Adrift on stormy seas

Where is home? It is nowhere and everywhere.

It is in the bombed buildings of Sumy in Ukraine. You think – what a beautiful street. Now filled with people fighting to save lives. Broken trees. Blasted walls. A hand sticks out from under a coverlet, to protect the modesty of the dead. There is always a hand. Proof that once these waxen, silent bodies were like ours. That street could have been our home. That hand, our hand.

I read an article by Timothy Snyder – “Fomenting Antisemitism” – on how the use of the term antisemitic only serves to disguise that this administration is hollowing out its use, and making a claim for protection into a false weapon with which they can cling to the pretext that they are doing these horrible things for a good cause. To paraphrase, he said something like protecting Jewish people has never been a reason to harm universities and learning. Newspapers here report on removing funding from universities as if there is some good to it. They don’t show the emails to about-to-be-former colleagues wishing them the best, saying their email is being turned off, that they have lost their jobs. Researchers who lose their grants to study environmental justice, just as the program is getting off the ground. Students about to go study overseas, in limbo. International students here, expecting their grant money, receiving nothing. And that doesn’t begin to address the horror of the video of the “arrest” of the young woman in Somerville, being detained by plain-clothes what? guards? police? Disappeared. We know where she is, but how long will she be in a prison? Her screams. People now saying, if they come for someone we know, we will do something.

I think it seems certain that they will, or try. How close must the connection be before protests begin? Maybe some people do want to repeat history – they’ve learned how to create fear and uncertainty in a population, if not the world, in under 100 days. And who do some pundits listen to? The bond market. What a ridiculous compass for measuring disaster.

Bombing a town on Palm Sunday, while claiming you are saving the country is another of these false pretexts. The ignorant, of which there are too many, will cling to an opinion without reason. They don’t need reasons. They need the protection of the group. Their questions, if they have them, are either ignored by the media they watch, or countered in some “how can you question those who know” sort of way. These tactics create doubt and shame, qualities which are already widespread in the population. The small don’t want to be seen as weak. And even those with morals are reluctant to be first in the firing line. The scandal of planning bombings on Signal is fading into the distance. And even that scandal erases all human cost.

So, protesting, week five. Yesterday, the morning began with snow. I was dog sitting, and there she was, standing over me, licking my face, before she jumped off the bed. A quiet bark. 430am. Time to go out. Aching bones and reluctance fall before the quiet whimper of a sweet dog.

The stairs were covered with icy slush, the lawns with white. The streets were silent. I only had a hat on besides sleeping clothes, so dissuaded her from a longer walk. Although we probably both needed one. And if one froze, would it matter? A friendly way to remind one’s body that there is more than sitting and commuting and listening to nonsense, watching your savings disintegrate, pocket change to a billionaire. The dark and quiet of the pre-dawn following another intense full moon felt like a spirit bath. The cold always feels like truth.

We stood in the garden and walked around. I reminded her that squirrels were asleep, unlike us, and there was nothing to chase. The icy snow landed on her fur. With a brisk shake, her coat was clean.

I feel that the earth is trying to do that to humankind. We destroy lands, forests. We flatter ourselves that bringing extinct animals back to life shows some great scientific breakthrough, while we turn the oceans red with the blood of whales, we spray pesticides on every lawn and plant and don’t ask why the increase in cancers, or why we are sick, eating the food covered in chemicals. We are bombing innocent populations, and destroying even the modest financial security of everyday people – yet we congratulate ourselves on scientific advancement and intellectual achievement. I say we because we are all humans. And until we stop the failings and greed of a too large percentage of the population, we must be held responsible as well.

Academics are starting to leave the US. This is similar to what happened with Brexit, in the UK. Separating and isolating the country from the EU, creating blame, fear, and eventually economic failure. I always felt that so much of what was happening in my once and perhaps always adopted country was a trial run for what they wanted in the USA.

What happens to those they disappear? Slowly, in the articles about forced deportations, you begin to see mentions of what was never talked about before. The timeline for these incarcerations. Forever? Until death? Without a trial. The claim that nothing can be done, while the president of El Salvador is due to visit the current president tomorrow, at one stroke removing the notion that the leader of this country can’t be reached. People have been thrown into jails in a foreign country without redress. These are concentration camps. Then, people were put on trains. Now they are put on planes, and appear in videos to show the strength of the dictator. And as someone said, it has not even been 100 days since everything began to be overturned.

Back here, in April snow, dog sitting meant that I could only drive by the protest today. The dog stuck her head out the window and I honked madly and waved. These brave few, all older individuals, standing in the freezing rain, with flags and posters, showing that they are not giving up. So easy to drive past, even honking. They rang the cowbell for me in appreciation. Last week, I was one of them. I should have spent the entire hour driving past. Last week it meant so much when cars would honk and wave. Now that was me. Something so small.

Just as I should have spent longer at the beach, tripping over the rocks with my pitiful running, while the dog refused to go without me, and made me pick up her leash and run with her. Into the cold air, seagulls and ocean birds were either floating or circling in skies or water, the waves striking the sandbar further out. Further out still, Europe. My friends. The tapas bar in Spain. The corner cafe in Paris, where an older man has a blanc limé pour tuer le ver. Now I see they have made some concoction you can buy. Once upon a time, it was a glass of white wine with some lime cordial to chase away worms, blues, aches, pains, the night. I have connections and memories that creep up on me, unbidden, normal yet operatic, singing some other song and teasing me to listen. The water is always the highway of exile.

America has become a land of intermittent humanity. Here, money is a god, class a costume, and denial a verb. To fight against this storm of fascism and control, more is needed. The hero worship of money needs to end, along with the elevation of ignorance. Who was it, one of the Cabinet, who is now encouraging others to squeal on anyone who appears to be against Christianity. Small, ignorant person, who doesn’t even know that all religions hold the same precepts.

I still remember when I was teaching in London, and I learned for the first time that part of the Koran was the same as the Old Testament. I’m not a religious person, but I was struck by how this had been obscured, in all my studies, and how foolish and ignorant I was. And how grateful I was to be able to ask questions of my students, not all of whom despised teachers, most of whom just wanted to be heard. The hardest job I ever had, during one of the most difficult times of my life. Their stories will never leave me.

Ask questions. Look foolish. Reach out to each other. It seems so simple. But now there are a million of these essays, all asking for paid subscriptions, offering answers. Follow me and I will show you how to…do something better. We all have to eat, but reading and writing can’t just be a monetized activity. Self-care – the only growth industry in America. We can’t fool ourselves. The monetary platform is controlled by the people who are pushing the far-right agenda. The chase after clicks and likes is no different than cowing to editors who tell their writers to make it all seem normal. Yet connection is what we have. Not everyone is on our side, though.

I had a dream, and I was looking through belongings I’d forgotten I had. Or ones I kept but paradoxically had yet to obtain. What mattered, I was not sure of. There were no answers, except in the thoughts I avoided. There are no simple answers, not in the thoughts we obscure by our unwillingness to face ourselves. To face the lies we are told. Like staring at pictures of flowers and toys in the playground, recently bombed by the Russians, in the things we avoid, the pain we try to skirt around. Maybe in the cold dawn there are answers for what we do next.

Protesting this week was a small thing, honking and waving with a beloved dog who looked on with herding dog interest at the friendly folk waving back. The seagulls watching as we ran.

We are all adrift on stormy seas.