Do you hear what I hear?

The Scream

“I have passed through the initial five stages of grief: Denial anger bargaining depression and acceptance. Now I am in fascination–cobra hypnosis, newly apoplectic every day by the latest. I believe I have actually keened within recent memory. At this rate, i may have a flickering tic in my eye by sundown.” ~ Anne Lamott in a recent post-election Facebook post

As usual, author Anne Lamott writes what’s in my head only it sounds almost lyrical instead of the ALL CAPS RAGE AND DESPAIR that marinates inside me these days. Oh, and my eye tic has manifested as a pain in my right arm. No, not the heart attack kind of arm pain. It hurts the most when I undo my bra. Sorry, if that’s too much information from this nasty woman. My doctor, Web MD, says that this could indicate stress in the rotator cuff muscles. My symptoms started shortly after FBI Director James Comey released his now infamous letter to Congress regarding Hillary Clinton’s damn emails 10 days before the election. Coincidence? I think not. Case closed.

Lamott also writes about stress eating during these troubling times. I have no doubt that Weight Watchers will be inundated with an influx of chubby liberals come January. Carbs are one of our sole/soul comforts these days. If it weren’t so unbelievably frightening, it would be funny. Lamott prefers Oreos and Cheerios. I feel for her because her options are limited. She’s been in recovery for over 30 years, so wine is not a viable option for her. By the way, did you know that Aldi’s carries some decent wine? What? A friend told me – just putting it out there.

Limiting myself to just one glass a day.

I ran into a dear and much admired colleague right after the election. I was leaving a professional function as she was pulling into the parking lot. She put her window down and we lamented together about the results and she picked up a McDonald’s cheeseburger sitting on the passenger seat next to her, took a big bite and garbled, “Look, I’m stress eating!” She’s a very petite and trim woman which made the whole thing even more amusing to me.

I’m trying to practice good self-care so I’m pretty much in a news blackout, which I guess is not really that different from the actual campaign, right? There was so little news about policies and issues. It was Reality TV at its very worst and it helped elect the least qualified presidential candidate in the history of our great nation. We were punked. Bigly. Faux news is the new news. (I just got one of those shooting pains in my shoulder.)

So I’m under a TV blackout except for every liberal’s lifeline these days. Yes, on the eighth day, God created Netflix. And it was good. And ironically, the show saving me in this post-apocalyptic election world is one about a monarchy – The Crown. If you’re reading my blog, you’re most likely watching The Crown, too, but for those in the royal dark, the series is about the early reign of Queen Elizabeth II. It’s a fascinating behind the scenes look at her marriage to Price Phillip and her relationship with Prime Minister Winston Churchill. And it’s a glorious diversion from the reality of the Park Avenue president-elect only without as much gilded furniture.

Who needs term limits?

I haven’t been able to give up social media but I’ve made my Facebook world a kinder, gentler place. And for the record, I think “unfriending” is a misnomer. We can be friends in REAL life and not be “friends” on Facebook because in real life, I might not ever know that you get your news from Breitbart or that you really think that all Muslims should be deported. Another irony – people are more their real selves behind a keyboard than in actual conversation. Social media is like HD TV – it makes all your warts and blemishes that much bigger.

And honestly, it makes it easier for me and my wife to worship with you at church if I don’t know that you supported a ticket that opposes our marriage. What I don’t know can’t hurt my heart. And spare me the “how can we ever find unity if we don’t talk about our differences” crap. Tell me what I should have said to a friend I have known since the 7^th grade when she accused Michelle Obama of being a “race baiter” because she talked about the White House being built by slaves. There is no middle ground to find on scorched earth.

I haven’t slept through the night since the Cubs won the Word Series. Granted, that was a short night since the game didn’t end until after 1 AM. I’m not much for drugs but Tylenol PM has been my constant companion. But even with my version of the little blue pill, I still wake up at 2 AM and immediately start worrying about so many of the things I care about. Many – most actually – of the folks closest to me are feeling the same way and while often comforting, it can be an exhausting burden, too – trying to be present to their pain while holding my own.

