Almost exactly 8 years ago, on November 10, 2016, I wrote the following while observing this country spin out in disarray from halfway across the globe:
“The number of contemplative postmortems I’m seeing from left-of-center Americans stunned by a Trump win because they’d been so sure that Clinton’s was inevitable that they were already preparing to spend the next four years criticizing her is a double-indictment of liberalism: first, for totally ignoring clear and present danger in the name of feel-good, third-party self-congratulation, and second, for being so out of touch with the very real, very visible forces of anger and discontent that raged outside their comfortable little book-lined silos as to miss the very real, very obvious popularity of their favorite clown-car, never-gonna-win President-elect. We could see it all the way from over here, comrades, we were trying to warn you, wallah.”
Some things have changed, but much has not. Liberals still seem incapable of learning anything about the world as it actually is, but I don’t think you can get there going that route. Liberalism is a dead-end, so a real third-party alternative led by working people needs to and is in the midst of developing. That much is still true.
But I’ve changed too. I live here now. I just cast my first vote ever for a president. And I’m seeing the heartbreak up close and personal. So I-told-you-so doesn’t cut it anymore.
There’s work to be done, as so many are already saying; there’s grieving to do too, as others are rightfully reminding us. But there’s also cycles to break; blockages to bust open; hang-ups to catalyze; relationships to reanimate; and strengths and purposes to renew.
There’s no better time to be alive than a time that needs you to live free.
What do we do often do when a crisis hits? We go back home. That’s not always possible in a literal sense (you don’t have to tell me that twice), but a symbolic return is more common and impactful: back to the sources, the roots, the bedrock.
I think we’re feeling that too. We’re beginning again. And we may find that it’s not exactly how we remember it because we never go back home the same way we left it.
We’re older; we’re sedimented by time and smoothed over by circumstance; we’re broken in places and fused with foreign others; we’re plural and new.
Let’s begin again — begin the begin.
I’ve had so many conversations in the past week; some with people I’ve never spoken to, and others with people I haven’t talked to in a long time. Still others reached depths beyond the usual surface; I think we’re all feeling a shift in the air.
I think we’re feeling alone; maybe we’re realizing how thin the threads that tie us to both safety and purpose might be; or maybe, like me, a fog is lifting from your brain that’s allowing you to make choices you’ve set to one side for a long while.
But it’s more than mental clarity, for me. It’s also a bit of a cathartic purge; I feel my heart softened in ways that only a crisis can do — when someone else is hurting and your body snaps to action. That’s been a great lift to my overall mood.
I’ve been feeling so alienated from everything and everyone for some time, but now that love that was tearing me apart is finding channels back out again. I hope this feeling lasts; I’ll act on it while it does.