If You Were as Angry as I Am, You Would be Furious Right Now

This will be the first thing I’ve written (and finished) in some years. I hate that. I hate that this is why I’m writing again, because I’m just so angry. There was a time when words were so powerful to me, when it felt as if I would burst if I didn’t get them out in time. Words granted me a freedom I didn’t really have, made me feel like my voice was stronger than it really was. And now I want nothing more than for that to have been true, because it certainly never will be again. Now my words are empty and fading into a void where I might as well be dust floating through space, because now I don’t matter in a way that I haven’t not mattered in a while.

I stopped believing in God when I actually took the time to give It more than a moment’s thought. The whole “weaker vessel” thing has never sat right with me; I am, biologically, worth hundreds of men. I have yet to meet a man that could convince me that I was weak. Justifiably so. And what kind of nonsense is the idea that God would create a world for people, give them freedom of choice, punish them for exercising it, and then declare that once people finally get this all figured out and start doing well (“peace and security,” if you will) that he’s coming back to make them sorry for ever having succeeded without him? Yeah, so care, very empathy. It truly radiates unconditional love.

I’m glad that I was able to get out, that my lack of belief at the time was enough to save me from the horrors of participating in organized religion. Now it isn’t. I’m once again subject to the will of a deity created to curtail freedoms, to oppress and to discriminate, and I don’t even fucking believe in the guy! I removed myself from the world of religion because it was so obviously corrupt that it disgusted me; because women are second-class citizens to God; because the entire story is just threats of punishment if you don’t procreate (like anyone was going to stop doing that just because there wasn’t a god to tell them to have babies); because I don’t require the threat of damnation to be a good person, and if I did I wouldn’t be a good person; because spitting in the face of science, the art of learning the world around you, seems pretty disrespectful to any supposed god (God makes the universe and you learn about it and promptly say “fuck that, my several-thousand-years-out-of-date book says a stupid thing and that’s the hill I’m going to die on.” That has got to be so frustrating for an omnipotent being. The overlaps between religious zealotry, ignorance, right-wing bigotry, and the incomprehensible resurgence of “flat-earth” theories are pretty much just a bunch of concentric circles.)

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really have a problem with faith. By all means, have as much faith as you like. The problem I have is with faith that falls apart under any amount of scrutiny. You can’t be “pro-life” if your idea of “pro-life” is actually just pro “forcing people to produce more taxpayers” or “all lives matter (except the ones that don’t).” I have a problem with faith that manifests only when needed as an excuse to treat someone poorly. I don’t know who might be surprised to hear it, but where I live in the south it is totally normal to hear people still using anti-Semitic phrases at work, to hear people in not-so-disguised mumbles use any of a number of racist epithets, misogynistic language fueled by backwards thinking and a dedication to ignorance, to openly mock and ridicule people who are more interested in preserving the livability of our planet than with appeasing an indifferent god. And I work at one of the good places. Do you know what every single one of those people have in common? Christianity. So forgive me when I say that there is nothing Christ-like about Christianity.

Some “Christian” woman I worked with took the time out of her day to openly complain after a workplace training session encouraged people to treat others the way they want to be treated rather than how you might like to be treated. Essentially, they made it clear that if a person is transitioning and you make a point to use their deadname or to intentionally misgender them, that is harassment and they will treat it as such. That seems pretty damned reasonable to me. If you tell me your name is Sandra but I insist on calling you Samuel, that’s a basic display of disrespect at best, and at worst a confident display of aggression. And to do that to a person on a consistent basis? Yeah, you’re just an asshole.

My coworker espoused her belief that having to pee in the same room as a trans person violates her religious freedoms. I can’t imagine how, because it isn’t as though anyone is making her transition. Her argument was that using a person’s preferred pronouns is “affirming sin.” But how would you know what that person’s assigned at birth pronouns were? Are you not basically asking every person to reveal their genitalia before deciding how you’re going to treat them? I’m pretty sure Jesus would have let you pee in the room with him, even though you’re a bigoted jerk. Her argument was just as transparently baseless as the disgusting fallacy that gay men are pedophiles, and here she was proudly arguing in 2022 that having trans women in a women’s restroom is dangerous to women. Not only is this simply untrue, it is based on her belief that trans women aren’t women (also not true). So what are they? Where can they pee? Can they pee? Are they allowed? We’re talking about a human function that disregards gender and sexuality, color and creed. She’s trying to prevent someone from performing a natural bodily function to protect her own sensibilities, which is dangerous by itself. Clearly she isn’t motivated by any love, or sense of empathy. There’s no way you could spin this to paint yourself in a good light. Jesus wouldn’t. He didn’t. This isn’t about protecting people; this is about control. But she’s “not transphobic.”