My best friend from college is a chaplain in California at a large urban hospital. She is a woman and she is gay and she is Muslim. Damn, there goes my shoulder again. She’s struggling and she has to be available to everyone she encounters in her work – there can be no “others” in her day. She has observed that it is only white people who ask her if she’s okay – because she doesn’t seem “like herself”. She’s come up with a brilliant response. She tells people that she is “soul sick”. And there ain’t enough chicken soup in the world for this kind of sick.

I’ve been going to the movies – always a balm for me. I can highly recommend Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Fantasy is so superior to reality these days. And I just want to pinch Eddie Redmayne’s ginger cheek. Spoiler alert: Love really does trump hate in this movie.

But I made the mistake of going to Costco the other day. How can it be time for Christmas again already? The decorations made me feel disoriented – like going into a Christmas shop on the boardwalk when you’re at the beach in July. They seemed garish and out-of-place. Bell ringers are out now, too. I have plenty of valid issues regarding the Salvation Army so I’m never excited to hear those bells, but this year, the tone sounds almost ominous to me. It’s a tolling, not a ring.

A few days ago, my mourning changed to anger – white hot anger about what has happened in our country. My shift was not subtle. It came the moment I read who Trump had appointed as his chief strategist – Steve “Darkness is good” Bannon. Let’s be clear – the term “alt-right” should only ever be used with the word DELETE. Even Sarah Palin knew that if you put lipstick on a Nazi, it’s still a Nazi.

Yep. That was my tipping point. That day I signed up for the Women’s March on Washington – the Saturday following Not My President’s inauguration. Initially, I didn’t think I had it in me – to be in our nation’s capital at such a deplorable time. The last time I marched in Washington was 23 years ago for gay rights. That march changed my life in immeasurable ways. It made me feel empowered to live my life out loud. I hope this march empowers every woman, man and child there to go home and speak up for all of those that this new regime would diminish if given carte blanche. Hell, I might even burn my bra since I may not be able to clasp it anymore by then.

Resistance, my friends.

Jonathan Capehart, a gay black journalist, had a great piece in the Washington Post last week about the palpable fear that many of us are experiencing post-election. A fear that some of our friends – mostly white, mostly male, mostly monied – don’t feel – the fear of being targeted under the new administration. Capehart sums it up here really well: “But here’s what our well-meaning friends, especially those who have not felt the sting of discrimination or even otherness, need to understand. President-elect Trump has made promises that represent a threat to real lives and livelihoods. Some are unconstitutional. All are immoral.”

So, yeah, we others are kind of worked up over all of this. But we still enjoy your pictures of puppies.

Truth be told, it’s all Hillary’s fault that I’m going to the march. Damn her. A week after the election she honored a long-standing speaking engagement at a celebration for the Children’s Defense Fund, a cause near and dear to her broken heart. And God bless her – she showed up looking like – well, me, a few days after the election – no make up, regular going to the grocery store hair and a weary looking face. Twitterverse went wild with commentary – someone saying Hillary had “no more fucks to give” and another speculating that she was raising a middle finger to patriarchy. Whatever, I’m still with her. And it wasn’t how she looked but what she said that kicked my sorry ass.

“I know this isn’t easy, I know that over the past week, a lot of people have asked themselves whether America is the country we thought it was. The divisions laid bare by this election run deep, but please listen to me when I say this. America is worth it. Our children are worth it. Believe in our country, fight for our values and never, ever give up.”

Truth.

I don’t have super powers like Hillary but I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me.

So in January, I will march but what about those damn holidays before us?

Pray for peace, people, everywhere.

And pass the cookies.

I’m still with her and our power’s turned on.

Piss and vinegar

Why, yes I am. Thanks for noticing.

This election has made a lot of us face some hard truths about our country and ourselves. I suppose the fact that Trump won (not the popular vote, of course) is the most sobering one for the 47.8 percent of Americans who supported Hillary Clinton. I can’t really give any more of my precious time or tears to Trump. I have too much work to do on myself.

I’m not who you think I am. Perhaps I never was.

Maybe I was always really a radical trapped inside the exterior of the good girl and moderately sensible shoes. I just cared (note past tense) way too much about pleasing people to fully express my truths. That’s one reason I didn’t come out until I was well into my 30’s. I was afraid people wouldn’t like me and most of all, I did not want to disappoint my parents. They, of course, were not at all surprised that I was gay and only cared for my happiness and well-being but I still deeply regret all those years of not being fully known to them.

