Just couldn’t do it yesterday. Couldn’t write. There is nothing new. Our government has let us down, fatally. There is no spin, no silver lining. I interact on Facebook and find there are tons of people that are still his supporters, still cheerleading this monster, quaking with the opportunity to vote for him again. If you are not seeing this, too, then you have successfully created an impenetrable bubble. They are out there in the millions.
Yesterday I watched a film of Noam Chomsky speaking at Riverside Church in NYC in 2009. He and Howard Zinn sum me up pretty well. It started with that. His unemotional recitations of the demise of humanity, for that underlies nearly everything he sees, aligned with my feelings right now. He always speaks about how we can turn the tide of the relentless march toward self-annihilation, but it always seems like it is somewhat tongue in cheek. He shows the cures, but he leaves unsaid the certainty that we will do none of that. It is implied, but never said.
We won’t, of course. We’re not. None of what plagues our country will change. It is not even threatened. Corporate ownership of the levers of power has never been stronger, as the awesome power of the Federal government is simply the enforcement arm of corporate America. Policy is supplied, not developed. At no other time in our history since the Depression has the power been so thoroughly concentrated in the hands of so few. Judges have been installed to make sure it stays that way.
So I cried. I cried a lot yesterday, crawled into bed for some relief, and woke up to find it wasn’t just a mood, a blip. I cried with my coffee.
The advice will certainly be forthcoming. Get outside, sun is medcine! Set a schedule. Get dressed. Eat well, drink water. Exercise. Set a goal.
It’s all good stuff. Certainly a positive response, and I bear no ill will toward my “cup half full” brethren. Can’t hurt, certainly.
But I am here to praise tears.
Are they misplaced? Uncalled for? I can’t begin to imagine that anyone would think so. They are not random, uninspired by any events. They are simply an inevitable response to loss, and much has been lost. Much more will be.
As the drops form and fall, I at least feel genuine, present in the moment. Strategies and pretenses are seen for what they are, methods of emotional management. I don’t want to be managed. I want to be real. Here. Present, for good or ill. If being present is painful, then let me feel that pain. Let me acknowledge it, not deligitamize it.
It’s interesting to reflect on what triggers my sobs. It can be something horrible, and there is little shortage of that. Watching an unrelenting failure of the Federal government for the worst possible reasons that can be imagined can certainly trigger it, and it does. But so does the heroism that our medical workers are displaying, drafted into a war they never volunteered for. So does a child playing in a mud puddle, or the display of the love that an animal can feel for its human or the comfort that they can return, or a dad doing a silly dance routine with their sequestered child, or the myriad kindnesses that people are capable of, that might even be our natural state of being if we are not turned upon each other by powers that have other goals, other priorities. I cry for it all, the horrors and the beauty we may lose. Love shared and love denied.
If not tears now, then when?