Month: November 2016

Week 1

~ brixton ~ 1 Comment

 

I’m struggling with feelings of shame around not doing enough. This is a constant for me – and for many, though I think working parents deal with particularly pernicious flavors of it – and it’s exacerbated by the burning need to DO SOMETHING in response to the election.

How do I get outside my bubble (workplace, profession, neighborhood, city, friend group) to be a part of change? How can I engage with things outside my bubble authentically, without constantly feeling like (or being) a white savior? How can I be active in helping prevent (or undo) the damage that has been wrought by millions of people like me and voted in support of things I find horrifying and incomprehensible?

I can speak out about the things that I know personally, but that isn’t enough, not now. Reproductive rights, women’s rights – these are small but important pieces of all of the things that are at stake. There are many more things that I care about than am knowledgeable about – social justice, access to education, the nuances of healthcare policy – and many, many more beyond that.

But then I also have a family and a job. A little son who demands my attention from the moment we wake until I leave for work, and from the moment I walk in the door until he goes to sleep. 3-4 hours/day with my child. 9-10 hours/day at work and commuting. 1-2 hours/day with my partner. An hour or so for exercise and self-care. Sleep, still broken by a child who wakes up 3-5 times/night needing my comforting attention. But everyone has these things, some with more support and flexibility, many with less.

I don’t know. I’m anxious and afraid. I need help getting outside my shell and my bubble. I’m working on figuring out what in my life can go – for now, for awhile, for a long time – to make room for what needs to happen. I need help giving myself permission to do what I can, knowing that there will always be more to be done.

Day 2

~ brixton ~ 1 Comment

Today I did concrete things. I set up monthly donations. I signed petitions.

I read a lot of things that made my blood chill. This thread is a very good example.

Many years ago, my life was very different – probably unrecognizable to many who know me now. I was a very different person in a very different relationship. The people that surrounded me were more diverse than those around me now in ways that I didn’t recognize then, but that feel very important now.

In the days since the election, I have yet to encounter any of the nastiness or hate that is clearly happening all over the country. The people in my social circles are angry, devastated, sad, and scared – but they are rising up with nearly one voice to express the desire to move forward, to love and care for each other, and to be the light in the darkness, both now and in the days to come. And this is a wonderful thing.

But it also means that I am acutely aware that I’m in a bubble, and I’m not sure how to get outside of it, particularly when what’s outside the bubble is terrifying.

I remember what it felt like to be in conversations about guns and the government, and to wonder what circumstances resulted in these otherwise lovely people prioritizing the rights granted in one particular amendment over the rights granted in all the others. I remember what it felt for casual racism and misogyny to be the norm. I remember what it felt like when my body was more valuable than my brain. And I remember, later, and then over and over and over, realizing how narrow my understanding of the world had been.

But I fled one bubble for another. And now I find myself wondering – how do we bridge these huge gaps in order to understand each other? Especially when the rhetoric of Tuesday’s winners is laced with hate? Are respect, listening, and engagement really even on the table? I want to believe that they are, but I really don’t know.

Where Do We Go From Here?

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A month ago today, I emerged from the finisher’s area of my first marathon in a daze. I squatted down next to a vehicle and had an ugly, jagged, rough cry. The race had taken everything out of me, particularly the last five miles, and the tears of pain and exhaustion and depletion came from some place raw and hidden, a secret store of emotions that I didn’t know I contained.

I imagine that’s what a lot of us felt like last night, as the forecasts and our associated hopes fell through the floor, or this morning, as we woke to the reality of an America all too familiar to many.

I laid in bed this morning between my partner and our son, tears streaming down my face as I remembered the optimism and energy of the previous day, the overwhelming hope embodied in the wave of posts to Pantsuit Nation. People voting for the first time or the last.People casting votes alongside adult children or ailing parents. People flying home from all over to vote because absentee ballots didn’t arrive in time.  People casting votes they never anticipated, either due to the impossibility of a serious female candidate, or because that candidate represented a party whose values were so far off from those the voter previously held. People voting for inclusion, for tolerance, for progress, for unity, for a better country – or even just for a less bad one.

We didn’t get that.

This morning I wiped away my tears, and then I read my son the book about seeds that he requested upon waking. I made coffee. I did the dishes and put away the laundry. I put on makeup. I went to work and facilitated a meeting about statistics. I took down signs advertising events in the past. These were things I could do.

I don’t have to take a quiz to know that my love language is acts of service. But in the face of this, it’s hard to know what to do. I’m so small. I’m only one person. It’s a very familiar feeling.

So many of us are feeling so much fear and uncertainty today – for ourselves, for our loved ones, for those with less privilege or power, for our country. For women and minorities, for immigrants and the disabled, for those who rely on social programs that could be eliminated, for those whose families could no longer be recognized, for operation of a free press, for the right to practice any religion, for the health of our planet. My family has much less to fear than many, and so we owe it to others to do more, share more, help more, understand more, love more – I just don’t know where to start.

I want to challenge you to do as I’m doing right now – to list one concrete thing you can do to keep our country, your state, your city, your neighborhood, your street, your family, and yourself moving forward. And then let’s keep each other accountable, just as we’ll work together to keep our new government accountable.