All of this is only relevant because it has served to infuriate me further. Why would a religion whose entire supposed purpose is to spread love target marginalized people and spread hate? What is pro-life about forcing someone to live in misery, whether it be because of an unwanted pregnancy or not being able to live free from the petty confines of gender or sexuality? Why do they care at all? If Christians think it’s their duty to rid the world of “sin”, someone needs to very plainly explain to them that it literally is not their prerogative to do so. I do not care that you believe in a god. I don’t, so his rules and laws do not apply to me, just as no one expects a Christian to give two shits about the laws of any other religion, let alone abide by them.

The issue of abortion has revealed the true intentions of so many people who call themselves “pro-life.” Lawmakers want women to die, end of sentence. Forcing a ten-year-old child, a rape victim because a ten-year-old child is not an adult and can NEVER consent, to give birth is criminal. Allowing a woman to die because the already-dead thing in her uterus might have been so cute if it hadn’t already fucking died is criminal.  Forcing a rape victim to carry the child of their rapist to term is criminal. What is pro-life about condemning and punishing victims while protecting their abusers? God did abortions. Still-birth was a common tool he used to punish the disobedient. David and Bathsheba’s child was born dead because God said “no” to a baby conceived “in sin.” While I don’t want to split hairs on the definition of sin as a non-believer, I think it would be pretty evil to call rape, incest, and abuse anything other than sin. What was that about being unwilling to “affirm sin?” Talk about a double standard. Are you still pro-life if my child ends up being gay, or trans? I could have aborted and saved you the trouble of torturing them for the rest of their lives. They don’t care about babies, or children, or life, because they have no regard for the life already here. This is what has been revealed.

Anti-education efforts in the US have pushed religious extremists to the brink of their political power, allowing them to sow dissent based on nothing; but you can’t reason with the unreasonable. Allowing “faith” to replace fact has plunged us into this dystopian “fake-news” place where people think that “doing their own research” just means finding the right article or the right idiot to validate their idiocy. Right-wing extremists have done everything they can to convince their base that science is something besides fact, that the nature of reality is negotiable. But it isn’t. The truth is that women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, have been systematically abused forever and the sacrilegious, sanctimonious “Christians” trying to ensure that those people stay underfoot where they belong by stripping them of their human rights and making concerted efforts to erase and dehumanize them are the villains of this story. It is the antithesis of “pro-life,” and being unable to recognize that speaks to how deeply inhumane most religions are.

So I’m done. I’m done acting like I give a shit about your religious beliefs and convictions, because they’re hurting people. Whether you’re willing to acknowledge it or not, religion is being used as a tool of oppression, as it always has been. None of this is new. And I’m done “affirming” anti-human sentiment. Trans people are people. Gay people are people. People of color are people. Women are people. Everyone deserves to live a life unfettered by the demands of other people’s opinions.

I think of all the mothers I know, how much most of them would do if it meant providing an ounce of peace, security, happiness, to their children. I think of the nature of God, and wonder if his love could compare to that of a mother. Because the mothers I know love their children. Their gay, trans, queer, agnostic, atheist, sinful children. And they would never harm them, or ask them to let a man break their bodies so that he can punish them for being broken, or force them to question their own worth and place in the world. I do not know any mother that would tell me I was weak, or undeserving, or insufficient. 

That’s more than can be said of God.

A Pandemic Flight to Texas

A Pandemic Flight to Texas

     Let me begin by saying that, while I may have bought a house and been living my adult life fully and in earnest, I have never bought a car. I’ve only ever had the one, and it was by the good graces of my father that I ended up with it in the first place. He gave it to me after several long years of destroying it and running up an already expensive insurance premium, so to him it was probably more of an unburdening than an act of goodwill. This is all to say that at the ripe old age of 25, getting ready to buy my first car seemed like a seriously late-bloomer move to me as I sat scrolling through flights from my couch, in my house. (Funnily enough, several banks seemed to disagree with the assessment that I was “living my adult life fully and in earnest,” because paying a god damned $500 mortgage and still having the money to spend on all the bullshit I do and maintain a credit score of 730+ was not proof enough that I was worthy of a $7,000 auto loan. But I digress.)

     Everything is easy on the internet. Request paid time off, buy plane tickets, email your aunt to let her know a little more enthusiastically than is believable that arrangements have been made and to save the date, calculate gas mileage and curate an 18 hour long playlist for the drive back, drool over Google searches of the car you bought…. What isn’t easy is pulling up to an airport on a Friday before a long holiday weekend at lunch and seeing absolutely no one. No cars circling the ramps because there’s nowhere to park and someone to stop you even if you found a spot, no boarding passengers flinging bags out of trunks, no arrivals greeting or hugging or tugging at their sweats with their shoes in their hands and their sleep-masks still perched atop their heads, no jacketed or vested officials waving you by with their brightly lit traffic-wands. Nothing. Just empty lanes and one lone vehicle that doesn’t even look occupied.

