Filed under: Surviving the MAGA reign, Teaching | Tags: 2024 Presidential Election, Children, Democracy, Hope, Making art in evil times, mental health, Republican Trifecta
A vaccine denier is to head up the Department of Health and Human Services. The Republicans won the house. Matt Gaetz is to be the Attorney General of the United States. It’s to be four years of revenge and retribution for almost being called to account.
I take a turn around the school when I need to clear my head. I can walk through childhood and adolescence in just a few minutes. I start in the middle. If I turn left, I pass through the crucible years of 7th and 8th grade, where everything sizzles and pops. Through the doors by the division director’s office, I pass into the quieter but deeper waters of High School, then out the double doors between the Music Room and the Library to the Green Space. It will either be still and empty of children or teeming with them in the field, the garden, the climbing trees, the gaga pit, the volleyball 4 square, the playground, the basketball court, the creek bed play space. I’ll go back into the school through the doors by the playhouse I had built for our outdoor Covid production of Wizard of Oz. The house actually spun during the tornado scene, but now has been rendered stationary, though certainly not ordinary.
Back in the school, I pass by the rack of rainboots, the kindergarten rooms, science room and up through the Lower School hall. I often stop to admire all the art made by little hands. So many projects on display, like the undersea world of coral reef, schools of fish, and jellyfish. I love walking by and getting a glimpse of little ones gathered around their teacher on the rug for story time, or nestled in their own place in a nook or pillow fort or on a sofa reading intently. I wonder then what it would have felt like to be that cozy at school when I was young. Cozy disappeared right after kindergarten for me, replaced by itchy school uniforms so badly designed that I couldn’t get the jumper on or off by myself, and by school desks arranged in neat rows where we had to sit up straight and pay attention in ways that the teacher recognized. The Lower School hallway here is tidy, but also cozy. Full of color and possibility. The joy of exploration is in evidence on every wall and in every doorway. These are doorways that you want to pass through.
On this day, I pass 5th grader Silas with my usual ‘Hello friend’ greeting. He always looks haunted and fragile, with a pale face and dark circled eyes thanks to his diabetes, but his is an eager and active mind.
“Ms. Crawford” he calls to me. “Would you like a cricket for a pet?”
I stop and turn, pausing to consider.
“I don’t think so. Are you offering me one?”
“Yes. I have one in my pocket. If I can’t find anyone who wants it, I’ll take it home to my tarantula.”
“Oh. Is it alive in there?”
“Oh yes.” He unzips his pocket and pulls out a cricket in a carefully cupped hand. It’s on its literal last legs, but definitely alive.
“Wow” I say. “You think it’s going to be alright in your pocket?”
He shrugs as he puts it carefully back, zipping it almost closed. “Sure. I’ve left it a hole for breathing. Okay well, see you next class.” And he goes on his way.
I’ve been thinking about that breathing hole ever since.
Filed under: Surviving the MAGA reign | Tags: 2024 Presidential Election, Democracy, Dorothy Allison, Faith, inspiration, life, Making art in evil times, mental health, Surviving the MAGA reign, Writing
Sunday Morning. I think it is November 10
I’ve stopped listening to the news on the radio, my morning company for decades. I’ve turned off Apple news notifications on my phone except for weather – no BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Apple News. None. I’ve called on my prodigious superpowers of living in denial and compartmentalization in order to function. I’ve fixed my attention on others, looking for the goodness and finding it. I’m looking at this little spot right here, the moment I am in- the very thin line where the sea meets the shore. If I look too far out to sea, panic rises up and I am paralyzed by it. There were moments, long moments, on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that I thought I might be having a coronary event and truly may have been. It took all my powers election night to pull myself back from the edge- turning everything off, putting good smells in the air, lighting my bedroom ceiling with stars, turning on the soundscape of the Milky Way and crickets (shout out here to the Calm app working on overtime these days), taking melatonin, putting lavender magnesium rub on my temples, chest, belly and feet, and breathing. Counting the breaths. Slowing them. Deepening them until I could sleep. It worked. But then there was the morning.
How am I to get through the coming years? Complete disengagement is not possible, not as someone dedicated to bringing whatever goodness I can to the world. I cannot betray myself. But neither can I be a force for good if I am paralyzed by anxiety or made evil with fury at my fellow citizens. I must face that the times are calling on me to be an alchemist. I must work harder than I have ever worked to transform heartbreak, fear and fury into Love. I must take care of myself, put my oxygen mask on first. I must love my life and the lives of others with everything I have. Loving others does mean engaging in the politics of our time, engaging in society. This is hard for me, I am wired to withdraw and disappear when I am hurt. I am wired not to admit I am in pain, not to even consider that I might need help. I’ve already been in hiding for years, so coming into the light feeling skinless will require courage and faith that I’m not sure I have. Guess I’ll find out. A plan helps. Being my own gatekeeper, helps. Limiting social media and the news, being very very careful not to feed the furious fires has given me some peace this week. Writing helps. Seeing my fellow teachers and colleagues dressed in black, walking like the undead this week has helped. I am not alone in my world. I have to find a way forward. I have to somehow engage in the struggle.
The great Dorothy Allison passed this last week. She spoke for so many who have been silenced, who believed they had no voice.
“We have lost the imagination for what our real lives have been or continue to be, what happens when we go home and close the door on the outside world. Since so many would like us to never mention anything unsettling anyway, the impulse to be quiet, the impulse to deny and pretend, becomes very strong. But the artist knows all about that impulse. The artist knows that it must be resisted. Art is not meant to be polite, secret, coded, or timid. Art is the sphere in which that impulse to hide and lie is the most dangerous. In art, transgression is holy, revelation a sacrament, and pursuing one’s personal truth the only sure validation.”
Dorothy Allison, 1949-2024
Filed under: Faith, Surviving the MAGA reign, Teaching | Tags: 2024 Presidential Election, Abide No Hatred, Democracy, Faith, Hope, inspiration, Kamala Harris, poetry, Surviving Trump, Writing
November 6. I can’t even write words. I am absolutely destroyed. Panic is pummeling my poor heart, it can’t keep its own rhythm. The best I can do is remember to breathe. All day long. I will breathe.
November 7 Instead I will write of 7th grader Coleman checking to see if I’m alright, his kind smile in the hall. I will write about the smell of rain after a long time without it. Of the cookbook I pre-ordered months ago and that was just delivered last night “Comfort Bakes”, just when I needed it. I will write of the middle school Duloc performers in the all-school musical Shrek and how they killed it in rehearsal, how on task they were and how much they remembered from their last rehearsal over a week ago. How much they have grown in so short a time. I will write of how 5th grade Liam managed to cut his clothes to actual ribbons while making shadow puppets in drama class without anyone seeing until too late and how his mother, when told, just smiled and shook her head ‘I’m not surprised. He’s unmedicated today because we ran out last night’. I will write of the positive energy, vision and material help of Ash, my parent volunteer costume coordinator who is moving mountains for the 117 costumes we need for Shrek. I will write of how astonishing it is to have so much help from so many different quarters, All I had to do was ask, all I had to do was say what I needed. I will write of my daughter’s tears, and her friend Anna’s and those of my very dear and thoughtful high school drama students- I find hope in their tears, knowing that their fears, sorrow and anger will become action in time. I will write of how much better I feel not having news alerts ping through constantly on my phone. I can be in control of what I read, listen to, react to. I can remember to breathe. I can be joyful, sitting on the front porch of the school telling stories to the 6th graders turning cartwheels as they wait to be picked up from rehearsal.
I will gather sweetness. I will savor it. It’s all I can do this day.
I tell you: Suns exist.
The Fox at Dawn 