So for most of my sixty years I have operated under the adage that my dear departed daddy used to often tell me, “You can catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.” I don’t know why it never occurred to me to ask my father the obvious question all those years ago. Why the hell would you want to catch flies?

Exit polls reveal that voters prefer savory over sweet.And 3rd party voters prefer arsenic.

Yes, I know the phrase means you can attract more friends by being nice than by being rude. It just doesn’t apply to voters. Voters like vinegar. Bitter, stinging sour vinegar. Sort of like the taste that I have had in my mouth since November 8^th.

Ironic isn’t it, since we liberals so glommed on to Michelle Obama’s passionate cry at the Democratic Convention back in July -“When they go low, we go high.” I know I clung to it like a personal floatation device – fully knowing that we had the moral high ground in this election. We repeated it on social media when Trump supporters would post vile commentary like, “Lock her up!” or “Drain the swamp”. I even shouted it at the first rally that Hillary and Michelle appeared together at in my hometown a few weeks before the election.

And then they win.

That rally was the day before FBI Director Comey released his letter, the October Surprise (i.e. Tsunami) – an unprecedented move 10 days before a presidential election. You remember – the one that pollsters and the media said had a very “marginal” effect on voters. At least that’s what they said before the election. Then after a lot of Wednesday morning quarterbacking, many of them proclaimed that it probably had a bigger effect than they had measured. Ya think? If there are any swamps to be drained, I hope Trump starts with the pollsters. Bye, Nate Silver. We are never ever getting back together.

I don’t know if that’s the main reason Hillary lost the election. I know I’ve read at least 1,412 theories on the subject, and I’m done agonizing over it. Bottom line: Trump was elected Lord of the Flies and now we have to put on our big girl panties and grab him and his minions by the balls to make sure that we don’t let an already great America go back.

As I often do in times of moral uncertainty, I turned to the words of Harvey Milk who said, “I have tasted freedom. I will not give up that which I have tasted.”

Oh. Hell. No.

I am flat-out worn out from being the good girl for so long. Oh, I’ve spoken out before on issues near and dear to my heart – LGBT civil rights, HIV/AIDS stigma, Amendment One and HB2. But I’ve never really boldly crossed that “honey” line. I’ve bit my tongue over the years with some family, friends and colleagues when they’ve made comments that offend me and my ideals. God forbid I be accused of being a humorless liberal or too politically correct. Not me, people like me. They really, really like me.

Fair warning to all – my Sally Field phase is over. I’m acquiring a taste for vinegar. Vinegar gets shit done. Simma down, now. I’m not looking for a fight with anyone on either side but I’m sure as hell not going to default to sweet talking my way out of any either. I’m too old and there’s too much at stake.

That would be nice but it’s no longer a deal breaker for me.

47.3% of voters may have booked passage on the Titanic but I see that iceberg ahead and I’m going to use my voice as the biggest baddest foghorn you’ve ever heard.

I’m angry and I’m going to fight tooth and nail for the America that I believe in – the America that is good and kind and loving – the America not hell-bent on preserving the white status quo – the America that is not afraid of someone being different – the America that celebrates being different.

I started to get a queasy feeling in my stomach the Sunday before the election. My wife and I drove over to Buena Vista, an upscale neighborhood in Winston-Salem, where we like to walk when the weather is nice. The streets are lined with gorgeous trees and there are sidewalks – it’s a great walking neighborhood and the houses there are big and beautiful and apparently, home to an awful lot of people who voted for Trump – at least if yard signs are any indication.

True story.

I find it hard to believe that these folks were simply voting for change because it sure looks like they’ve been doing pretty darn well for a while. Just an observation.

The “R” word has been thrown around a lot this election cycle. No, not all Trump voters are racists but Charles Gaba, founder of ACASingups.net, nailed it in one short not so sweet tweet when he said, “Not all Trump supporters are racist, but all of them decided that racism isn’t a deal-breaker. End of story.”

Yes, there was lot of Flying the W this election and I’m not talking about the Cubs. White Makes Right could have been another big seller for Trump hat vendors this year.

