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 