7. Wake Me Up When November Ends
Oh sh*t, it already has
Is it too late? Has everything worth saying been said? I feel saturated with post-election hot takes— Do you all? Is it my lane to say anything when there are humans with established platforms and well-informed, experience driven information available in any form of media you prefer? Is the pressure I’m feeling to write about this now, driven by a ‘should’ that is most likely fueled by the perfectionism that originates in white supremacy?
I’m not sure about any of the above questions. What I do know is that I have been on an emotional roller coaster, like the old wooden one in Ocean City, MD that doesn’t strap you in tight enough, and slams your head into the headrest at every turn. Every time, I’d step off with an instant headache. Like the migraines that have been showing up so often in the last few weeks that I actually considered talking to my PCP about real migraine medicine. Something I have resisted for over 10 years because the side effects aren’t worth it. And, while I am open to experiencing the full range of human emotion, as a person with considerable privilege in this moment in history, I do not want to allow my body to take me out of the fight before I’ve got any skin in the game.
The children’s books I’m writing matter to me because they represent a number of my values. One being a sense of responsibility to be an active part of change NOW rather than continuing this generational practice of leaving the children to clean up messes. “Let the children be children” they say, and yes I want that too, except I mean let them be children who observe the adults in their lives standing in their values and insisting on change. We can’t hide children from pain or discomfort. Nor can we assume what might cause them discomfort.
What was as a child therapist, and continues to be in all my personal and professional pursuits, a primary goal: The responsibility and honor to show children how to find safety within their own body and trust their sense of knowing. Knowing truth from the inside out, not the other way around. We have continuous opportunities to model choice making based on a personal sense of what feels right and what feels wrong. We can create safety for children by filling their lives with diverse and inclusive representation, in their communities and the media they access, the toys they play with, down to their own imaginative worlds. We can choose to expose children to expansive identities rather than perpetuating the square boxes set out by society’s expectations and conditioning. So that when they don’t fit into a mould, they know who their safe adults are. And in turn, they have a blueprint to create safety for others they encounter in the world. We all just want to feel safe.
About two weeks after the election when I gave a friend the TLDR on the themes and characters in my book drafts, her immediate reaction was “oh yeah, you are going to be hanged.” And that, dear readers, is why I can’t stop this train. It left the station almost a year ago and while there might be roadblocks. There will definitely be many, many big feelings.
Big feelings like on the 12th when I cried for the first time, reading a brief post centering the concept that ‘all creatures know love,’ that broke the fishing net I had been trapped in for a solid week. It was a reminder of my purpose. To remember who I am. What I believe in. What I’m willing to do to stand in my values. I am scared and I am angry. I will not fall into division and hate and blame. I will continue to show up in curiosity and guide the rage that arises when I witness hate impacting people I love via policy and the perpetual normalization of violence, into fuel to continue this path I’ve set out on.
The net had caught me by surprise. I had tended to my nervous system by filling my time with meaningful connection the day of the election. I had prepared myself for a ‘close’ vote and thought it would be days before we had an absolute winner declared. The definitive victory seeped past my best laid coping skills and landed in that familiar ‘stuck’ position along the dysregulation continuum. The one that stuffs fear and rage deep down while my mind whispers hopelessness into my being. Fast intrusive thoughts flowing through a mind inside a body that feels heavy and incapable of much of anything. Paired with physical illness that just would not move on.
Social media wasn’t helping. Even Substack where I so often seek news and personal essays on topics that matter to me, and search for something that feels close to truth. It felt full of platitudes and toxic positivity.
Like others I’ve witnessed in the weeks since, I noticed my body saying no and rejecting messages filled with answers, hope, and pleasantries intended to soothe.
Like others, I resonated with the messages to resist by continuing to do art. Bigger. Louder. Not in spite of the risk. Because of the risk.
Like others, I noticed thoughts of blame and shame floating through my consciousness. I should have, you should have, they should have..
Like others, I felt the call to hyper-local community action. At first that felt impossible or illogical, living semi-nomadically and never in one place for too long. AND, I noticed that was my own limiting beliefs setting in. Can’t I have community here, there, and everywhere?
Like others, I felt hints of connection to messages encouraging me to focus on the good, while simultaneously rejecting the simplicity and inherent privilege in being comforted by anything.
Amongst it all, I noticed a narrow binary suggesting that there is a ‘right’ and ‘wrong*’ way to feel, think, act. As if it were even remotely possible that there is a singular answer or strategy to resolve any issue. Like the countless texts on political strategy and history contain AN answer. Beyond that, my window of tolerance was already diminished, and the messages containing ‘shoulds’ were quickly pushing my nervous system beyond those edges.
