The Fox at Dawn

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