Thank you for showing up, again and again, even when tired. Interesting— I drew a big line in the sand on Facebook yesterday, too. I said my words bite now, I bite now, and if anyone was celebrating yesterday, or quietly relieved, to unfriendly me. I said I would no longer soften myself to be more palatable. If they were for what was elected, they would be inconvenienced in my space. I blocked two accounts. It seems small, and like a privilege-y thing, but as a southern woman by birth, it is in my dna to make myself uncomfortable in order to make others comfortable. That’s called being polite. But, I am a life raft for family in the crosshairs of this incoming administration, on multiple fronts, and that politeness makes me lose air. I am done. My energy goes to protect my people now, and the rest can sort themselves out when their candidate turns on them next.
Since we now know about epigenetics, I think it is safe to say that making ourselves uncomfortable to make others comfortable is in the DNA of all women; it just expresses itself differently in different parts of the world. I know I made at least 3 white men uncomfortable yesterday. I didn't do it meanly; I was just honest--and now I'm realizing how much honesty I have stuffed down my craw for my whole entire life, just to keep what resembled peace. To keep myself safe. Don't feel very safe now, so what was the point? Like you, I am a life raft for those in the crosshairs, and there is no escaping to some other place for any of us. If I have to be in this sea (and we now clearly do), I am glad to be navigating it with you. Thank you for meeting me here. Maybe we can take turns scouting for sharks.
YES to inviting friends over to make food together and talk, especially those who live alone. YES to live music as it energizes me. NO to being a sounding board for random acquaintances/coworkers looking to talk about themselves. NO to any man offering unsolicited ANYTHING. Please stay away. I don't want your input right now or possibly ever.
These all sound good to me. I was so grateful to be with an old best friend on Tuesday night, and yesterday an expounding man just about pushed me over the edge, even though I agreed with much of what he was saying. Just didn't have the bandwidth for it, didn't need it, and didn't want it. Already had it.
Friends are as important as oxygen right now. And expounders gotta expound I suppose. I just want them to read the room and STFU and listen instead of giving us their take unsolicited.
It was in a lunchroom, so I wasn't the only audience. I just put my headphones on. Pre-Tuesday me wouldn't have done that, for fear of appearing or being rude. Post-Tuesday me decided my comfort was as important as his. The deference is deep-rooted in me. Going to take some work to dig it out.
Rita, thank you so much for your generous description and lack of link.
I love this post (and almost all of your list of no’s) with my whole heart. My hands are full and my heart is weary so I am with you on getting real clear about the yeses and nos.
What I loved so much about what you shared was your calm, simple clarity. It felt honest, true, and refreshing in a day with all kinds of messages. I'm sure I have some sussing out to do about when and how to engage with others; I don't think you were saying at all that you intend to cut yourself completely off with those on the other side of your line. I don't think that's wise and is certainly not possible. But I'm ready to move past trying to move those who don't want to be moved, that's for sure. And I'm happy for them to leave me alone, too. Every time I tell myself to just close my IG account, I realize it would mean losing contact with you. I'm glad I haven't.
You’re one of my reasons for still interacting there too so I’m glad I’m not alone in that. And no, we can’t completely cut off everyone outside our lines, but we can sure choose how, when, and what we engage on. (My only reticence on your nos - I still have hope that *some* politicians can be reasoned with though I completely respect and understand people who 100% have them on the list of nos.)
Ah, that was mostly about my weariness during the campaign with platitudes and promises that felt empty when they didn't come with any real plan about how they were going to fulfill those promises within the current context. Also, my experiences with politicians during my time of doing school library advocacy work. I know--and am very grateful for--those officeholders who will be doing what they can to resist the dismantling of things I care so much about. I'm glad there are others who will be doing the work of advocating with them. It just probably won't be me; I'm going to put my efforts in places that are a better fit, given my strengths and limitations.
Yep. I was tired before the election results and now I'm exhausted. I live in a red state which is its own kind of hell, but now knowing that 66% of my neighbors voted for Don the Con a second time I am feeling more detached from these people, and their agendas, than ever. I don't mind being alone but I am pragmatic and know that I'll have to find a way to co-exist in a civil way. As of today I don't know what that way will be.
For whatever it's worth, even though I live in a very blue city that has managed to keep my state governance blue, it gets purple and then deep red not far from me. I no longer assume that anyone I meet is on the same page that I am, and I don't feel easy/safe in ways that I once took for granted. And yet, most of my interactions with folks are civil, and I hope it stays that way. I hope it does for you, too.
Proud to be on your side of the line. It's going to take a while to authentically declare what is firmly in the YES for me but I do like this idea of saying no to things because my resources are only so deep. But actually, I've got three friends who have been so grounding and supportive for me. I know 2 of them from middle school, one from college and we came together as a book club reading Jane Austen's books back in our early 20's in NYC and moved on from there to fiction from other countries and other time periods. The book club meets over zoom since we all live far apart, but it's powerful to share time with these smart, caring and interesting women. More of that please.
