In Dark Days Like These
High crimes and trials, the Boston Tea Party, trees inside houses
Hey. This is sort of a long one, to make up for the long stretch between my last missive and this one.
I yelled at my husband last night, and he slept on the couch. Earlier, that morning, I had woken up distraught, deeply gloomy. He made me breakfast and reminded me to “Change your mouth,” a saying we got from my smart CrossFit coach, who is living life right. But I couldn’t seem to get control over my viper tongue all day. I was spewing negativity, silently and out loud. I was trying to finish a big art project, but it was slow going and it seemed like I had forgotten how to draw, and I was chafing at all the housework piling up, mad at myself for skipping the gym, worried about money, etc.
So when, at 11 that night, I asked him to take a turn at herding out wayward daughter—then eating a second bowl of melty pink peppermint ice cream alone in the dining room and listening to a loud Harry Potter audio book, after a long evening of SLOWLY doing her Social Studies homework (an illustrated timeline of events precipitating the American Revolutionary War—small section pictured above), I lost it when he didn’t help the way I wanted him to.
Then, alone in bed all night, I felt remorse for speaking so harshly. Are we in trouble? I wondered, and the answer came to me with certainty: No. Not that I shouldn’t hold my tongue better (I should and I will!), but what we have between us, under us, is like a rock, but a warm one. (Plymouth Rock in the sun all day.) Or, if it’s a tree, it’s alive and sturdy.
Such a valuable thing to have! Anyway, this love, along with love for my daughter and brothers and sisters, my close girlfriends, Jason, my mom and aunts and uncles—and everyone else’s marriages and friendships and relatives, and our caring for people who need us, and our relationships with dogs and cats and horses, etc.— that’s all money in the bank, obviously. And what occurred to me is that our joys are our strength and wealth.
Lying in bed, while my husband was downstairs in the cold with the dog, I wasn’t exactly giddy like Ebenezer Scrooge when he awakens to find out it’s still Christmas and he still has a chance to save Tiny Tim and himself, but I felt lucky, and determined to be better.
Letters
Dear Emily,
In one of my earliest memories my mother is insisting that I put on my ugly red pull-on rubbers. I want to wear my stylish white boots instead, and in response to her arbitrary decree I turn into a screaming volcano of thwarted rage. This was not the last time this happened, but with age I achieved sufficient self-discipline and autonomy to restrain or avoid the wrenching volcano of emotion associated with this kind of powerlessness in response to authority.
My current challenge is that the meanspiritness, blatant untruths, and overall destructiveness of our political leadership threatens to elicit this same emotional response multiple times a day.
I vote, financially support causes I value (though probably not enough), and have participated in public demonstrations, but I find myself increasingly withdrawing from news and events (e.g. puttering around while listening to quirky podcasts on etymology instead of listening to the news). I mean, if one is going to turn into a volcano of rage – it would seem THE TIME IS NOW, but in that state I can wreak a lot of collateral damage on myself and others. I’d appreciate any thoughts on how to honor the gravity of the moment while maintaining a constructive mental state.
Signed,
Volcano of Emotion
Dear Volcano of Emotion,
We should ask Trump how satisfying HE finds erupting—it’s his favorite tool, his own towering rage, withering scorn, blunt meanness, devastating recasting of meaning and standards. I think he knows very little peace or pride or joy. He doesn’t even understand or believe that Nancy Pelosi prays for him. She totally does!
But no, outrage and outburst shouldn’t be our fuel right now, I don’t think. We are currently in a fight with a spouse (the rest of the country), for the marriage itself. So now’s the time for treasuring what’s valuable and holding it up so that everything lesser shrinks away in shame. (Also, focusing on strengths and hope will make us stronger, all the better to fight this with.)
Now’s also the time to act! (I wrote to three members of Congress today, not even a drop in the bucket, but if 100 million more people would also write or call today, if would make a difference.) The things you mention doing—marching, donating, voting—sound awesome to me. If you think you should do more, do more.