Author Toni Morrison gives a blistering view on this ugly reality in an essay this week in The New Yorker. You can read it here but here’s a stiff shot of it:

The comfort of being “naturally better than,” of not having to struggle or demand civil treatment, is hard to give up. The confidence that you will not be watched in a department store, that you are the preferred customer in high-end restaurants—these social inflections, belonging to whiteness, are greedily relished.

So scary are the consequences of a collapse of white privilege that many Americans have flocked to a political platform that supports and translates violence against the defenseless as strength. These people are not so much angry as terrified, with the kind of terror that makes knees tremble.

Why we can’t have nice things.

I don’t want to be angry for four years because I still believe down deep in my bones in kindness as “the only thing that matters” as the wonderful poet Namoi Shihab Nye writes in her poem of the same name.

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

What you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness.

The electoral map certainly highlighted a lot of desolation and I think we all lost a lot last Tuesday. Maybe now it’s finally time to think about all of this through a different prism than the red state/blue state one. I’m not crazy about purple either. I might suggest something like a burnt sienna as we navigate our new country in search of kindness.

An Ariel view of the new electoral map.

But this is where my work is. I know I cannot dismiss all Trump voters as racist and a threat against me and my wife as gay Americans.. I would lose some family members and a few good friends if that was my moral litmus test.

I know I have to stop thinking of that man standing in front of me at Starbucks – the older white man with the big belly that is taking up the whole counter while he fixes his coffee – more cream, a shake of vanilla – while the rest of us wait – as my enemy because I think he looks like a Republican.

I promise to do better. Tomorrow.

No, that’s on me to do better. But I will no longer go with the “honey” approach. I will speak the truth as I know it. I will be respectful and civil but I will no longer stop at the line that I drew for myself so many years ago when I bought into the good girl scenario.

The results of this election made me recall something a dear friend said to me years ago in the context of a professional dilemma I was experiencing. I was opting for the path of least resistance and staying on the high road in the situation. My friend said, “Addison, taking the high road is great but sometimes you can wind up in a ditch.”

Many of us have felt like we’ve been in a ditch this past week or so – or maybe even more like road kill. Anyway, there’s no AAA to pull us coastal elites out of this one. It’s on us and we better get started.

You can sleep while I drive.

We’ve got a long way to go. Pack snacks.

Shit just got real

Maybe there’s a God above

But all I’ve learned from love

Was how to shoot somebody who out drew ya

And it’s not a cry that you hear at night

It’s not somebody who’s seen the light

It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

~ Lyrics from Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen died yesterday and this Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year continues.

Funny. I thought losing my job would be the worst thing that happened this year.

Not even close. Losing my country is a hell of lot worse.

I thought Wednesday morning would be my low point but just like all those worthless tracking polls, I seriously miscalculated. Yesterday was worse. Reality is setting in. President-elect Trump.

I have tried to avoid all television (thank you Baby Jesus for Netflix) – even MSNBC, that bastion of liberal news. Nope. I can’t even take Rachel Maddow. It’s too much like looking in the mirror – I can see the pain on her face. I know I should avoid social media, too, but it is comforting to mourn with others. I know there has been a lot of hate chatter on Facebook but I weeded my FB garden of most of that so my feed is mostly filled with folks who feel an awful lot like me these days. In other words, awful.

Get over it. Move on. I hear you but I’m not there yet. Not even close. This wasn’t like my favorite team losing the big game or not getting the house I put an offer on. This was a rejection of almost everything I’ve spent most of my adult life working for – equality – for women, the LGBT community, people living with HIV/AIDS, people with disabilities – you get it, people.

Yesterday there were several disturbing stories circulating on mainstream and social media about post-election bullying and intimidation that seemed to be empowered by Trump’s election. Students in a middle school in Detroit chanted “Build the wall” to Latino students who were seen crying. Some of these incidents cut close to home. In Durham, a wall was spray painted “Black Lives Don’t Matter and Neither Does Your Votes.” The Ku Klux Kan announced a Trump victory parade in Pelham, near the Virginia border. And very near my home in Winston-Salem, a lesbian couple with children came home to find a sign on their door that said, “Lesbian Bitches You Are Sick Get Out Of Our Neighborhood – Trump Train.”

A sign of the times.

So this wasn’t from some “libtard” website – this really happened to people I really know.