I love this--I think time with smart, caring, interesting women and longtime friends is always a yes. I also think that our yesses change as our understanding and circumstances do. I think they should! Dealing with health challenges in the past year has helped me grow a lot in knowing that I can't say Yes to all the things I might want to, and to identifying what I can (need to) let go of. I suspect the coming years will, too.
I am your people! I enjoy reading your posts, usually totally agree. I have a close friend who is also dealing with a traumatic brain injury after a car accident, which wasn’t diagnosed at first. She is learning to read again…very frustrating for a retired language arts teacher with a Masters in Literature! Your insights help me know what she is going through.
I feel for all the students in Oregon (and elsewhere) who are not getting the instruction they need from certified teacher librarians to delve into the vast sources of information with the tools to find quality sources. It is needed more now than ever.
I also read Dan Rather’s blog Steady. He has great insight into politics.
Stay strong, be kind, do what we can, and I so agree with limiting those who are on the other side.
You've always been my people, Marlene! I'm so sorry about your close friend; I am so, so grateful that I can read. Audiobooks were my solace in the first weeks, when I was told not to.
As I have been thinking about what caring for those I love means in concrete terms, I keep returning to libraries. I don't know that I can attempt any kind of work for school libraries (all of education is so tricky for me; it's hard for me to stay in a healthy place because of my past experiences), but I'm wondering about opportunities to support public libraries. I'm thinking about how it doesn't have to be in big ways, either. Maybe just volunteering at my local branch. Any small thing to help such an important institution remain.
I love the simplicity and strength of "stay strong, be kind, do what we can." And I love hearing from you. You take care, too.
I feel your words in this post deeply. I want to say yes to having a tender heart. I want to say no to believing I’m powerless in the face of that which feels impossibly dark.
One thing giving me comfort is reminding myself that we always have the power to choose our responses. We might not like the choices available or the consequences of the ones we make, but we always get to choose. And that's a kind of power. (Thinking now of Bartleby the Scrivner.)
I’m exhausted, Rita. The grief is overwhelming—layers upon layers of it. My dad would be absolutely livid about all this. My mom and I keep saying how much we wish we had his steady reasoning to lean on right now.
The past two days, I’ve stopped making eye contact with men when I’m out in public. I don’t smile at anyone. I don’t try to act nice. I’m just…tired. So, so tired. But weirdly, it also feels freeing. No more being nice to keep the peace. EFF. THAT. NOISE. Yes to naps. I might even go on a "nap vacation." Especially after February. I just might sleep the rest of winter. Sending you so much love.
Oh, Kari. I have a good friend who lives near me, and we sometimes burn things at the solstice in a symbolic way, and Tuesday night we were laugh-crying about the really big effing BONFIRE we are going to have to send 2024 packing. What a damn year. (She lost her mom and suffered a small stroke and is still deep in family stuff, so...you know.)
Yesterday I also behaved differently from how I normally might in at least two situations--I just couldn't summon up my usual ways of smoothing some things over (because: TIRED and ANGRY), and yes, it was freeing. That's the word exactly. I hope we can hang onto that, and I hope you feel free to nap as much as your body wants to. Naps are restorative. Sleepiness is communicating a need, not a character flaw. Your body has been through so much in the last 12 months, it makes sense that you might need more sleep to heal. I've decided that when my body wants to sleep, I let it. (If I can.) Love you.
I feel this so deeply in my bones Rita. My life has changed - yet again - and I find myself looking at people who were my tribe and wondering how that was the case, how much of myself I put aside to be in their tribe, or whether I was genuinely the same as they are and it's me that's changed. While I miss them and have yet to fully replace them with a new tribe, I'm still in limbo as I focus on doing what I need for my own present and my future. I'm not comfortable prioritising myself, but your words help me to see it's what's necessary and needed.
Take good care, may your yeses give you contentment or joy and your nos give you peace.
I'm so sorry you're navigating such hard personal waters in the midst of our global turbulence. It sounds as if you are asking good questions, and for whatever it's worth, I know them well. I hope you can prioritize yourself. I have felt conflicted about doing that over the past year, but I'm glad now that I did. I don't think any of the actions I might have taken would have changed the situation we all now face, but getting myself to a healthier place is going to help me be better able to respond to it. You take good care, too. I'm so glad to connect with you here.
Rita, I have been grieving alongside or more from the north of you I suppose and feeling such a sense of dis-ease (for some reason I just now made the connection of the opposite of ease being disease, that’s how well my brain is operating). I am saying no to my usual news intake because there is no escape from that face that pops up in every news outlet. I worry so much about where we are all at and where we are heading, particularly for my teenage daughters and what the future holds.
