“The individual functions either independently where others are less implicated in one’s identity or interdependently where others constitute a part of one’s self-construal.”
Donna L. Sadler
Each morning these days I wake to freezing temperatures, frequent snowstorms and squalls, ice-covered roads and sidewalks. These conditions keep me indoors, off the trails and away from walks in the woods. At my age, I must consider the possibility of taking a fall. In the silence I hear the almost undetectable hum of depression. I light candles, always the one on my desk as I write and reflect in the early mornings and now, those in the kitchen and dining room. There is one in the living room on the round pie crust table that sits between two forest green velvet chairs. As I bear witness to the violence, the hatred, the corruption that occurs daily, in here I am warmly enclosed in my privilege, my happy life. The depression I feel is not from my life, it’s not coming from my brain chemistry, nor my cognition or disordered thinking. It’s a public and political depression, one that finds its way into my home. It’s infected social media, our discourse, it is rotting our institutions. It leaks into our private space through technology. This public depression carries with it the loss of hope there can be change or worse, a nostalgia for a past that can never be again. It tells people to stop looking at the news. To disengage. That this is self-care. But it is self-care in the absence of care for others. Care for others requires our attention. Our resistance. Resistance today means to care about and act to alleviate bad things happening to others even when you are not personally affected.
There are other citizens, living in another place, who brave these freezing temperatures, overcome their fear of falling to stand up and care for their neighbors. They bring food to those afraid to go out. They pay rent for those who cannot work. They walk children to school and then guard the doors. They document. They are cursed at, spit upon, sprayed with tear gas, and flung to the ground. They are killed. They remain disciplined in the face of grave emotional and physical provocation. They resist and refute the insidiousness of political depression. There is a video of a young Asian man on the scene who cannot get over how many old white ladies he sees putting frail yet powerful bodies on the line. They inspire me. This place serves as a reminder of the good that resides within us. In that very moment of oppression, through community, there is liberation and empowerment. For years, neighborliness, inclusion, and compassion have guided everyday embodied rituals there, and do so yesterday and today. This is a place that provides a radical vision for how we may show up, how we will be saved and who will save us. As the news rolls in each day, I realize our leaders, our institutions, our laws will not protect us. It’s everyday people, those who are our neighbors, and with whom we are in community, who will. Those who hold hands, surround us with care and loudly sing resistance songs.
A place like Minneapolis.
The smell of candle wax trails behind me like flying black skirts as I move through the house writing, remembering, studying, cleaning, exercising, cooking, sewing, knitting and praying. There is something about the rhythmic nature of my daily rituals that offers me solace and makes me feel strong. Offering me moments of relief from the now always present, because it is public, depression. I find that these moments of pause enhance my creativity, inspire me and reveal ways of how to be of service. The smell of wax from polishing the abundant wood throughout my house and the candles when blown out, summon memories of churches, convents and schools.
I can feel my scratchy, polyester, plaid, pleated uniform skirt against the skin of my legs. My starched white Peter Pan collar tickles my chin. I re-visit places that, in my childhood, through remembered rituals and spiritual practices provided support and comfort when I felt stressed, sad and anxious as a very empathetic child would be living in a time of assassinations, persecutions, riots, threats of nuclear annihilation. How I feel, as an adult, now living in similarly distressing times. Witnessing events that can turn into chronic nightmares if there is no available process.
Rather than sheltering me from those dreadful occurrences, nuns, through our religion and their emergent feminism, taught me to embrace the feeling of sadness that comes when we witness bad things happening to other people. That feeling will move you to care, to do something about it, to do so because we are all connected. I was shown countless ways to act, no matter how small the gesture. To have faith in the worst of times and to trust the collective. As a social worker, I learned ever more sophisticated and systemic ways to transform feeling bad about bad things happening to others into social change. While I miss the structure of my religion and my profession, somehow the essence of them remains and appears in the secular rituals I now perform each day. Appear in what I read, write and reflect on. On how I decide to show up in the real world. In where I direct my attention. In the hard questions I must ask myself now.
The news comes that they are buying a warehouse and renting office space 25 miles from here, the city where I now live. I wonder what will happen when they come. Up until now I have engaged in lower risk activities like supporting our local food pantry, sending money to an organization in Minneapolis. Engaging in community conversations. Supporting our local newspaper. Marching in a protest in a very safe town. Showing up at my Senator’s local office. Writing to congress persons, state and federal. When you are old, or any age, these are certainly good ways to participate.
But now I must answer the question, how much risk will I bear if they come here? Based on who lives here, I suspect they might. They’ve already paid a low-key visit or two. Does where I live have enough years of every day, embodied rituals of neighborliness, inclusion, and compassion to see us through? Enough Christmas gifts exchanged, backyard barbecues? Are there enough networks of mutual aid that operate outside of unwieldy government, instrumental support that can be quickly summoned into action? Am I willing to take up the defense and support of my neighbors? Citizens and non-citizens as both can be at-risk. Will I stand up for the woman who crossed the street with her shovel and who helped dig me out of the snow because Calvin cannot? The man who helped Calvin carry me into the house after I fell. The next question hovers at the edges of my imagination. When the time comes…
Will I be brave enough to be an old white woman a young man will marvel at?
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