And just an hour ago my sister told me that one of her oldest friends, a woman who grew up right next door to us in our little hometown of Harrisonburg, Virginia, was riding her bike this morning on a path in Boston when a man wearing a Make America Great Sign and holding a bullhorn pulled right in front of her and screamed in the bullhorn: Have you read Hillary’s emails? She almost fell off her bike. This happened today in Boston. Boston! Not Podunk, USA.

So forgive me if I’m not ready to move on just yet. On Tuesday, our nation empowered this dangerous extremist behavior by electing a man who ran on a platform of misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and racism. No one should be surprised or shocked. What we saw during the campaign is exactly what we are getting in this new America.

Is this the change some of you were looking for? Not so great if you ask me. And sadly, anyone who is “different than” may pay dearly for any of your buyer’s remorse. (See moral bankruptcy.)

I’m not naïve enough to think that if Hillary had been elected everything would be sunshine and roses in America today. No, it would probably be even more dangerous had she won since Trump had already planted the seeds for a contested election. It’s irrelevant anyway because this toxic genie was let out of the bottle when Republican voters made him their nominee for the most powerful office in the land.

There have been some really well written pieces about post-election grieving but I came across one of the best on The Huffington Post website yesterday – I am Sitting Shiva for America written by Vanessa Zoltan, a chaplain at Harvard University. Shiva is the Jewish practice of grief. It is a seven-day mourning period where family members gather in one home to receive visitors. Zoltan is sitting shiva for a lot of beliefs that died in the wee early hours of Wednesday.

You can read her blog here but here’s a bit of it:

We’re going to need more than seven days, folks.

I will take action. And man oh man, will I. But for a week I am going to wear my, “Nasty Woman” shirt because while sitting shiva you are not supposed to change your clothes. And for this week I am going to refuse— patently refuse hope. Hope (for me. I am only speaking for myself) this early will be a denial of all that has been lost. Hope this early will be because it’s easier than being mad and reckoning with all that is lost (hope for environmental policy reform, peace for millions of my fellow-countrymen who now fear being deported, what I believed the American experiment stood for, friendships that I can no longer take seriously because of their vote, and on and on).

I wish I could sit with her.

I did sort of sit shiva yesterday with a dear friend from Israel. She’s been an American citizen for about 10 years and voted for Obama twice and was a Hillary supporter. She’s my age but she’s always had a very maternal aura with me – loving and nurturing. She’s a mother and a grandmother and she’s my Jewish sister/mother. She knew I was hurting and she took both of my hands in hers and looked me straight in the eyes and said, in her marvelous accent, “Everything will be okay.” And when we said goodbye, she said she was going to kiss me like her mother used to kiss her – a series of very rapid pecks on the check. She smothered me with those kisses and told me she loved me.

And it was the safest I have felt since early Wednesday morning.

On my drive back home from seeing her – about 40 minutes in the car – my phone “pinged’’ several times – notifications of messages coming in. (Chill, I did not text and drive.) I often listen to MSNBC in the car on my XM radio but since that’s radioactive now, I turned to old faithful – NPR. Don’t you know they were doing a story on the election. I’m glad I didn’t shut it off immediately because it was an interesting piece about a couple in Massachusetts. The wife is an attorney who voted for Hillary and the husband is a fireman who voted for Trump. They, like most of America, are trying to find some peace in all of this carnage. They didn’t have any pearls of wisdom to share and honestly, at one point, it sounded like the wife wanted to sock the husband. Anyway, it made me feel less lonely for a few minutes.

When I got home I looked at my phone. I had a FB inbox message from one of my dearest friends in the world – a gay man who I have loved for 20 years. We have the most wonderful “odd couple” relationship and we’ve always said that if we weren’t both gay, we would have made a great couple. We both are yellow dog Democrats who love sports and sarcasm. Yep, we’re a match made in Provincetown. Anyway, he has been beyond inconsolable this week and thought getting together for dinner would be good medicine for us all. Only he said it in his uniquely charming way that seems to almost always make me laugh and tear up at the same time. He wrote, “I love you so much and this shit show is reminding me to take stock of the things in my life that are important and you are high on that list.”

My gay husband, Jeff.

Now you see why I adore him. And he’s right – it’s time to be with people who nurture and restore us.