This week I said yes to being hugged by a pack of preschoolers when I went to do daycare outreach story time. The pure and uncomplicated joy they feel in singing silly songs and listening to stories was such a balm for me. I just threw myself in there with them and did the movements and dance, listening to their giggles all along. Such a simple pleasure.
There definitely is solace to be found in public libraries. I think of it as a fortress of knowledge and truth, an escape from reality when you need it, and a great equalizer where everyone who comes through the doors is treated with dignity.
Seeing responses from women in other countries has been a balm; thank you for for being here with me and everyone else who reads here. I love you saying yes to preschoolers! The day after the election, I took a substitute teaching job. High schoolers don't give quite the same endorphins as preschoolers (🙂), but there is something about being with younger generations, in a role that demands you to be present, that is good for us, isn't there? And YES to everything you said about libraries. I feel just the same way. Holding you and your teenage daughters in my heart 💜
The older I get the more I know deep in my bones that saying no, not engaging in ways that are harmful to me, that drain my life force, is in fact an act of courage. Recognizing how tired we are in so many areas of our lives and then stepping back, stepping away, is an act of courage.
So very tired, Rita. To the point that it's taken me this long to get through the backlog of emotion and written aftermath that flooded forth last week. While I am 100% sure you and I align on much more than just core values, and on how devastated we are that the election went as it did (not to mention scared), I worry that my continued insistence that our collective commonalities outweigh differences is not what you need right now. While I would regret losing you as a reader, thinker, and Substack friend, I will understand if what's coming out on my pages is irksome...or worse...for you.
I'm saying yes to continued curiosity, with acknowledgement that I'm not having probing conversations on the front lines. So, my yes, when I have the bandwidth to manage it, means checking in with my own rawness before I assume something about someone else.
I'm saying yes to accepting how little I know and to continuing to try to better understand.
I'm saying yes to more-than-surface conversations in the gym with an instructor from Russia who is young enough to be my daughter, and with the guy who sells meat at the market, even though I really don't know their politics, on the belief that what I do know is the foundation of something real.
I'm saying no to belligerence and belittling. No to obvious attempts to instigate more division. No to socializing just for socializing's sake. No to consumerism whenever I possibly can. No to depriving myself of naps in the afternoon if that's what my body wants.
:sigh:
Thank you for being honest and articulate. Big applause for you!
Elizabeth, I'm slow to respond because I wanted to be thoughtful. I value our connection, and connections feel more important now than ever. This is going to be a little long; my post was my initial reaction and stemmed from weariness, and your posts and your words here (as well as those of so many others I read) have prompted me to reflect more deeply.
I am also 100% sure that we align on much more than core values, and nothing you have shared is irksome, or worse. Your yesses are the same as mine; your no's are, too (especially the one about naps 🙂). I also agree that our collective commonalities outweigh our differences, when it comes to what we all want for ourselves. I think all of us want to be and feel OK, and all of us want that for those we love. But I think fully half of us are either too selfish, too lazy, or too reckless to love those outside their immediate circles. (Hell, maybe even to love themselves--for if the new regime is able to achieve what it wants, pain is going to rain down on them, too.) For me, love is a verb expressed through our actions, and I am tired of expending love on those who cannot or will not love the most vulnerable of us back. The only people in this world I love unconditionally are my children.
For 8 years, I have watched so many on my side of our divide reach out, listen to understand, and castigate themselves for living in a bubble. I have watched us share information, broadcast warnings, speak respectfully, express empathy and care. I have watched us fight among ourselves and second-guess ourselves to death. To be sure, plenty of those on the left have been just as nasty as those on the right, but most of those people are engaged in a game of getting clicks, which has absolutely impacted this game, but is a different one. I have rarely seen those on the right reach out across the divide in the same ways as serious people on the left have done. And now, here we are: Our democracy, the country I have loved, has been taken over by those antithetical to the best things we have aspired to be. I simply do not have the resources to engage with those who made that happen in the ways I have tried to do for 8 years. Even if I did, I think the time for that has passed. We are moving into a new time, which will require new actions, and I am going to use what I have to care for those who are going to need it most, in the ways that the new time will require.
In 2016, I took a year-long course on leading for equity, where I learned that holding people accountable is a way of seeing them as capable. It is a way of respecting them. To give people a pass for voting for hatred--because that is what those who elected Donald Trump have done, whether they see it that way or not--because of their circumstances is to infantalize them. Or, it is to tolerate things that should not be tolerated. Before we had a first term of Trump, before he made his intentions clear, before he adopted the rhetoric of the cruelest leaders and humans the modern world has known, it was reasonable to give those on the other side of our divide the benefit of the doubt, and I did. To hear them out, and I did. Not now, though. So many people who are poor, are working class, are white, and/or are male did not choose a lying, law-breaking, corrupt, power-hungry, misogynistic rapist to lead one of the most powerful countries in the world. Those who did were capable of making another choice, and I hold them accountable for it. If they were not going to be convinced by all the appeals to reach them that have been made over the past 8 years, I don't think they are going to be now. If they are to change--and I hope with everything in me that they will--something else will have to be the catalyst for it.