My first tiny act of resistance was to visit an explicitly inclusive and diverse comic book store in Portland, OR called Books With Pictures. I posted about it on IG. Check out how cozy it is. They asked if I needed any help and when I said “no, I’m here to attempt to revive my soul,” I was met with kindness and found community in a place where I have only temporary roots. It felt so good to be surrounded by the aliveness of creativity. That same day, my heart had more opportunities to open and I was feeling a visceral resonance with certain messages I came across. Those shared by Andrea Gibson who said “it’s so important to choose curiosity over certainty in a moment that asks us to create something entirely new. This is that moment.” Jeannine drew me in with talk of the animal world and “Sometimes, that’s all it takes to sum up an entire life philosophy or roadmap for decency—four extremely simple words: all creatures know love. Because they know love, they also know grief.”
My most recently acquired internet friend Mesa snapped me out of helplessness and back into my values around action and social justice in a note where she reflected “writing or any other medium really, is a small sort of rebellion. How else do we tell the world we're here? We can tell the truth in our stories and it doesn't always have to be truth that's imperative to the moment, but a truth nonetheless.”
Little by little, words started to land in my body as universal truths. Showing up with curiosity is one of my most strongly held values. Because I know love, I also know grief (see my last newsletter). My truth is in my stories, and I AM HERE WORLD!
Shut down is a natural response of the nervous system when we perceive a problem is unable to be solved. The practice I’ve been leaning into is to make space for nuance utilizing the curious and compassionate mind I was gifted. To say yes, I/you/we can feel terrified and ashamed and rebellious and mortified and hopeful and defeated and passionate ALL in the space of a moment or a day.
The fear and rage are still there with the curiosity and compassion. The ways the landscape of our collective future (immediate and distant) has been drastically impacted. Particularly the vast consequences for many folks who were already multiply marginalized and oppressed. The trans folks. Families made up of LGBTQIA+ humans. Immigrants. BIPOC who were ALREADY at statistically higher risk of compromised safety. Disabled folks. Students. Women.
Can I use the range of emotions I’ve been experiencing to begin to answer the question about my lane? I do think there are voices out there who have been organizing and leading and educating for far longer than I’ve been cognizant of what is required of me with my intersecting areas of privilege, should I exercise the choice to stand in my values. My social location comes with responsibility for actively combating the harm I perpetuate, whether it is conscious or unconscious. If you find yourself wanting to stop reading here, and we have shared identities like whiteness or presenting as gender conforming, then maybe you are only ready to scratch the surface of an anti-oppression and anti-racism exploration. There are folks who can help with that. Reach out and I’ll help you find someone to learn from.
If you are wanting more, there are many activists who can educate you more effectively than I. Find the people you are most receptive to and invest in their work. Whether you need the soft voice of adrienne maree brown to sing and pray you through a hard moment and then encourage you to find your lane within activism and gather some momentum forward. Maybe you prefer the breadth of Movement For Black Lives to get a flavor of the vast organizing and action that has and will continue to exist, regardless of administration. If you are already deep into anti-colonial, anti-oppressive, anti-racism work, you might appreciate the directness of YK Hong. Whatever you do, when your nervous system is ready, start somewhere with the intention to move past your current comfort zone. Explore your resistance if there is any, and make a commitment to expand your capacity to confront the hard truths about the current systems of oppression that are directly implicated in a Convicted Felon Trump victory.
Land Acknowledgement:
This newsletter was written primarily while spending time on the lands of the following Indigenous Peoples: Clackamas; Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians; Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde; & Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla.
Your turn, dear subscribers 💌
Invitation: What has been heavy on your heart in the last month or so? Are there any ways in which choosing curiosity and compassion could support your nervous system?
<3
Cassidy
The heaviness that weighs on me is the one I seem to meet over and over again. I try to meet it with curiosity, to say, "Why choose hate? What makes someone lean into anger and cruelty? Why as people do we choose not to be curious?" I feel I have been studying this for a lifetime and yet, no answer is apparent. I see there is often a reaction inherent in these choices, a pain that was done to which becomes the pain done against another. But WHY?! So, to combat this I will continue to try and act with Grace in times of struggle, to choose to lift others up, to act as I believe one should not as one may desire in the moment. And I thank you, for helping me see that to choose curiosity and compassion is ALWAYS in alignment with what I believe. Sending love, dinner, and cookies.
Great post. You inspire me!