There is a lot to say. There is nothing to say. I swing wildly between the idea that it’s all been said, but even so, perhaps my own yawp out into the universe is what I need to stop feeling angry and disconnected.
The election brought relief, but not much in the way of joy. I am angry in a way that will inform my activism for the next 4 years. There are few laurels upon which to rest. Still, it’s time to take a beat before formulating the next plan.
Our family is in month 10 of quarantine. We have managed to keep relatively healthy. My daughter was due to come off her chemo drug next month, but after her last follow up, it will be another six months. We can’t risk the tumors coming back and a major surgery being needed in the middle of a pandemic, especially since Minnesota is starting to experience an uncontrolled surge in cases and hospitalizations.
We worked hard to make the house brighter, painting and changing lighting, in a effort to make it through the winter without losing our minds. My husband’s home office went from a dark space to a bright, airy room. He cleaned out his downtown office – they don’t want workers back in until the middle of next year. So far, we’re doing okay. But we owe a lot of it to delivery and grocery store workers, the unsung heroes of our daily lives.
Last month, I fell into a swamp of a depression. With my daughter in one room taking her virtual college courses and my husband downstairs working, I felt like I was haunting my own house. I was writing here and there, made it through a couple of rounds of a flash fiction competition, attended a virtual writing conference and pitched my current work-in-progress to agents. It felt like more of the same old writing dance I’d been doing for years.
Most decisions in my life seem like they’re made in an instant, but usually are the result of something that has been simmering for years on a back burner. I decided to go back to school. At the ripe old age of 53, I’ve been accepted into an MFA in Creative Writing program, which I start in January. The funniest part was contacting the University of Iowa for my 30-year old transcript. Thank goodness they didn’t want my GRE scores, especially since scores before 2015 are not accepted.
I haven’t been writing here, because I’ve been angry and depressed. In order to move forward, I had to make some intentional changes. After being on Twitter for a year, I decided to quit last week. It wasn’t making anything better and it was making me decidedly worse – angrier, more entrenched in my viewpoints, and more anxious. I returned to the old idea of asking myself “Is this helpful?“. It really, really wasn’t.
My idea to do a podcast is dead on arrival. I simply wasn’t good at it, cringing at my boring monologues. Still, one of my goals for this blog is to make it as accessible as possible. I’m still learning how to do that, but one thing I’ll start adding next week is a recording of the blog post at the top of the page. More people are listening to podcasts and audiobooks, so I thought it might also be more convenient.
This blog, heading into its 9th year is anemic and needs a boost. Blogging may not be a thing anymore, but it’s my chosen media platform (and now, my only one). Long enough to have substance, but short enough to be digested in a few minutes. I’ve been disconnected from blogland as well as everything else, so I apologize if I haven’t visited your blog or even responded to some comments. It’s not you, it’s me.
So maybe I write this only to say, I’m back. I’m shooting for weekly posts with recording. I’m going to start reading other blogs again and I’m going to try to make this an activity that is more helpful to me and to you.
Let’s reconnect. Let’s be helpful to each other.
I’m still reading Donna Cameron’s book 
There is life beyond the power-grab-swap-meets every few years. All politics aside, we still have to look ourselves in the mirror and ask “Am I a decent human being?” After tuning into social media and seeing the mindless droning of insults and labels, I realized very quickly that I need to check myself, away from the din of politics. I know that I have a moral center and personal integrity, but it’s become so fuzzy of late. What do I stand for? What am I willing to fight for, believe in, support? Notably this is not a “who” question, because principles and values are not fungible depending on who is in charge.
But there he was, outside of Walgreen’s, ringing his bell and saying “Merry Christmas!” The wind was the kind of cold that chills you from the inside out. I’ve never cared what holiday greeting people use. Obviously, if you’re Merry Christmas-ing me, you’re likely a Christian and I’m not, but I said Merry Christmas and dropped a couple bucks in. I really just wanted to give the money to him. It’s a shitty job.
I took one of my daily walks through a neighborhood just off my usual route. In one of the yards there was a sign: “We Choose Love”. I’d been wrestling in my mind about another Trump appointment and was feeling a lot of hatred. That sign made me stop in my tracks. My eyes welled up. So simple. So perfect. The reminder that I had to make a better choice and that love was an option.
Since putting up the sign, we’ve started to notice them at other places – at schools and churches and in the occasional yard, like a quiet network connecting and nudging us towards our better selves.
Every time I get to a moment where I think, okay I’ve got this, I’ll catch the news that another member is being added to the billionaires’ club of the new administration. I hear that an education predator, one who has made gobs of money off the very system she has lobbied for, is going to impact the education my child will be receiving until she graduates, and it fills me with rage.
What is becoming more clear is that the American public is, as it has always been, subject to the whims of the wealthy. It doesn’t matter who you voted for – you’re nothing but human capital. Liberal or conservative doesn’t matter. If you’re not a gazillionaire or have your own network show, you’re just peasant grist for the mill.
Every article, no matter the topic, triggered a cavalcade of repetitive and childish squabbling. This 
Humor is also a much-needed palliative. I have a fondness for political cartoonists. When I was 16 and editor of the school paper, I went to the Iowa High School Press Association conference. I fangirled 
The election results triggered a heavy duty depression in me, but it made me realize that the whole year has been a bit of a bust. There have been few highlights and brief glimpses of enthusiasm were easily squashed. It wasn’t only the election, it was that I had allowed my inner life to be eclipsed by things out of my control. No matter which wealthy bastard is in charge, nurturing our inner lives and deciding who we want to be, are really all we have.
Anger directed is a different story. I did interview to become a community volunteer in my school district and sometime after Thanksgiving, I’ll start tutoring high school English language learners. In my imagination, I’m cancelling out one white nationalist and restoring a little balance to the universe. Still, I worry that I won’t be helpful, that I won’t be able to connect, that I’ll just be another progressive trying to self-soothe.
In the midst of this all, I see that the troubles are exactly where I need to be in order to grow as a human and as a writer. We cannot strengthen our character unless it is tested. We cannot defend our freedoms unless they are threatened. We cannot become better writers or artists or humans unless we have obstacles to overcome.
This was not my intended post. I wrote my intended post about economics and the importance of financial literacy. It was boring and long and preachy. To sum it up in a nutshell: if you’re like me and find that when it comes to the economy of our country, you do not know enough to argue more than talking points, it’s time to learn.
For today, I will hug my daughter and husband. I will write three letters to the congressional representatives I helped to elect, sharing my gratitude and encouragement for the years ahead. I will make a donation to a cause I support, which will need the money more than ever.
The Green Study 