So, yes, I will be continue to be respectful and kind to everyone. I am not planning to cut people out of my life. But how much energy I will expend on trying to understand or persuade or care for them individually and personally is now in a different place. They are not safe people, and I am careful with people who are not safe. My resources are finite and dwindling, and I have to spend them carefully. I want to put them where they have the best chance of having some positive impact.
I don't think our stances put us at odds. I think we all have to find our own ways to be OK and to work for the world we want, and none of us can be everything our world needs. I am glad for our different approaches; we need all kinds of people and perspectives to grow healthy societies. The people I want to learn from and understand, though, are people on my side of the line; we, in spite of any differences we might have, more truly want the same things.
Rita, I feel myself nodding, nodding, nodding while also acknowledging a quiet voice that says, "How much of the story do you really know?"
Everything you've outlined here feels true to me, but I can't say what feels true to someone else. I can't in good conscience assume that "those on the other side" want only what is antithetical to what I want, or to what I believe is right.
I've seen people quoted as saying they had to choose economics over morality, I've seen people mocking that, suggesting that getting cheaper eggs and gas isn't worth the trade off, and I nod again while also acknowledging again that I've never been forced to make that choice.
I'm beyond grateful to have folks like you and so many here who are willing to wade through things without shutting down, who are willing to keep trying. It means *the world* to me. So, thank you.
I am grateful, too, and this is the kind of conversation I'm willing to engage in. I agree that I can't assume that those who voted for Trump want what is antithetical to what I want or believe is right, and I know I can't say what *feels true* to someone else. (Part of what is so heartbreaking is that I know most of us want the same things.) I know the primary reason we are where we are is the massively successful disinformation campaign waged by the right, and that is why so many believe that it was a choice between morality and eggs, why that is what feels true to them. There are so many people who no longer believe anything they see or read unless it aligns with what they already believe or want to believe, or they believe outright lies--and that is the real heart of our problems.
For me, what people who voted for Trump want or believe isn't the most important fact about them. I see them as unsafe because their vote has created harm (it's already happening, and he's not even in office yet), and that is more important than whatever it is they intended it to do. Impact matters more than intention, and truth matters more than belief. The truth is that it was not a choice between morality and the price of eggs, even if many, many people believe it was. The price of eggs--or the general economic well-being of those of us who have to care about the price of eggs--is not going to move in a direction that will benefit the poor and what's left of the middle class. Half of us know that, and it is not because we are elites who don't have to worry about the price of eggs. (I worry about the price of eggs.) It's because we know there are verifiable facts (such as, shifting wealth to the already-wealthy has never created an economy that benefits the poor and middle class), and there are pretty easy ways to access them. (Or there were. I have serious concerns about how much that will still be true four years from now.)
I don't hate Trump voters. (Well, I might hate some of them, but that's probably reserved for those who know and approve of his intentions and don't care about harm that will come to people who aren't like them.) But I am angry with them for not doing the hard work healthy democracy requires, and I don't think that my reaching out to them or trying to understand them will do any kind of collective good. (I think many of us understand more than we are given credit for, and I don't think that our lack of understanding is really the issue. It's our media and lack of media literacy and lack of understanding that how we use our media is actually a public health issue.) I want to give what resources I have to bolstering the institutions I value and the people who take actions to build the kind of country I want. Both are going to need all the bolstering they can get. The time to reach out and seek common understanding was the past 8 years. I wanted to believe that if enough of us did that in our personal lives, with people we know, it could overpower the propaganda machine, Bannon's stated objective to "flood the zone with shit." But it didn't. And, much as it deeply pains me to admit this, I don't think it will now. (I was an educator; if anyone was invested in believing that sharing facts would make a difference, it was me.)
A friend last night shared this: "The first step to defeating external oppression is to internally accept the truth of where we are. Give up inner resistance to reality in order to begin to change it." That's where I am, what I'm trying to do. I'm exhausted from the ways in which I've resisted the reality of where we are for the past 8 years. I need some new ways, ways that acknowledge the truth of where we now are. I don't know what they are yet, but I'm getting more clear on what they are not.
I'm grateful to wrestle through this situation with people like you. I appreciate the ways in which exchanging words with you requires me to think harder about where/how I want to be and why.