     You get out, hand the keys over and hug your chauffeur, unload the single bag you packed because checking bags is for the feckless rich and you’ll be back in three days anyway, and…that’s it. Done, over, finished. Suddenly getting dropped off at the airport is easier than calling out sick from work or making a dental appointment over the phone. Easier than getting up early, doing the dishes, vacuuming, deciding on whether or not to eat now or wait until you get to where you’re going, remembering to bring spare contacts in case you lose your glasses or extra underwear in case you have a period for the first time in six years or shit yourself every day you’re away from home. The usual mania is gone and suddenly getting dropped off at the airport becomes the easiest part of your day: simple and entirely without drama.

     So why is it so hard to deal with? Why is the silence so heavy? Isn’t this what everyone wants before a long Christmas, a much-anticipated honeymoon, an only somewhat-dreaded family reunion? Or is the 28 Days Later vibe too real right now, too close to home? Whatever it is, the ease with which you exit your vehicle and approach the automatic doors is tainted by some mistrust, as if it were all a trick to get you to sit through a time-share pitch in a too-hot, badly decorated office in some strip mall that’s actually only moonlighting as an airport until their essential oils business really starts to take off (ba-dum-tss). Whatever it is, it smacks of an afterlife, the abandoned set of a film you’ve wandered onto after a late night of not checking your email. You must have missed the memo.

     Security is the same as ever. When isn’t it? A man drones instructions loudly and clearly, tossing them over the heads of you and your fellow passengers. You know him and boy, does he know you. When the instructions suddenly become more pointed and you look up to see him directing them at the bin in front of you, you are flushed with embarrassment because of course you heard him say “electronics in separate bins,” but somehow that didn’t register and now you’re holding up at least three other people who already have their shoes in their hands and who are trying not to look terribly annoyed with you. You make it through security with about as much of your pride intact as can be expected. They’ve seen others like you. They don’t care.

     You roll your bag down the cavernous and echoing corridor of the airport and wonder if there’s anything to eat or do or buy while you wait for your flight to board, but all there is is a Chick-Fil-A serving exactly three menu items, a nondescript store that seems to have an inordinate amount of sports team memorabilia to be considered an “essential business,” and the empty curves and corners of halls travelling away from your gate. Even the runway looks deserted. One sandwich later and you’re afraid to have to pee during a two-hour flight, so you get it over with and realize that most women must drag their luggage into the stall with them. How else do you keep it from getting stolen? Everyone knows that petty thieves love to stalk their way through airport security just to seek out the extra underwear you inevitably brought and the toiletries you were sure would be mistaken for drugs. Everyone knows that.

     Then comes the boarding. There are hardly any people at the terminal and social distancing is still in effect, so you think that this will probably make for a pretty comfortable flight. The rich are seated first, as is their God-given right, and as more and more people file through the accordioned tunnel you begin to realize that everyone this side of security is getting on this plane. Your plane, which is now apparently almost full as you are the 2^nd to last to board. A flight attendant tries to take your bag, but you assure her that your bag meets the airline’s specific space and size regulations and that it will definitely fit in the overhead bin because you are definitely not letting her take it and yes, you do hit every single person in aisle seats on either side as you make your way to the 3^rd row from the ass of the plane where there are two seats available (you didn’t spend the extra $70 to reserve seats for you and your partner because reserved seats, too, are for the wealthy, which you are not).

     The two seats you are presented with are both aisle seats, one in front of the other, with no discernable difference except for who occupies the respective window seat of each row. You begin to panic as you realize that you’ve been assigned the seat farthest back next to the redheaded teen boy whose headphones are already in and who is already looking rather annoyed at your very presence. You attempt to stuff your perfectly-sized suitcase into the crowded overheard bin next to your partner’s humiliatingly small duffel bag only to have a flight attendant recommend you find an empty space above another passenger further up toward the nose of the plane. Your partner, gallant as ever, volunteers to handle your bag as you take the preferred seat next to a girl whose carry-on seems to be barking, and once everything and everyone is finally settled and in-place, you take out the first mini bottle.

     As small as this plane is, it is filled to the brim with people and you have forgotten how ungraciously cramped it always is, so now you’re sitting as still as possible to avoid rustling the seats or bumping into the poor girl next to you who is apparently storing a dachshund under the seat in front of her. The enormous water bottle perched on your lap threatens to fall to the floor with a crash and roll into the cockpit, and your purse (which is bursting with mini vodka bottles) is shoved into your armpit to keep it out of the fourteen inch wide walkway, but the flight attendant seated dead-center of the ass-most row is slowly bumping her wide hips into every armrest, hand, elbow, head, and purse in sight, so you resign yourself to this constant contact with every other passenger. What a luxury it is to fly.

