do the things I love, I have two bikes I’m crazy about (which is great because there’s a world wide bicycle shortage if you didn’t know #2020).

When all else fails I reach out to my friends who will always remind me that I am grounded and will push me to get out and go walk, hike, or bike, something to get the serotonin flowing more easily. Sometimes I just sit and stuff my face and watch a show or read a book, and thats okay too.. all of this is a form of self love.

If you could spend a day in someone else’s shoes, whose would they be? Why?

This is a terribly hard question.. there are so many people I could pick but based on what? Everyone has their struggles and insights to the world.. But Ive earned mine and I think I like it that way? I have people I would maybe want to stand by for a day! And experience what they see from my point of view. That list would be endless..it would be people I could learn from and have engaging conversation with about being in different positions in life.

PEOPLE SARAH WANTS TO STAND BESIDE:

My two best friends (they have fascinating jobs and I don’t fully understand them from the outside looking in)
Ellen (I just want to see if she is really as kind as we all think she is, or she has us all fooled)
Andrew Zimmern (Just to go to a few weird places and eat all of the food and be shown around)
The Queer Eye crew (I mean come one, we all need a good cry and a laugh & I honestly want to see what Tanny and JVN would do for me and of course talk to Karamu about all of the things wrong/right with this world)
Sarah Sturm or Lael Wilcox (female badass cyclist, just see if I could remotely keep up)
Any homeless person/person in poverty (to see what their daily struggle is really like so I can help, again, I have been fortunate in life so far)
Any BIPOC (again, I am a white female. Though I do have things about me that get me weird looks or slander thrown at me, it’s not that bad)
Wesley Hamilton (Founder of Disabled But Not Really)
A Police Officer (I cannot imagine the daily turmoil)
Hannah and Suruthi from the podcast RedHanded (They are just fabulous)
My buddy and her fiancé in New Zealand (I mean, who doesn’t want to go there. They are also how I learned about OH!)
My dog
Also my cat
Any of you guys reading this

What book (or books) have greatly influenced your life?

I keep rereading the Nevada Barr serious about a National Park ranger named Anna Pigeon. It’s not life altering or super inspiring.. but she starts out as a young widow living in New York and applies to be a Temp out in Colorado having never gone to the mountains. She makes her way to being a District Ranger and gets to travel from park to park. She basically turns in a badass crime fighting woman who is one with nature and that’s just amazing.

I typically read crime and fiction books.. I keep the heavy stuff for podcasts.. BUT my boss’ mother (you heard that right folks) gave me The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse after losing my Dad this summer and wow.. let’s just saying I’m plotting to get a matching tattoo of it with my Mom. It will take you about twenty minutes to read.. I will even mail you my copy if you mail it back!

What’s your favorite quote?

The Wild Woman has a deep love of Nature, A love for the Ancient Mother, though possibly misunderstood, it has always been in her. When she goes into the wilderness, a part of her is Soul is going home
If you stop and pay attention, every place is a cathedral, every breath a prayer. No matter what you believe in, there are so many things to worship.
Birds don’t need ornithologists to fly.We spend so much time wanting to be seen and named: as intelligent or good or handsome or pretty or successful or popular or as nobody’s fool. Yet the spirit doesn’t know it’s being spiritual anymore than water rushing knows it’s a stream, and the heart doesn’t know it’s expanding with compassion anymore than a hawk spreading its wings knows it’s being a hawk. Nor does someone acting out of love often realize they are being kind.
From an early age, we are taught that to live fully is to be accepted, and to be accepted, we need to be seen. So we base success and even love on the effort to be seen, on how much we stand out.

However, the often painful truth we discover along the way is that to survive in an inner way that matters – that keeps us connected to all that has ever lived and is living – we sorely need to know how to be accepting.

By this I don’t mean being passive. By this I mean inhabiting our capacity to see and affirm the common pulse of life we find in others, no matter how different they may seem from us.

When we do this, we no longer need to be different to be valued and no longer need to be accepted to know love. In short, we no longer need an audience to fly. We simply have to extend our sincerity to each abiding day and we will be in accord with all that is valuable. Like flowers waiting on rain, our hearts wait on love. As much as we want to be seen and known, it is the giving of attention that keeps us awake. For giving attention opens us to love. And accepting that deep things wait like seed between us is believing in the world. So wake me by accepting me, and the world will sprout us up like grass.