Thank you for showing up, again and again, even when tired. Interesting— I drew a big line in the sand on Facebook yesterday, too. I said my words bite now, I bite now, and if anyone was celebrating yesterday, or quietly relieved, to unfriendly me. I said I would no longer soften myself to be more palatable. If they were for what was elected, they would be inconvenienced in my space. I blocked two accounts. It seems small, and like a privilege-y thing, but as a southern woman by birth, it is in my dna to make myself uncomfortable in order to make others comfortable. That’s called being polite. But, I am a life raft for family in the crosshairs of this incoming administration, on multiple fronts, and that politeness makes me lose air. I am done. My energy goes to protect my people now, and the rest can sort themselves out when their candidate turns on them next.
Since we now know about epigenetics, I think it is safe to say that making ourselves uncomfortable to make others comfortable is in the DNA of all women; it just expresses itself differently in different parts of the world. I know I made at least 3 white men uncomfortable yesterday. I didn't do it meanly; I was just honest--and now I'm realizing how much honesty I have stuffed down my craw for my whole entire life, just to keep what resembled peace. To keep myself safe. Don't feel very safe now, so what was the point? Like you, I am a life raft for those in the crosshairs, and there is no escaping to some other place for any of us. If I have to be in this sea (and we now clearly do), I am glad to be navigating it with you. Thank you for meeting me here. Maybe we can take turns scouting for sharks.
Hahaha- my harpoon is your harpoon, dear Rita!
🗡️🔥❤️🩹
YES to inviting friends over to make food together and talk, especially those who live alone. YES to live music as it energizes me. NO to being a sounding board for random acquaintances/coworkers looking to talk about themselves. NO to any man offering unsolicited ANYTHING. Please stay away. I don't want your input right now or possibly ever.
These all sound good to me. I was so grateful to be with an old best friend on Tuesday night, and yesterday an expounding man just about pushed me over the edge, even though I agreed with much of what he was saying. Just didn't have the bandwidth for it, didn't need it, and didn't want it. Already had it.
Friends are as important as oxygen right now. And expounders gotta expound I suppose. I just want them to read the room and STFU and listen instead of giving us their take unsolicited.
It was in a lunchroom, so I wasn't the only audience. I just put my headphones on. Pre-Tuesday me wouldn't have done that, for fear of appearing or being rude. Post-Tuesday me decided my comfort was as important as his. The deference is deep-rooted in me. Going to take some work to dig it out.
Rita, thank you so much for your generous description and lack of link.
I love this post (and almost all of your list of no’s) with my whole heart. My hands are full and my heart is weary so I am with you on getting real clear about the yeses and nos.
What I loved so much about what you shared was your calm, simple clarity. It felt honest, true, and refreshing in a day with all kinds of messages. I'm sure I have some sussing out to do about when and how to engage with others; I don't think you were saying at all that you intend to cut yourself completely off with those on the other side of your line. I don't think that's wise and is certainly not possible. But I'm ready to move past trying to move those who don't want to be moved, that's for sure. And I'm happy for them to leave me alone, too. Every time I tell myself to just close my IG account, I realize it would mean losing contact with you. I'm glad I haven't.
You’re one of my reasons for still interacting there too so I’m glad I’m not alone in that. And no, we can’t completely cut off everyone outside our lines, but we can sure choose how, when, and what we engage on. (My only reticence on your nos - I still have hope that *some* politicians can be reasoned with though I completely respect and understand people who 100% have them on the list of nos.)
Ah, that was mostly about my weariness during the campaign with platitudes and promises that felt empty when they didn't come with any real plan about how they were going to fulfill those promises within the current context. Also, my experiences with politicians during my time of doing school library advocacy work. I know--and am very grateful for--those officeholders who will be doing what they can to resist the dismantling of things I care so much about. I'm glad there are others who will be doing the work of advocating with them. It just probably won't be me; I'm going to put my efforts in places that are a better fit, given my strengths and limitations.
Yep. I was tired before the election results and now I'm exhausted. I live in a red state which is its own kind of hell, but now knowing that 66% of my neighbors voted for Don the Con a second time I am feeling more detached from these people, and their agendas, than ever. I don't mind being alone but I am pragmatic and know that I'll have to find a way to co-exist in a civil way. As of today I don't know what that way will be.
For whatever it's worth, even though I live in a very blue city that has managed to keep my state governance blue, it gets purple and then deep red not far from me. I no longer assume that anyone I meet is on the same page that I am, and I don't feel easy/safe in ways that I once took for granted. And yet, most of my interactions with folks are civil, and I hope it stays that way. I hope it does for you, too.
Proud to be on your side of the line. It's going to take a while to authentically declare what is firmly in the YES for me but I do like this idea of saying no to things because my resources are only so deep. But actually, I've got three friends who have been so grounding and supportive for me. I know 2 of them from middle school, one from college and we came together as a book club reading Jane Austen's books back in our early 20's in NYC and moved on from there to fiction from other countries and other time periods. The book club meets over zoom since we all live far apart, but it's powerful to share time with these smart, caring and interesting women. More of that please.