     I do not fly often. In fact, I have not flown in ten years, but I remember the rush of ascent being one I enjoyed; there was nothing like suddenly defying the limited laws of physics you were used to adhering to, only to choose entirely new ones to follow more ardently than ever. But my insular primate brain still balks against this defiance and grips the armrest, knowing that no amount of strain on this small rod of metal and plastic will alleviate the anxiety of feeling the empty space between my body and the ground stretch like a rubber band about to snap. I do not fear heights, but the sudden loss of altitude. Fortunately, the White Knuckle Express only runs for about four full minutes. Two hours and approximately four and a half shots later and its back on the ground for twenty minutes of taxiing in the heat of a Texan sun, several degrees away from baking like a can of sardines on a sidewalk but not entirely unlike that, either.

     You patiently wait for every other row above you to seesaw their passengers into the aisle and out the door, grabbing the small duffel and leaving your standard, regulation sized bag for your partner to find. As you fall out of the row and into the aisle, you wish the girl next to you good luck even though the wish is meant more for her anxious dachshund who’d had a whiny and decidedly stressful flight and, with the duffel held in front of you as if it were sprouting from your belly, you take your eager leave of this hollow pipe that is the cabin. Emerging from the floating tunnel feels like resurfacing in a pool of murky water, the cold blast of Airport freezing the mist of sweat on the nape of your neck as you gaze through crowds. Crowds?

     Suddenly there is no longer a cold breeze but an exhale, someone’s wet mouth opening for you to step inside and you realize that there are a hell of a lot more people here than you’d expected considering the travel restrictions and deaths and general pandemonium. But what’s a little infection? After all, aren’t you here, too? With your mask and your sanitizer and your good intentions, you who just flew hundreds of miles practically in a stranger’s lap to gawk into a mirror. You aren’t proud, but you probably aren’t as ashamed as you ought to be, either.

     You float across what seems to be the flattest floor you’ve ever felt and glide your not-too-big, not-too-small suitcase beside you, feeling as though you’ve never in your life properly rolled a suitcase before now. You told your aunt you’d meet at baggage claim, but you have nothing to claim and all the time in the world to just stand around hoping to be able to recognize her in the veins of faces pumping and circulating through the chest of this building. There are several people in masks, perhaps even many, but hers is obvious and she waves to you and your partner, all probably smiling but none able to tell and certainly not daring to hug just yet, and as you exit the vast and seemingly endless building, you think to yourself that the luxury of flight is one that you may well do without for the foreseeable future. But someone shoves past you and you finally look to the door where the second easiest part of your day await you: a car and the warm idea of an embrace, glowing under the metal awnings like a distant lighthouse in fog.

The Repercussions of Hate

          We all know that feeling when some person of strong personal convictions shares an opinion or outlook that we disagree with, whether it be on a personal or realistic level, and we feel compelled to respond, to exercise our shared right to our opinions. What is often the breaking-point of such interactions is the precise moment when one of you decides that you’re not only entitled to your opinion, but that the rest of the world should be obliged to agree with you or never speak on the matter at all, because obviously it is not possible to have an opinion if you don’t voice it and subsequently belittle another person for not sharing said opinion. I do not often get involved in such situations, mainly because I am a “get so mad you cry or just can’t properly communicate” kind of person and know better than to bite off more than I can chew. But some things I find impossible to ignore.

          In scrolling through social media today, I came across an article detailing the upcoming Women’s March for Equality being promoted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL. Although I will not be attending for reasons that are totally my own business, I support the cause and I support the notion of freedom and equality in the modern day because, let’s face it, as much as it seems our current president is trying to prove otherwise, we are no longer living in medieval times. The problem that we’re combating is the institutionalized abuse, suppression, and unfair, unequal treatment of minorities. I say minorities because oppression has never been, by any means, exclusive to women. It has, however, been almost exclusively perpetuated by the same demographic in modern times in our nation, and one would think that it would be easy to draw a line in the sand: one group is entirely underrepresented and mistreated, while the other is entirely motivated by racism and sexism to oppress others. Unfortunately the reality is not quite so simple.

          I was motivated to write this after coming across a comment on the post about this Women’s March. Several (not many, mind you) women appeared to be disturbed by this event, even outraged. Some went on to ask the purpose of the march. Many women responded (condescendingly) that of course they were marching for voting rights. I, like some of the women in the comments, was a bit confused by this reasoning as the 19^th Amendment pretty much covered that in 1920. But I didn’t say anything, because perhaps there were just a few people who were, not inaccurate necessarily, but maybe a bit uninformed as to the purpose of the march. But scroll down a bit more, and there were women openly bashing this march, its purpose, its message, and anyone who supported it, which I found to be a pretty extreme reaction to something it was totally possible for them to ignore. And then I saw it…someone brought up the wage gap, which is a valid, verifiable difference in the treatment and pay of female and minority workers versus their male or white counterparts.