The next FB inbox message was from a friend who is a young mother of two pretty fantastic daughters. She always takes her girls to vote with her and they were all super excited about the historical prospect of voting for the first woman president this year. When she told her girls on Wednesday morning that Hillary lost, they both cried. Her youngest daughter then immediately asked her about marriage equality. I told you these girls are fantastic.

“Will the marriages for everyone stop, Mommy?” Gulp. Then this little supershero said, “If they do, I will make beautiful art and I will give people marriages.” Sign me up.

My friend shared all of this with me to reassure me that as she said “love seeds are planted everywhere and our family plans on increasing the active ways we love others.” Gee, I wonder why those girls are so fantastic. (Their dad is pretty great, too.) She closed her message with some words that actually penetrated the veil of despair that I have been wearing since early Wednesday morning. She wrote, “You are loved. We will stand by you.”

Maybe all the hallelujahs aren’t broken. I’m clinging to them today.

These two make me feel less scared for my country’s future. And they may officiate my next wedding.

Margin call

Getting my steps in today.

“If you aspire to write, put aside all the niceties and sureties about what art should be and write something that makes the scales fall from our eyes.” The Paris Review, November 9, 2016

It has been almost 12 hours since America elected it’s 45^th president and I can still barely move. It is almost 3 in the afternoon and I haven’t yet brushed my teeth. I haven’t been outside but beyond my window, I hear dogs barking, the banging of trash cans, moving cars – just the normal sounds of life.

But today is anything but normal. I am 60 years old and I have a gut full of despair and fear unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I hate my state and I no longer recognize the country I live in. Breaking News: Love doesn’t Trump hate in the Electoral College.

Spare me your cheerful memes and posts about moving on and the sun coming out tomorrow. It is tomorrow in an America I no longer feel safe in. I am a liberal gay woman and if I were a stock account, there would be a margin call on me today.

I went to bed around 1:30 or so last night before the race was called. I took an Advil PM that didn’t seem to dent my emotional vertigo. I got up when my wife’s alarm went off and went out to sit on the couch in my living room. I did not turn the TV on. I was almost catatonic.

My best friend called me shortly after my wife left for work. I wasn’t going to answer. I didn’t think I could make words but her picture came up on my iPhone and I could not ignore her sweet face. I think I said hello but it didn’t really matter. We both just cried softly. That was pretty much our entire conversation.

Gotta pick up.

She did manage to make me smile for the first time in many hours when she said, “On the third ring, I thought you weren’t going to answer.” She knows me well.

Then I watched Hillary’s concession speech. When she came out on the stage and her staff and friends in the room stood and applauded loudly, I did, too. Right there in my living room in my pajamas. And I cried. Hard. I cried for Hillary because she’s too strong to cry for herself – at least in public. And I cried for myself and all the dreams I had wrapped up in this moment. I cried for Pearl, my 90-year-old friend who was certain that she had lived long enough to see the first woman become president of the United States. And I cried for all my friends who are mothers with young children who have to try to explain how this happened to their sons and most especially, their daughters.

Lennie (left) and her wife Pearl have seen – and made – a lot of history in their 50 plus years together.

I surely don’t have a clue. I can’t even make any sense of it myself.

My friend Susan is a columnist for my local paper and the mother of two daughters. She wrote a brilliant piece in today’s paper, What do you tell your daughter today.

Susan’s 15-year-old daughter felt worried that some of her rights would be taken away by the new president whose track record with women is well, disgusting.. She said she would tell her daughter that “women still have to work twice as hard as men to achieve the same status” and that she may be called “shrill,” or “bitchy” for wielding power in the same way men do. And she said, and this is the best part, “I will tell her to do it anyway, boldly and unapologetically.” My friend Susan is one beautifully Nasty Woman.

Facebook has been like a wailing wall today and it’s good to mourn in public with others. Words like “gutted” and “unmoored” and “devastated” appeared in a lot of posts. There have been those on the other side, too, but it has been so empowering to use the “unfriend” feature today. It’s rather silly anyway to think that I could actually be “friends” with someone who voted for such a rude misogynist – a rude misogynist who BRAGS about being a rude misogynist.