I love this--I think time with smart, caring, interesting women and longtime friends is always a yes. I also think that our yesses change as our understanding and circumstances do. I think they should! Dealing with health challenges in the past year has helped me grow a lot in knowing that I can't say Yes to all the things I might want to, and to identifying what I can (need to) let go of. I suspect the coming years will, too.
Rita,
I am your people! I enjoy reading your posts, usually totally agree. I have a close friend who is also dealing with a traumatic brain injury after a car accident, which wasn’t diagnosed at first. She is learning to read again…very frustrating for a retired language arts teacher with a Masters in Literature! Your insights help me know what she is going through.
I feel for all the students in Oregon (and elsewhere) who are not getting the instruction they need from certified teacher librarians to delve into the vast sources of information with the tools to find quality sources. It is needed more now than ever.
I also read Dan Rather’s blog Steady. He has great insight into politics.
Stay strong, be kind, do what we can, and I so agree with limiting those who are on the other side.
Take care,
Marlene
You've always been my people, Marlene! I'm so sorry about your close friend; I am so, so grateful that I can read. Audiobooks were my solace in the first weeks, when I was told not to.
As I have been thinking about what caring for those I love means in concrete terms, I keep returning to libraries. I don't know that I can attempt any kind of work for school libraries (all of education is so tricky for me; it's hard for me to stay in a healthy place because of my past experiences), but I'm wondering about opportunities to support public libraries. I'm thinking about how it doesn't have to be in big ways, either. Maybe just volunteering at my local branch. Any small thing to help such an important institution remain.
I love the simplicity and strength of "stay strong, be kind, do what we can." And I love hearing from you. You take care, too.
I feel your words in this post deeply. I want to say yes to having a tender heart. I want to say no to believing I’m powerless in the face of that which feels impossibly dark.
One thing giving me comfort is reminding myself that we always have the power to choose our responses. We might not like the choices available or the consequences of the ones we make, but we always get to choose. And that's a kind of power. (Thinking now of Bartleby the Scrivner.)
I’m exhausted, Rita. The grief is overwhelming—layers upon layers of it. My dad would be absolutely livid about all this. My mom and I keep saying how much we wish we had his steady reasoning to lean on right now.
The past two days, I’ve stopped making eye contact with men when I’m out in public. I don’t smile at anyone. I don’t try to act nice. I’m just…tired. So, so tired. But weirdly, it also feels freeing. No more being nice to keep the peace. EFF. THAT. NOISE. Yes to naps. I might even go on a "nap vacation." Especially after February. I just might sleep the rest of winter. Sending you so much love.
Oh, Kari. I have a good friend who lives near me, and we sometimes burn things at the solstice in a symbolic way, and Tuesday night we were laugh-crying about the really big effing BONFIRE we are going to have to send 2024 packing. What a damn year. (She lost her mom and suffered a small stroke and is still deep in family stuff, so...you know.)
Yesterday I also behaved differently from how I normally might in at least two situations--I just couldn't summon up my usual ways of smoothing some things over (because: TIRED and ANGRY), and yes, it was freeing. That's the word exactly. I hope we can hang onto that, and I hope you feel free to nap as much as your body wants to. Naps are restorative. Sleepiness is communicating a need, not a character flaw. Your body has been through so much in the last 12 months, it makes sense that you might need more sleep to heal. I've decided that when my body wants to sleep, I let it. (If I can.) Love you.
I feel this so deeply in my bones Rita. My life has changed - yet again - and I find myself looking at people who were my tribe and wondering how that was the case, how much of myself I put aside to be in their tribe, or whether I was genuinely the same as they are and it's me that's changed. While I miss them and have yet to fully replace them with a new tribe, I'm still in limbo as I focus on doing what I need for my own present and my future. I'm not comfortable prioritising myself, but your words help me to see it's what's necessary and needed.
Take good care, may your yeses give you contentment or joy and your nos give you peace.
I'm so sorry you're navigating such hard personal waters in the midst of our global turbulence. It sounds as if you are asking good questions, and for whatever it's worth, I know them well. I hope you can prioritize yourself. I have felt conflicted about doing that over the past year, but I'm glad now that I did. I don't think any of the actions I might have taken would have changed the situation we all now face, but getting myself to a healthier place is going to help me be better able to respond to it. You take good care, too. I'm so glad to connect with you here.
Rita, I have been grieving alongside or more from the north of you I suppose and feeling such a sense of dis-ease (for some reason I just now made the connection of the opposite of ease being disease, that’s how well my brain is operating). I am saying no to my usual news intake because there is no escape from that face that pops up in every news outlet. I worry so much about where we are all at and where we are heading, particularly for my teenage daughters and what the future holds.
This week I said yes to being hugged by a pack of preschoolers when I went to do daycare outreach story time. The pure and uncomplicated joy they feel in singing silly songs and listening to stories was such a balm for me. I just threw myself in there with them and did the movements and dance, listening to their giggles all along. Such a simple pleasure.