          One woman’s argument was that she “works in a men’s field” and makes “the same, if not more than,” her male counterparts, so to her, this whole wage gap thing just “doesn’t hold water.” Though I said nothing, I had several questions I would have liked pose to her. For instance, what “men’s field” are you referring to? What evidence are you basing this on? Have you actually seen your coworkers' checks or salaries? Does this mean that you don't believe in rape, or in cancer, because those things don't affect you and therefore can't exist? I was baffled. This is 2018, so because we are not ashamed of our transparency on the internet, I checked out her profile. It looked to me like this woman did not work at all, but was married to an active-duty military member. So strike one was that it was not apparent that what she was saying was ever remotely true, though I will admit this was not verifiable beyond doubt. Strike two, more importantly, was the fact that she basically perpetuated a “Not all men!” moment, and saw nothing wrong with it.

          This is a common outlook, the idea that an exception to the rule makes the rule invalid. This is the same reasoning that has allowed powerful poeple to disregard scientific facts and valid proof that things like climate change are real and happening right now in favor of the view that “A bloated carrot who happens to be our president just saw it snow, and has decided on everyone’s behalf that this officially disproves science. Weather over.” Why do people feel the need to be special? Because what other reason could this nobody have for stating her opinion which is not only not unique, but not insightful, based in reason, or in any way helpful to anyone at all, not even to herself? Why did this one person insist that her personal experience disproved statistics, facts based on research and actual data? Why does Karen think she’s the only person who comes in with expired coupons and doesn’t get to use them?

          It is common for whatever generation is currently trying to drag us back to the Stone Age to accuse “liberals” or “millennials” or “snowflakes” or whatever other derogatory terms of being overly sensitive, of wanting to be unique and special by having some sentimentality that allows them to be offended by any and everything. But it appears to me that the only “snowflakes” are the Karens of this world, those so determined to have their outdated and misguided opinions heard that they are willing to defend their oppressors and the oppression they perpetuate. They use their very rare, very exceptional experiences to demonize any other perspective but their own. And you know the biggest problem with this? They have been encouraged to be this way. And what happens when you feed into this kind of delusional thinking? Well, for one, you begin to lose sight of what makes us all people. If you have built up such a sense of entitlement that no one else should be able to express their opinion until you’ve expressed yours, and damn them to hell if their opinion is different, then you obviously have lost touch with reality. If your “rights” are not shared by everyone else without exception, they are not rights. That, my friends, is privilege.

          I have seen women defend men for a long time. I’ve seen women make excuses for men who physically and emotionally abuse them, make excuses for “boys being boys,” and it has truly hurt me. These actions and statements in defense of a world that has abused and oppressed so many people of so many diverse groups and walks of life are, ultimately, deeply selfish. I say this because there is almost no one who is in no way affected by this injustice and abuse of power by what amounts to the ruling class. If you are against equal rights for anyone at all, you are merely stating your belief that you are more important than anyone else. Ms. “Works in a Men’s Field” believes that because she is not affected by unfair wage gaps, the problem doesn’t exist and it is not worth anyone’s concern. She believes that because she is not personally privy to such treatment, she must be the golden standard for an entire industry, nay, an entire gender! This is typical of a mindset that allowed rifts between groups of people throughout history to grow in such extreme and unreasonable measure that sometimes genocides ensued.

I am often reminded, these days, of Martin Niemöller’s quote: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” Niemöller himself learned acceptance and eventually learned to reject anti-Semitism, but only did so after spending the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. The very real problem with the attitude that anything not affecting you can’t possibly affect anyone else, is that it is entirely baseless and ludicrous. No human is unique, no struggle is singular. No oppression has definite limits. If you are unwilling to fight for your fellow man, for your fellow women and children, people of color and people of no color, for the gendered and the genderless, what right do you have to be fought for? Who are you to decide whose life is any more or less important than another?

 One truly bothersome aspect of this entire situation is that religion has done so much to amplify and to encourage this continuance of inequality and hate for each other. How much do you want to bet that Ms. “Men’s Field” considers herself a Christian? Many so-called Christians claim to live by the Golden Rule and by the teachings of a loving God, but will openly deny that Jesus was a middle-eastern man, and for what? Simply for the sake of maintaining a toxic view of people of different colors and creeds. There are so many groups of people dedicated to maintaining their close-mindedness, whether it be with regard to others’ races or political or religious values, that it can be difficult to determine who is spreading fact and who is spreading fiction. The fact that our social media platforms have had to begin policing the information for which they provide an outlet is a dead giveaway that we can’t necessarily trust everything we read. But this doesn’t mean we can’t believe anything we read. Most groups who operate and think this way are very much of the all-or-nothing mindset. And to them I say “NOT ALL MEDIA!”