I suppose we will never bridge the great divides in our country if we don’t actually ever sit down and talk to folks on the other side but I’m simply not in the mood for diplomacy today. I deleted a handful of friends from high school –most of whom never left the small town we grew up in. Maybe they never met a Muslim or a black person or a person with a disability –or a gay person except for me. Maybe they simply don’t care. I just know I have to tend to me right now before I set out to fight another day and reading their negative commentary is not helpful.

I have heard from lots of friends through FB, text and email. And my dear sister who is 3,000 miles away has tried through sheer force of will to take some of my pain away. She is hurting, too, but her empathy for me has been palpable. Her love for me is bigly.

Perspective is everything and a dear friend who is undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer gave me a good dose of it. She texted me a Bible verse someone had sent her today. I’m Episcopalian and not so up on the Bible but this passage from 1 Peter 5:8-9 was right on time:

“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”

I certainly felt that collective suffering today and I was grateful to grieve with my family of believers – people who know what Hillary told us today – “to never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it.”

I will always be with her.

But I still want to rant and weep and scream to the heavens. I want it to be okay and I know that it won’t be for a very long time. And I know I have to just be uncomfortable with that.

My wife just texted me that she was picking up comfort food for dinner – for us, that means Mongolian tofu. Yes, we’re elite liberals. And we’ll have some wine on a school night and we will watch a relaxing Netflix series about a serial killer being chased by Gillian Anderson.

Suddenly, I feel better already.

As my friend Chris said so succinctly this afternoon, “I know I will move forward, just not the fuck today.”

I won’t stop believing that young Alice and her mom Ann will see that glass ceiling break.

26.2

Last month I was in the Windy City for the Chicago Marathon. I probably don’t need to tell you that I was not a participant. I’m on record noting that if you ever see me running, I’m probably being chased by someone with an ax. No, I was there as part of the cheer squad for my dear friend Lori, who was running her eighth marathon at the age of 56. Yes, eighth. I’m not sure she’s actually human but more on that later.

Lori (far right) and her cheer posse as seen in reflection in Chicago’s iconic Bean.

I did recently complete a marathon of sorts – a figurative one – and I’m here to tell you that marathons are hard as hell. Mine began in January when I was fired from a job – scratch, calling – that I loved. Yeah, Happy New Year to me. My departure was manipulated by a toxic subordinate who didn’t like me being the boss of him. He was able to intimidate just enough people into believing his fiction was fact and that was that – 11 years obliterated without any opportunity to share my truth.

Some courses are harder than others.

My friend Lori knows this. She was a long distance runner in high school and in her 20’s she decided to run a marathon to try to qualify for the Olympic Trials. That plan was upended by a knee injury and surgery. But that was nothing compared to a colon cancer diagnosis at the age of 36. She had surgery and chemo and was back running about a week after she completed her treatments. And she’s never stopped.

Lori makes running look easy and fun. I still don’t want to do it.

I’m fascinated by the idea of someone choosing to do something so incredibly difficult so I recently “interviewed” Lori – peppering her with all of my questions about marathons in my search for understanding. Lori is a good sport in all manner of ways and I think she enjoyed the brief respite from her very big job as a controller at a local credit union. Oh yeah, Lori is really smart, too, in addition to being a very good runner.

Mostly, I just wanted to know why. As in why in the hell would you want to run a marathon? As much as I love sports, this is right up there with cricket and curling for one that I just do not get. The course is 26.2 miles – often including hills placed at truly sadistic locations – like really near the finish line. Sometimes you have to run in less than ideal conditions, too. Last year, Lori ran the Boston Marathon in a driving cold rain and 20 mph winds. Good times.

And let’s face it, humans really weren’t built to run that many miles and doing so can do some really nasty things to your body – cramping, bleeding and blisters to name a few – in places I never knew you could experience those things. Seriously, bleeding nipples is a thing for marathoners. I can’t even.

Just the stats, ma’am.

I certainly didn’t choose my marathon – most of us never do. I suppose if you live in this world long enough, you’re going to find yourself in at least a few major tests of endurance – divorce, illness and death to name a few. Having experienced all of the above, I can tell you that losing a job, while no walk in the park, is not in the same league as those beasts.

Lori told me it’s the challenge of pushing yourself, reaching your limit and then finding a way to go further that continues to inspire her to run. She explained that there’s a saying among marathoners that anyone can train to run the first 20 miles but it’s the last 6.2 that are really tough. I’ll have to take her word on that. She said that even on good days there are times when you don’t feel like you can make it and that’s when your mental toughness carries you. “Mentally you have to prepare yourself to run through the pain,” she said.