The good things about America that I am motivated by:
Wilderness
Some lively cities full of theater, music, commerce
General high esteem for fairness
Friendliness
History of great optimism and diversity
Beautiful mountains, rivers, streams and lakes, beaches, two oceans
Democracy
People used to being in conversation with each other—a national conversation
Trend toward racial reconciliation and gender equality
Parties and get togethers
Separation of powers
Trial by jury and an appeal system
Laws that protect individual rights
Lots of water
Billions of trees
We can’t let the marriage, which is our trust in each other, fail over an ugly outburst (Trump). How can we translate our strengths into strength?
Best wishes,
Emily
Dear Emily Writes Back,
My to-do list is a mile-long cliché, and yet I have few actual appointments. Therefore, my time has become an amorphous blob. I am very inefficient.
I know what I should do (delete Facebook, get myself some willpower) but it appears I am unwilling to do these things.
Your advice?
-Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
Maybe you need some blob time! You’re not a machine, you’re an animal, and who ever heard of hating on a deer for taking too long to cross the field? (Of course, the deer doesn't have to pay for health insurance.)
On the other hand, your letter does hint at a possible internet addiction—the Problem of the Decade.
A cigarette smoker might have written, My to-do list is a mile-long, and yet all I have made time for is smoking cigarettes on my back porch. I am very inefficient. I know what I should do (quit smoking, get myself some willpower) but it appears I am unwilling to do that.
Smokers quit the moment they realize that the cost is too high, that the addiction takes more than it gives. If you want to quit Facebook, do the math in a way that has it costing more than you want to pay. (That link takes you to an essay I wrote about addiction calculations.)
A third possibility is that you just don’t quite know if the things on your list even matter to you!
Whenever I can’t make myself do something, it usually turns out I either really don’t want to do it or I don’t know how to do it.
Do you think that there might be an inner voice, that urge that is pure and knowing, underneath all the worries and tasks and procrastinating? She might say, “Build a baseball diamond in your corn field and they will come,” or “Care for this sick child for fourteen years, at the expense of almost everything else,” or “Paint big, gorgeous paintings every day,” or “Raise tens of millions of dollars to invest in startup companies founded by women even if it means working for no pay for 3 years,” or whatever. Try to coax her, that inner true voice, out of hiding! I wonder what she’ll say?
I don’t know what’s on your list, but it wouldn’t be bad if it looked like this:
Do what you are supposed to do / want to do. (According to you.)
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas,
Emily
Urgent Tiny Desk Recommendations
Recently I watched me some Rev. Sekou (whom we were lucky enough to see speak and sing in person right here in Ithaca about two years ago and whose book God, Gays, and Guns: Religion and the Future of Democracy, I read earlier this year and loved) and it all came back to me! There is a good answer to dark days like these: “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” Hold fast! Do your work! Shine your own light.
Anthony Hamilton has a song, “Cool,” about how there are so many personal, free joys and pleasures available to us even when we’re broke or living through hard times. And his song “Amen” is about the deep and enduring joys of a good relationship—good love, good cooking, good times—which reminds me a bit of Sekou’s message too. No administration can take that away.
In the little Thich Nhat Hanh pocket book I flipped through the other day, he writes that that’s the whole point and usefulness of suffering: it drives us to the Buddha and gives us something in common with him. Same with God, I think. Suffering drives us to God (or inward, to that old strength and joy we know is inside us), to each other, to trying and working.
O Christmas Trees
In summer, a house river, whitewater roaring down
the hall and through most rooms. (Pick up your things!)
Big brown boulders jutting in the front room.
At night, house bats fly up by the ceiling.
There’s sky inside everywhere, and a mudroom.
(My virtual assistant is a vole, btw.)
Cold fog, not from a machine, rolls out the downstairs bathroom, shrouding a
fox who’s trotting through on the way to the den. Hi, red fox!
In winter, Christmas tree farms indoors
mean you have to peek through branches to do your homework before the break.
You have to lie under branches to sleep. Weave your way like a drunk or soccer player down the rows of trees. You have to breathe in scents of fir
and pine as you read a book, leaning against the trunk.
The carpet is layered with a carpet of needles. It’s temporary though: You have to admit the world is beautiful and dying. It’s a stop gap, inside trees.
The house cat is not confused because she’s just as at home in the forest.
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