There definitely is solace to be found in public libraries. I think of it as a fortress of knowledge and truth, an escape from reality when you need it, and a great equalizer where everyone who comes through the doors is treated with dignity.
Seeing responses from women in other countries has been a balm; thank you for for being here with me and everyone else who reads here. I love you saying yes to preschoolers! The day after the election, I took a substitute teaching job. High schoolers don't give quite the same endorphins as preschoolers (🙂), but there is something about being with younger generations, in a role that demands you to be present, that is good for us, isn't there? And YES to everything you said about libraries. I feel just the same way. Holding you and your teenage daughters in my heart 💜
The older I get the more I know deep in my bones that saying no, not engaging in ways that are harmful to me, that drain my life force, is in fact an act of courage. Recognizing how tired we are in so many areas of our lives and then stepping back, stepping away, is an act of courage.
Thank you, Paulette. I appreciate this reminder that stepping away is often the harder choice.
Rita, it’s a wonder how you composed yourself enough to assemble these words so quickly and clearly. Thank you.
Writing is how I compose myself 🙂 Usually it takes longer, but the need was urgent.
So very tired, Rita. To the point that it's taken me this long to get through the backlog of emotion and written aftermath that flooded forth last week. While I am 100% sure you and I align on much more than just core values, and on how devastated we are that the election went as it did (not to mention scared), I worry that my continued insistence that our collective commonalities outweigh differences is not what you need right now. While I would regret losing you as a reader, thinker, and Substack friend, I will understand if what's coming out on my pages is irksome...or worse...for you.
I'm saying yes to continued curiosity, with acknowledgement that I'm not having probing conversations on the front lines. So, my yes, when I have the bandwidth to manage it, means checking in with my own rawness before I assume something about someone else.
I'm saying yes to accepting how little I know and to continuing to try to better understand.
I'm saying yes to more-than-surface conversations in the gym with an instructor from Russia who is young enough to be my daughter, and with the guy who sells meat at the market, even though I really don't know their politics, on the belief that what I do know is the foundation of something real.
I'm saying no to belligerence and belittling. No to obvious attempts to instigate more division. No to socializing just for socializing's sake. No to consumerism whenever I possibly can. No to depriving myself of naps in the afternoon if that's what my body wants.
:sigh:
Thank you for being honest and articulate. Big applause for you!
Elizabeth, I'm slow to respond because I wanted to be thoughtful. I value our connection, and connections feel more important now than ever. This is going to be a little long; my post was my initial reaction and stemmed from weariness, and your posts and your words here (as well as those of so many others I read) have prompted me to reflect more deeply.
I am also 100% sure that we align on much more than core values, and nothing you have shared is irksome, or worse. Your yesses are the same as mine; your no's are, too (especially the one about naps 🙂). I also agree that our collective commonalities outweigh our differences, when it comes to what we all want for ourselves. I think all of us want to be and feel OK, and all of us want that for those we love. But I think fully half of us are either too selfish, too lazy, or too reckless to love those outside their immediate circles. (Hell, maybe even to love themselves--for if the new regime is able to achieve what it wants, pain is going to rain down on them, too.) For me, love is a verb expressed through our actions, and I am tired of expending love on those who cannot or will not love the most vulnerable of us back. The only people in this world I love unconditionally are my children.
For 8 years, I have watched so many on my side of our divide reach out, listen to understand, and castigate themselves for living in a bubble. I have watched us share information, broadcast warnings, speak respectfully, express empathy and care. I have watched us fight among ourselves and second-guess ourselves to death. To be sure, plenty of those on the left have been just as nasty as those on the right, but most of those people are engaged in a game of getting clicks, which has absolutely impacted this game, but is a different one. I have rarely seen those on the right reach out across the divide in the same ways as serious people on the left have done. And now, here we are: Our democracy, the country I have loved, has been taken over by those antithetical to the best things we have aspired to be. I simply do not have the resources to engage with those who made that happen in the ways I have tried to do for 8 years. Even if I did, I think the time for that has passed. We are moving into a new time, which will require new actions, and I am going to use what I have to care for those who are going to need it most, in the ways that the new time will require.
In 2016, I took a year-long course on leading for equity, where I learned that holding people accountable is a way of seeing them as capable. It is a way of respecting them. To give people a pass for voting for hatred--because that is what those who elected Donald Trump have done, whether they see it that way or not--because of their circumstances is to infantalize them. Or, it is to tolerate things that should not be tolerated. Before we had a first term of Trump, before he made his intentions clear, before he adopted the rhetoric of the cruelest leaders and humans the modern world has known, it was reasonable to give those on the other side of our divide the benefit of the doubt, and I did. To hear them out, and I did. Not now, though. So many people who are poor, are working class, are white, and/or are male did not choose a lying, law-breaking, corrupt, power-hungry, misogynistic rapist to lead one of the most powerful countries in the world. Those who did were capable of making another choice, and I hold them accountable for it. If they were not going to be convinced by all the appeals to reach them that have been made over the past 8 years, I don't think they are going to be now. If they are to change--and I hope with everything in me that they will--something else will have to be the catalyst for it.
