insurrection day

& flying dreams

There, there.

One of my best friends, Bridget, called to tell me to turn on the news. I had been wrapped up in work. But now I’m up to speed.

It’s upsetting, no? I feel like calling someone, but I don’t know who. My inner circle of close girlfriends—they are all smart and funny and thoughtful and kind—are surely upset themselves, caught up in watching this outrage unfold in slow motion. Possibly they are struck by the weird combination of sluggishness and extremity, loathing and farce, danger and silliness.

Bridget said to me, several times during our short phone call: “I’m so sorry,” which I found touching and appropriate. As if I had suffered a personal loss, which I have. But so have we all.

Now I pass that on to you, dear EWB reader: I’m so sorry. I sympathize with the hollow feeling in your chest, the tickling of fear, the anger. Rest assured, we will prevail. I think. Because we are smarter, kinder, more sane, more determined, and better.

What if all dreams come true?

I am ruminating on a new theory—that all dreams come true. Some come true instantaneously, as they are being dreamed, because the dreams are so vivid that they might as well be true. Others come true the way seeds become sprouts a few days later—that’s just what they do, manifest.

Maybe enough people dream of storming the Capitol, and the Capitol is as good as stormed. Maybe enough community organizers and election volunteers dream of a Black pastor getting elected as a senator from the state of Georgia, and it happens.

It’s really clear that we should make our dreams good enough to trump or counterbalance other, dumber dreams. As votes are counted, dreams are counted.

I woke up in this New Year sick and tired of having anxiety dreams. I am no longer a young adult. I shouldn’t still be having dreams about wrestling tattered arm chairs off the street corner in the rain into the back of my car to take home. I shouldn’t still be dreaming about going into stores and not having any money to buy anything, or the ones where I am up for a nanny job for a rich white family and they are not quite sure they want to hire me for a job I don’t even want.

When I was young, I dreamed of flying. My daughter, 13, still does. Sometimes I flew just a few feet off the ground, other times I could easily rise above tall fir trees and look down on the rooftops of buildings.

One thing that I don’t think is mentioned often enough about flying dreams: they are funny. I remember almost always being amused by being able to fly. Is that meaningful?

I feel distracted. The news is still on in the background. Outraged senators talking. Reporters stuttering. So I will just close by saying that I am excited for us to formulate some really thrilling, compelling, airtight, possibly funny but definitely powerful dreams in 2021.

Happy New Year.