you may or may not have noticed, but i usually send out my newsletters on the first wednesday of the month. there’s really no special reason beyond that’s what the mailchimp algorithm tells me you like. plus keeping a regular schedule holds me accountable.
this month i knew that the first wednesday was likely to be a Limbo or a Doozy. these are professional terms for a Shit Show. so i waited a week in hopes that things would be a little clearer. in some ways they are, in some ways they are not.
like everyone else i have run the gamut of emotions since election night/week/epoch. though i knew folks would vote for trump, it still felt absolutely awful to see those vote totals come in tuesday night. i went to sleep filled with a real fear. i should say “sleep” because what i really did, like i am sure some of you too, was lay very still for a few minutes (hours?) then check my phone again and again in the dark.
by late wednesday morning, i think i realized what we were in for. i was walking home from my regular tennis match, which my partner called early in the set because she, understandably, just couldn't be in her body. as i was walking, checking my phone for the millionth time and seeing no change, i realized i needed to prepare for the Long Haul. that there would be no news for awhile, and i needed to figure out how to live with that. and in very short order i had a new problem:
i got very sick.
my body is truly a wonderland, as the song says. and i do my best to ignore, think my way out of, run my way through what it is telling me. and then it has to shout to be heard before i will finally listen. wednesday morning, i got a migraine that wouldn't quit. i felt nauseous. i had a runny nose, a cough, watery eyes, a crushing sense of fatigue, and a spray of cold sores bloomed all over my nose. beyond my wounded vanity, my body was doing its best to expel something.
the next few days were slow. they had to be. i walked at a snail's pace, read a lot, laid in bed way past times i usually let myself. i did not see friends. i did not talk on the phone. i texted a few jaunty election memes to keep my spirits up. i scheduled a COVID test.
on friday, news broke that my pal and neighbor rachel maddow was going into quarantine at her place here in western mass because she had been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID. in her statement explaining why she would no longer be anchoring coverage of the most important election of our lives, she began, simply: “everything happens all at once.”
same, girl.
on saturday morning, i was walking slowly on one of the dirt roads near my house. i think i was listening to the new david sedaris collection. all of a sudden my phone started blowing up. every text chain i am part of. folks i hadn't heard from in awhile. you know what had just happened. at that moment, a cyclist whizzed by me. i spontaneously whooped and raised my fists, and they returned my whoop and shouted “i just heard”. it was a surreal and strange moment.
and of course, i immediately started to feel better.
it's been a nice return to strength. i am negative for COVID and very grateful for an easy, fast testing process. i did some crying on the couch at kamala’s speech. i have been sleeping better. but i am also under no illusion that the work is done. georgia, people, georgia for control of the senate.
but, the malaise i felt this week was trump leaving my body. the subterranean stress of the last four years. the low (and sometimes high) grade terror and trigger of a known abuser with a huge platform. i guess we all had to get sick before we could get better??
i want to close by noting something that may be controversial but that i feel very strongly about. like 2016, there is a strain of public discourse urging people who didn't vote for trump to try to understand those that did. people talk about having radical empathy for trump voters, to try to understand their pain. to me this is straight-up “both sides-ism”. the frame needs to be flipped. trump and those that voted for him have done active harm to people and institutions. the cruelty was always the point, as adam serwer brilliantly said. i will not try to understand those that do active harm. it is their job to understand the harm they have caused. perhaps trump voters should try to understand what is so violent about their choices, not the other way around.
there are trump voters in my life. we can work together. we can be at the post office together. i don’t hate them. but i do not trust them. why should i?
one of my favorite twitter follows is rabbi danya ruttenberg. her feed is timely, wise, and progressive. i dont know anything about judaism, so i extra appreciate learning more about the religion. the other day, in response to this “empathy for trump voters” BS she tweeted something that really spoke to me:
in judaism, you’re not required to forgive someone who hasn’t done the sincere, meaningful work of repentance and repair. and then, it’s complicated at best. but the literature is clear that if the harm caused was irreparable, you’re never required to forgive, even if they repent.
amen.
stay well everyone! listen to and take good care of those bodies!
x erin
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS
how saturday night live pulled off maya rudolph's perfect kamala harris white suit at the very last minute
i had a pretty good halloween, dressing as my favorite Regency Period lesbian coal baron, Gentleman Jack and walking purposefully around town
a must-listen-to treatise on the mustache and black self-hood from the brilliant wesley morris
a beautiful essay on queer percussion and its transformative power by composer sarah hennies
having a hard to pronounce name and the profound politics of mis- and dis- pronunciation
and finally, the wierdest instagram account i have found lately. it is indeed Supremely Satisfying but i also feel strangely gross and like i need a shower after spending time with it