 This kind of denial of fact, this blatant disregard for each other and for reality, are what make it hard for women and minorities to gain equality. One idiotic person who felt the need to express their aggressive rejection of a group’s attempt to gain equal footing has the power to influence so many other, more ignorant or easily influenced people. Add to this the fact that anyone who has no problem denying verifiable facts will obviously have no problem believing various other untruths, and you create an environment in which unfounded lies can be circulated with little to no recourse. Eventually the belief of the majority is so tainted by false information that we lose sight of the reasons we do things like study the effects of drugs, or study the workings of the world we live in with regard to climate change, environmental impact, and the social repercussions of virtually everything we can think of. As a species, we figured out long ago that the earth wasn’t flat, that we weren’t the center of the universe, that the way your skin reacts to sunlight makes you about as different as you would have been based on your hair color or shoe size. Yet suddenly, for some reason, we have begun to regress, to sink back into the cave, and are having to discover these things one by one all over again. Thanks, Karen.

In this age of the internet, there has been an increasing lack of accountability by many people who use these online platforms to tout their insistence that we don’t need change, or social justice, or equality. But can anyone tell me why? And I don’t mean “can anyone give me their excuse for not pioneering justice,” I mean what actual reason can you, as a fellow human, have for going out of your way to make a stranger’s life more difficult? For example, what reasonable argument could you possibly give me for defending, not men or the male gender, because we all know that NOT ALL MEN, but for defending the worst of men for the sake of reassuring emotionally needy and insecure men that they are unique, that they aren’t like the others? To me, it is similar in nature to “if you’re innocent you have nothing to hide.” If you are so determined to convince someone that their struggle is invalid or that their situation just isn’t real, it makes you come across as someone who is trying to relieve themselves of the guilt of being just as much a part of the problem. And that’s really it, isn’t it?

I understand that “not all men” are awful in the same way that I understand that no group can be generalized in this way, period. So forget “all men,” because that statement is not insightful. It’s a “no duh” statement, an obvious statement that is being used in conjunction with many other phrases and tactics to silence huge groups of people and to diminish the importance of their experiences as they affect humanity as a whole. We simply cannot turn a blind eye to the struggles of our fellow humans, people who still don't have the rights to equal pay, equal treatment. There was a time when each of us made the choice to live our lives the way we do, in spite of oppression and struggles and persecution, despite knowing that the way we live our lives may be in direct violation of various things that are irrelevant to us. But those things are just that: irrelevant. We each know that we don't have to believe anything we don't want to, or at least we know that no one can force us to change our minds or our beliefs. I suppose some people think they're so special that such is true only of themselves.

What I'm really trying to say is that all people, regardless of color, nationality, belief, age, gender, sexuality, or any other combination of ridiculously unimportant factors that have no bearing on our status as HUMANS, can benefit from kindness. All people can benefit from the happiness and joy of a life supported by its community, not tolerated and abused. All people deserve to be just as happy as you do, as I do, as Ms. “Men's Field” does. Nothing about you will ever make you different enough to deserve more, or less, than those basic human rights that are essential to the survival of our species. In the end, we all must understand without doubt that we are not special. We are not unique and throughout the course of history there have been millions of us and there will be millions more. Trying to deny each other equal happiness will only hurt us all, and if it take us another 500 years to understand that, we will probably regress many more times than we advance. But that doesn't mean we give up and accept regression.

So to all the Karen's out there, and to Ms. “Men's Field”: we understand that you're special. But so are we. So unless you're going contribute something helpful, maybe your opinions and beliefs would be better used in some other capacity besides belittling your fellow women for fighting a battle you happened to miss. And for everyone having to deal with Karens and Trumps and all other manner of insistently ignorant, dangerous people, I hope that you have the presence of mind to understand why fighting fire with fire is only going to make it take longer to put out. If you believe there is something worth marching for, worth pioneering, do it. But if your goal is to harm your fellow man, to deprive and take from whatever demographic because of whatever unacceptable reason, maybe its time to visit the sidelines and reflect on what you really are. Because we are all human, and we need each other. But we will go on without you, and mankind will progress. Get with it or get ready to be left behind.

The Drive

The Drive

           He didn’t want to go.

It was a bright, warm morning and the rays of dust were wafting through his fingers as Owen looped and pulled tight the knot in his tie, each particle daring him to open his mouth for a fresh breath of lint and dead skin. Why couldn’t I have just stayed in bed? It would be the first time he’d been to church since the Easter when Mom and Dad decided that God was best served from home, owing solely to the embarrassment caused by his father’s insistence that God would condone a little “holiday merriment” in the form of a cheap bottle of whiskey hidden in the pocket of his church-suit jacket. They’re going to want me to speak. They’ll all be expecting me to say something. Of course now Owen felt as though he would be doing himself a favor to pay homage to this tradition, but talked himself out of a quick drink because it wasn’t even ten in the morning and he still wasn’t dressed.