So, yes, I will be continue to be respectful and kind to everyone. I am not planning to cut people out of my life. But how much energy I will expend on trying to understand or persuade or care for them individually and personally is now in a different place. They are not safe people, and I am careful with people who are not safe. My resources are finite and dwindling, and I have to spend them carefully. I want to put them where they have the best chance of having some positive impact.
I don't think our stances put us at odds. I think we all have to find our own ways to be OK and to work for the world we want, and none of us can be everything our world needs. I am glad for our different approaches; we need all kinds of people and perspectives to grow healthy societies. The people I want to learn from and understand, though, are people on my side of the line; we, in spite of any differences we might have, more truly want the same things.
Rita, I feel myself nodding, nodding, nodding while also acknowledging a quiet voice that says, "How much of the story do you really know?"
Everything you've outlined here feels true to me, but I can't say what feels true to someone else. I can't in good conscience assume that "those on the other side" want only what is antithetical to what I want, or to what I believe is right.
I've seen people quoted as saying they had to choose economics over morality, I've seen people mocking that, suggesting that getting cheaper eggs and gas isn't worth the trade off, and I nod again while also acknowledging again that I've never been forced to make that choice.
It's all very complicated, and the complications are made worse by the extreme voices and the intentional interference that seeks to divide us further. (Have you seen this: https://old.reddit.com/r/self/comments/1gouvit/youre_being_targeted_by_disinformation_networks/)
I'm beyond grateful to have folks like you and so many here who are willing to wade through things without shutting down, who are willing to keep trying. It means *the world* to me. So, thank you.
I am grateful, too, and this is the kind of conversation I'm willing to engage in. I agree that I can't assume that those who voted for Trump want what is antithetical to what I want or believe is right, and I know I can't say what *feels true* to someone else. (Part of what is so heartbreaking is that I know most of us want the same things.) I know the primary reason we are where we are is the massively successful disinformation campaign waged by the right, and that is why so many believe that it was a choice between morality and eggs, why that is what feels true to them. There are so many people who no longer believe anything they see or read unless it aligns with what they already believe or want to believe, or they believe outright lies--and that is the real heart of our problems.
For me, what people who voted for Trump want or believe isn't the most important fact about them. I see them as unsafe because their vote has created harm (it's already happening, and he's not even in office yet), and that is more important than whatever it is they intended it to do. Impact matters more than intention, and truth matters more than belief. The truth is that it was not a choice between morality and the price of eggs, even if many, many people believe it was. The price of eggs--or the general economic well-being of those of us who have to care about the price of eggs--is not going to move in a direction that will benefit the poor and what's left of the middle class. Half of us know that, and it is not because we are elites who don't have to worry about the price of eggs. (I worry about the price of eggs.) It's because we know there are verifiable facts (such as, shifting wealth to the already-wealthy has never created an economy that benefits the poor and middle class), and there are pretty easy ways to access them. (Or there were. I have serious concerns about how much that will still be true four years from now.)
I don't hate Trump voters. (Well, I might hate some of them, but that's probably reserved for those who know and approve of his intentions and don't care about harm that will come to people who aren't like them.) But I am angry with them for not doing the hard work healthy democracy requires, and I don't think that my reaching out to them or trying to understand them will do any kind of collective good. (I think many of us understand more than we are given credit for, and I don't think that our lack of understanding is really the issue. It's our media and lack of media literacy and lack of understanding that how we use our media is actually a public health issue.) I want to give what resources I have to bolstering the institutions I value and the people who take actions to build the kind of country I want. Both are going to need all the bolstering they can get. The time to reach out and seek common understanding was the past 8 years. I wanted to believe that if enough of us did that in our personal lives, with people we know, it could overpower the propaganda machine, Bannon's stated objective to "flood the zone with shit." But it didn't. And, much as it deeply pains me to admit this, I don't think it will now. (I was an educator; if anyone was invested in believing that sharing facts would make a difference, it was me.)
A friend last night shared this: "The first step to defeating external oppression is to internally accept the truth of where we are. Give up inner resistance to reality in order to begin to change it." That's where I am, what I'm trying to do. I'm exhausted from the ways in which I've resisted the reality of where we are for the past 8 years. I need some new ways, ways that acknowledge the truth of where we now are. I don't know what they are yet, but I'm getting more clear on what they are not.
I'm grateful to wrestle through this situation with people like you. I appreciate the ways in which exchanging words with you requires me to think harder about where/how I want to be and why.