I've felt paralyzed these past few days. I haven't wanted to write. Doing so has felt self-serving and selfish. We have a president-elect who believes climate change is a hoax while the vast majority of educated people in the rest of the world realize it's real. Scientific facts point to human activity as a significant cause. And yet now the upcoming leader of the most powerful nation in the world likely will dismantle the protections other world-leaders have been putting in place.
It's tempting to rage, to provide example after example of the awfulness in our future. But I won't. I've always had a strong sense that people are better than their portrayal in the media. And I know humans are innovative and strong. I love young people. I love that in many ways -- this 11/9 date notwithstanding -- we are moving in the direction of compassion and growth. In the last couple of days, three things have happened that give me hope.
First, a friend sent me a "Breathe" GIF. I watched the GIF and breathed, felt muscles soften and my shoulders drop, felt gratitude that somehow she knew what I needed when I needed it. I breathe when I'm on Lexi (or try to), but somehow I forget much of the rest of the time.
Second, a colleague and friend at work stopped me in the hallway yesterday and told me she'd heard I needed surgery. She offered to help, told me she had sick days and would take time off if I needed a driver to Seattle -- "Anything," she said. "Anything at all. I'm here."
I'm tough. I've had to be -- as most of us have had to be. But I almost broke down then. It's hard feeling alone when faced with significant medical decisions. In truth, I'm lucky. I have my daughter and she would help out if she could, and often she does. But she can't afford to take off work to come to Seattle for my medical appointments, so often I've gone alone. Yesterday, my friend's offer filled me with joy that followed me the rest of the day.
And in class the day after the election, my students engaged themselves in an active debate about the results of the election. I love my job, and I specifically love where I work. My town's economy is driven by apples, cherries, blueberries, grapes, and hops. There's a burgeoning wine industry, and a cottage industry in indie brews that is going beyond cottage.
More than half of my students are Hispanic. We are officially a "Hispanic-Serving Institution." These young people and their parents are the people that keep our agricultural economy going. They are apple pickers and the children of apple pickers; they get up at 4 a.m. in the harvest season and pick or work in the warehouses, and they put food (and now wine and beer) on the table of Americans for a pittance. Often they started picking as children, today's version of child labor. They live packed in tiny houses and apartments and send money home to Mexico. They write of their dreams to buy a home for their parents. They recognize the sacrifices their parents and aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters made in hopes of an education, of a better life, of the American dream. And they do it without complaint, sleep-deprived, hungry for knowledge, hungry to participate in the great Democracy that they've believed America to be: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" They believe in the truth of the words at the base of the Statue of Liberty, and so did I, when I moved here from Ireland.
And so in class on Wednesday, my students discussed who they'd voted for and why, and some of them told the handful of people who had voted for the president-elect how sorry they would be one day. "When we're all kicked out of the country and you've nobody willing to pick your food for you in 100+ degree weather you'll be sorry. You gonna go out there and do it?" They laughed about it. Good-natured ribbing. Because they are close, this group: they care for each other; they don't hate each other for voting differently. But the Mexicans in the class know what a Trump presidency means for them. And I think maybe the handful who voted for Trump got a moment of reality. In one young man's eyes, in particular, I saw something startled and questioning.
What happened in class heartened me. Conversation. Dialogue. Not hatred or judgment. Just statements of reality amongst students who have become friends. Some of them are unlikely friends, but they sit together and share their candy and are hard to corral when they get excited. Watching them smile gave me hope.
And then, this morning, I got up to find a new message from my Irish GIF friend. She wrote: "This will be the cloud with the silver lining, the next generation are learning from this, the world is on the verge of change, it is good. There will be dark days ahead but not for too long. The world is watching."
It's true. The world is watching. And young people the world over are activated. For me, right now, that needs to be enough. My daughter and I will become more politically active, because the future of the planet does matter, but I'm not going to give up on writing. My friend also sent me a quote from Toni Morrison: "This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."
I started my little blog for me, to track Lexi's progress with target training. Then I thought I would use it to learn more about how to write in public and because sharing my work with Lexi is also a way to share how horses can help us. Now I think the quiet actions we take as individuals to find a kinder, more loving path are significant. When I work with Lexi using target training, making our time together fun, finding a way to help her brain heal from the trauma she endured, I take a step towards being a more compassionate person myself. How? Because it helps me be more mindful; it helps me tune into another living being. As soon as I make that connection, I feel better.
If my writing about it can help anyone else feel hope or find a path forward, then I am doing what I can to help our civilization heal. So write I will.
In gratitude for the pen.
Lovely.
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