Owen stood in the mirror, retying his tie and fidgeting with the lapel of his jacket for what must have seemed like ages, even to him, but which amounted to only enough procrastination to make him late. Dad never did tie his tie straight…bothered me to no end. Thank God we gave up God. Or thank Dad, rather. It made sense that he was late. Who would really be surprised? He’d spent years without the ritual guilt and sense of obligation that seemed to have made so many other parents proud of their dutiful little sons and daughters, but Owen’s father, Burt, was a drunk; no amount of prayer on Owen’s part was going to protect him from those people so keen to notice their absence. So they hid – Dad in his bottle and Owen in his silence. He knew that today would require more speaking from him than he had done in weeks, and the thought made him cringe. To arrive this morning in a reasonably punctual manner seemed enough to merit some small clemency. Surely everyone would understand. If I just show up they won’t make me speak. They know, they all know by now. Maybe if I bandage my face…

The truth is that he wouldn’t have been late if he hadn’t, halfway there, turned around and started back home. All that time wasted reluctantly dressing and decidedly undressing had only partially delayed him, much as he wanted to lie to himself about the whole thing. We can’t all be in denial. Owen didn’t want to go and nearly didn’t so the fact that he arrived at all seemed, to him, more than enough reason to absolve him the terrible sin of missing the first twenty minutes of a thoroughly awkward two hour ordeal. Everyone would want to know where he’d been, if he’d gotten stuck in traffic, where he was working now, how long it had been since he’d visited anyone and oh, weren’t they just so proud to see him grow up to look so like his father, and my, hasn’t it been years since they’d heard his voice. He shuddered at the thought of each underhanded “compliment,” all meant to cut at shared points of weakness while reassuring him that affection, too, could be blunt and calloused.

Owen could imagine the disapproval dripping thickly in masked tones of sympathetic grief, disgustingly pious faces approaching to gawk at his misfortune. “Well at least you’re here now.” “We’d thought maybe you’d been kidnapped!” “Better late than never!” “The lord always had a plan for you, son.” “Who knew it would take this much to get you back into Jesus’s arms!” Yes, that’s right…I’m here now. He could imagine the women, in a gesture of feigned consolation, clutching his arm with fingers bulging with blue, veiny lines, tipped with nails yellowed from years of polish, rarely seeing the sunlight but through a tinted glow, and he wondered if he would be able to hide his suspicious discontent (he wouldn’t). You haven’t spoken to your daughter in ten years, Karen, but you want to know why I don’t call my grand-nephew’s soccer coach every Tuesday?

These people did not know Owen now any better than they had known him when his father had dragged him to their respective homes for visits, ones Burt spent the better parts of getting drunk and stumbling over himself, various aunts and uncles laughing cheerfully at his “silliness.” Owen had never found it to be anything less than humiliating.

Today, familiar cars lined the curb outside the parking lot that he approached slower than necessary, idling behind some long enough to memorize their tag numbers. Dusty bumper stickers that had once made distant relatives the butts of tasteless jokes over the years (“Honk if you’re Amish!”) were now inimitable marks that brought a new and foreign solemnity to their recognition. Owen could feel the intensity of the silence crushing his shoulders as he walked, alone, through the church doors. For once I wish it weren’t so quiet. Aged and vaguely recognizable faces turned to eye him critically, deplorably late for an engagement that many had spent the past few days soberly preparing for. Many had gone to the trouble to spend more than a few dull hours behind the wheel of a car in the early morning, headlights bright against the falling night sky, taillights to the rising sun, in order to arrive early. And as they all turned, save for the older few in the front whose poor hearing robbed them of the opportunity to glare coldly in his direction, Owen longed for a narthex.

Uncle Cliff was speaking loudly into a microphone as if he didn’t understand its function when Owen sat down next to his mother in the front row. She didn’t say anything as he took his seat. Just clutched his hand in a desperate sort of way and smiled knowingly before swiveling her thin neck, yielding to the raucous echo of a man who never seemed to tire of his own nostalgic jokes. Owen tuned him out because he’d heard them a million times. Everyone had. You could feel it in their laughter: more polite and reminiscent than amused. Gentle smiles echoed the compassion of the crowd Cliff was abusing with his volume. But Owen heard nothing as he searched the room for his father.

His casket was baby blue, the color of his Cadillac Convertible.

When his turn to speak came at last, Owen froze. Nothing in the world seemed more daunting than having to stand in front of all these people, open his mouth, and speak. What do I say? Why didn’t I write anything? His mother, Rachael, coughed softly next to him and gave him a gentle nudge, steering his gaze back to the podium. Sighing, he stood and approached the microphone, shaking slightly as he stared out into the audience, desperately trying to formulate some words of comfort, of love…

“Thank you all for being here today.” Keep going, just power through and get it over with. “Many of you knew my father as a loving, dedicated family man with a few…interesting hobbies.” You laugh now, but how many of you ever actually knew him? “When I heard the news that he had passed, I couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved. In his later years my father went through a lot, and I know it hasn’t been easy for anyone. If he could, I know that he would thank you all for everything you did to ease his suffering and to make his final days peaceful. I would personally like to thank you all for your kind support of our family, especially my mother, in this time of loss and let you all know how grateful we are. May he rest in peace.”

