This is Where We Are
Deep breaths, my loves
Hello dear ones,
I’ve written a bit about each of the emotion I’ve been experiencing today. Feel free to skip it all, just read some parts, or do whatever you like. You know what you need.
Anxiety & Fear
Last night around 11:00pm I saw this Tr*mp presidency looming over the horizon. I had intentionally not been giving it much thought. I was hoping it wouldn’t happen, but also, I was truly terrified of the possibility. So last night as I watched incomplete poll results showing a notable lead for Tr*mp, I sat with the fact that this could really happen (and it did). I thought I might spend all of today in a prolonged panic attack. My brain moved into a future that is unknown, but that I fear will be violent, dangerous, and traumatic.
Panic may come and go—especially when I think about the future—but right now I feel calmer. I am keeping my mind on the present. And the present isn’t great, but it’s more concrete than the catastrophes I am dreading that are not yet real. I am giving myself permission to be here, right now. I like this quote from the Book of Matthew: “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” In sum: today is plenty to deal with. It’s okay to portion out this stress and remain present, and find the peace and solace therein too.
Fear makes senses. It fits the facts. And, we all have permission to live one day at a time.
Anger
In my heart I weep and wail that our country refuses to elect a woman president. The misogyny, and in this case, misogynoir (prejudice against Black women) is so profound. Our nation continues to tell women and girls in our country that they will NEVER be enough. That we will embrace and accelerate self-destruction before we embrace women and non-men.
Not to mention the message being sent to so many marginalized people through this election: that there is no safety, no solidarity. That our desire for justice will be fought tooth and nail by half of our neighbors and half of our government. That we cannot agree on basic human rights.
I’m angry that there is such profound disagreement about the best way to live, about what is morally right, and about how we should treat each other. I’m angry at the collective trauma that got us here, and that will continue to spring from this point. I’m angry at whiteness and capitalism and white supremacy and how they manipulate us into self-destruction by creating scarcity and hierarchies of who matters, who is worthy, who deserves to feel free. I’m angry that there are so many important things on which we cannot agree.
It makes sense to be angry. Anger fits the facts. And I’m also aware that today, much is the same as it was yesterday. I was already angry. This election decision just turns up the heat, escalates— it’s a move to becoming further entrenched. This is where we are.
Despair
I think about Jesus
in these dark times.
How someone we call
a facet of god
said the words,
“Why have you
forsaken me?”
hanging from a cross,
rendering despair
equally as human
as divine.
I think about Jesus,
the activist, the enemy
of the State. His execution
as a political martyr
and how his comrades
must have wept
to see their beloved,
and the vessel
of their dreams,
die. How world-ending
that must have felt.
How they craved
the end-times,
a restoration,
a peace.
How often in this world
we have seen our dreams
and our dreamers
murdered
before our eyes.
And yet, dreams live on
for they cannot be
contained. Like water,
like air, they fill the space
they’re in.
Like earth,
they are our bedrock.
Like fire, they’re catching.
I despair, and then
the sun rises,
and love returns to me,
the dove landing
on the arc
after the flood.
Acceptance
I read in a book many years ago a different way to define “perfection.” Rather than perfection meaning “the ideal,” or the “the best possible,” these writers said that perfection is the natural alignment of cause and effect. What that means is that the world is perfect right now, as it is, because what we see around us is the the natural result of what has led us here. The example they used was a garbage dump. The garbage dump is a symbol of waste, environmental destruction, and unsustainability. It’s also the perfect result of our general attitudes and choices, the systems we have in place that do not prioritize human and worldly wellbeing. That garbage dump is there because we created it.
If perfection means “everything in its place,” then what we have here is perfect: the world as we see it perfectly reflects the choices that we as a society make from day to day, for better and for worse.
This also reminds me of the definition of karma I heard given by a buddhist many years ago: karma just means, “It could not have been any other way.” It’s not about “This is what we deserve.” It’s not punishment or retribution. It’s about, “This has all happened because in the series of events in human history, this is what was bound to happen.”
I want to tread carefully here because I am not advocating despair, defeatism, or complacency. I am advocating radical acceptance and the serenity that can attend to it. This is where we are. And we are here for a reason- for MANY reasons. Knowing that this is the case, we can take action that feels right for this time, this place. Part of me, my optimistic and hopeful side, will always be surprised at how insidious hate and fear are in our collective psyches. And part of me is coming to see that there are reasons that we find ourselves here.
Radical acceptance gives me these gifts:
The peace of knowing that no amount of struggle, worry, or despair can change the past; the peace of recognizing where my power does and does not lie.
Compassion from the awareness that things are this way for a reason. This is an invitation to love the world as it is, while still holding boundaries and standing up for my values.
Release from a spiral into hatred and despair, driven by unwillingness to accept reality as it is. Instead I can practice ethical and boundaried love, and sustainable resistance.
I want to share an excerpt from Sebene Selassie’s book You Belong. For context, she is Buddhist, and this chapter is about the “delusion of separation” (the delusion that we are separate from each other) and how she has used loving-kindness, or metta meditation practice, to release that delusion and re-center in belonging.
“Metta is often translated at loving-kindness. It is the capacity for love, kindness, and care that always accompanies awareness.…One way metta can be practiced and cultivated is by directing loving energy toward oneself and others. In the formal practice, there are categories of people that include ourselves, strangers, those we love, as well as those we find difficult to love. [For me] George W. Bush fell into the last.…
I imagined what it would be like to be George W. Bush. I started in the womb and pieced together the trajectory of his life from what I knew.… I contemplated with kindness and curiosity what it was to exist as him. I considered how it would be to have the same experiences, knowing rationally that if I did, I would be him. If I lived his life, I would think the same thoughts, make the same decisions, be that same person….
Before my George W Bush metta practice, I knew conceptually that someone’s circumstances make them who they are. Yet, underneath, there was an assumption that I would somehow be different if I were that person. It’s an absurd idea when stated that way, but isn’t that what we believe? We think someone with a completely different set of life circumstances, references, and realities, should think, act, and be different than they are; they should be how we want them to be, and we assume we would be different if we were them.
…When I sensed George W. Bush’s life, I felt immense gratitude to have lived mine and not his.”
-You Belong by Sebene Selassie (2020), excerpts from pages 40-43
I am grateful to be who I am, to have the awareness I have, even though part of that awareness is the pain of seeing how not-right so many things are.
I love you. Whatever you feel today, you belong. You are amongst others who feel it too. Take good care of yourself.
We still have each other. We always will.