I get that. Several times in the past nine months, I felt like I had reached my limit. I couldn’t take “it” anymore – the anger, the disappointment, the unfairness of what happened to me. I felt overwhelmed with the idea of starting over. I wanted to just quit – again, not literally – but to wave the metaphorical white flag.

I can’t say that I ran through my pain. Some days I felt like a zombie just stumbling through my day. But eventually, I did start to breathe through my pain. I don’t meditate – I always mean to start – but I did make a conscious decision to not fight my pain anymore. I knew I needed to fully embrace it before I could move on.

I reread a lot of wisdom from the brilliant Pema Chodron, the Buddhist nun, teacher and author. Chodron is all about using what seems like poison as medicine to discover our inner strength and transform ourselves. Yes, it’s a more Zen version of the old adage “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Pema Chodron. I feel calmer just looking at her.

Here’s a snippet of the Gospel according to Pema:

We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

Lori told me that she breaks a marathon into four six-mile sections so that it’s more manageable. That leaves 2.2 miles remaining to navigate and then she breaks that down in terms of time instead of distance – i.e. 15 minutes to go, 5 minutes to go and so on. She said that’s when you start having conversations in your head. You tell yourself things like “keep your head up” and “relax” with the key being to keep your thoughts positive and encouraging. I smiled when she said, “If you can’t tell, running a marathon can be as much of a mental challenge as a physical one.” Those runners with the bleeding nipples would probably disagree.

I was beginning to feel like I was listening to Yoda, Marathon Master. And I was wishing I had had this conversation with Lori several months ago but marathons are solitary journeys for the most part. This I know for certain.

Lori is a classic introvert (understatement) so you won’t find her chatting during a race but I asked her if the spectators affect her at all. She explained that while you might not always be conscious of everything going on around you, you do become aware of people cheering and that can really give you a lift during rough patches. This happened to her a few years ago during the New York Marathon when she was coming off the bridge from Queens and entering Manhattan on 1^st Avenue. She recalled, “There is no noise on the bridge but the sound of your feet hitting the pavement and then you come off the bridge and there are thousands of people cheering. It’s pretty amazing.”

I know I was lifted on some tough days by the kindness of many folks who reached out to me in surprising ways – a text, an email, a phone call or the best – an old school card and note. And sometimes these “cheers” came from delightfully unexpected sources – like Jeri, an editor at my local newspaper who hired me to write a monthly column several years ago.

He sent me a silly card of a beagle riding a bike with tassels dangling from the handlebars, blowing in the wind. He told me I was like the beagle in the photo – with some wondrous ways to go in this world. He made me laugh and got me over a hill or two.

I believe I can fly.

My course didn’t have a finite ending so I had to navigate it day by day. Unlike Lori’s marathons, the first part was the hardest for me. I was so angry and disappointed in some people who I had respected and even loved. Those were wounds that did not heal quickly. The middle of my journey was about acceptance and slowly beginning to look forward instead of the rear view mirror. And this last stretch has been about fully embracing a unique opportunity to truly seek the creative life that I have longed for.

Lori says that when she gets near the end of a marathon, she just tries to relax and “stop all the chatter that is going on in your brain.” She tries to go further into herself and push through to the finish line.

I hear less and less of that chatter in my brain every day and on my best days I can hear the lovely Mary Oliver poem that my pal Jeri reminded me of in his note way back in that dark month of March. It’s called Phillip’s Birthday.

I gave,

to a friend that I care for deeply,

something that I loved.

It was only a small

extremely shapely bone

that came from the ear

of a whale.

It hurt a little

to give it away.

The next morning

I went out, as usual,

at sunrise,

and there, in the harbor,

was a swan.

I don’t know

what he or she was doing there,

but the beauty of it

was a gift.

Do you see what I mean?

You give and you are given.

I may never understand marathons but I get this equation down to my bone marrow.

You give and you are given.

And as my inspiring friend Lori knows so well, you just keep going.

26.2 miles later and still smiling.

Me, too.

It’s just a number. A big fat one.

Bookends

Two writers. One blog.