He went quickly back to his seat, and could sense the general disappointment in such an anti-climactic eulogy. At least Cliff told jokes. But they had to have known it would be this way. What else did they expect me to say? Rachael understood. She took his hand in hers once more, and Owen could feel her trembling, trying hard to be as accepting of his indifference as she pretended to be. He was suddenly filled with guilt, knowing that she had tried so hard. It wasn’t her fault, she did her best. No one but us knew what it was really like with him.

Finally the service ended and the people all filed out and the cars made their slow way behind the hearse. Burt’s body was buried and his casket was covered up. And when everyone had finished talking and remembering before beginning the process of tactfully forgetting, after his father had officially become no more than a memory and a few framed snapshots of ancient fishing trips, Owen returned to his apartment.

Any normal person wouldn’t be able to think of sleep at a time like this. Owen supposed that he must not be a normal person, because when he at last turned the lock on his front door and flung his jacket and tie across a chair, his body went limp and his eyes blinked hard against the falling twilight. Has it always been this draining to speak to people? He fell asleep still in his dress shoes, shirt half unbuttoned, almost as soon as he reached the couch.

That night, Owen dreamt his father was still alive, offering to take him to school, bottle in hand and a slur in his voice. Then the car door burst open and Owen was swallowed by a tide of empty beer cans and liquor bottles as they had in so many versions of the dream before. But unlike the dream had been in those years when he would climb through the torrent of his refuse to find Burt revving and laughing foolishly at his own terrible wake, that night Owen arose from the debris and saw only his father’s body laid inside his Cadillac as it slowly sank into the ground.

He threw a handful of amber shards on the hood of the car as Burt was consumed by the rubble, saying nothing in farewell, but honing his silence to address him. Goodbye, Bluebell. Goodbye, Dad. Suddenly his father’s eyes opened wide, pupils as waxen and empty as the mouth of a cave, and he began to shout “Speak, boy! What good is a dog that can’t bark? Say something, dammit! SPEAK!” His voice tore into Owen’s skin and threw him down into the current of glass and aluminum, echoing at the bottom of every broken bottle until the sound of him filled up Owen’s brain and pushed out every note of silence. He awoke with a scream in his throat, his mouth agape. When no sound came he lay back down, his father’s taunts ringing in his ears, that sour breath fresh in the air. I still have nothing to say to you, Dad.

The next day, Owen really went home. It was then that he was dragged by the meek urgings of his mother and his detached sense of duty to his father back, by bus, to the house he grew up in; a place where he had spent so many hours of his life breathing in and out, but where he could no longer find the strength nor facility to do so. His knuckles burned white beneath the tight pull of skin as his fists curled and his breath drew ragged and strained. Why does this house always make me nervous? He isn’t here now. Hell, he was never really here. The walls of Owen’s parents’ (now his mother’s) bedroom appeared warped and distorted, awkwardly ornamented with poorly hung photographs, some lopsided and caught in mid descent. Memories dangled there as if waiting patiently for time and gravity to close the space between their dark-stained wooden frames and the worn, shag carpet that may have once been stylish, but now seemed eerily old and smelled of mildew and dust.

She’s talking to you, Owen. Don’t be an ass.

Owen smiled wanly, attempting to be compassionate as his mother reminisced of a time when her children were young and she was still beautiful. She was looking for a set of keys, rummaging through a drawer in a way that only mothers can: quickly, but with regulated precision and thoughtless order, a habit shaped by years of prevention and awareness of each miniscule untidiness that must at some time be remedied. If only she could see my closet, she may not be so forthcoming. Finally withdrawing a jangling mass of metal from the cavernous recesses of a wooden desk, her voice grew resolute and relieved, although Owen hadn’t heard a word of what she’d said. She smiled and, reaching for his hand, gave him the keys and closed his fingers firmly around the sharp metal of their angular bodies.

“He always meant for it to be yours,” she said quietly. Owen raised his eyebrows briefly, and looking down to the floor, smiled with reluctant understanding. Perhaps it wasn’t truly his father’s intention, but she would never say that. Just say it, Mom. Just say “it’s yours now”, and that you never want to see it again. Say you hate it. Say you wish he’d never bought the damn thing. Say something so I don’t have to.

When he finally left, it was in the driver’s seat of his father’s livelihood, his most prized possession, and the last remaining piece of his life. Although Owen could not help but feel a vague jealously for the inanimate object that won the affections of his otherwise dispassionate father, he admitted to himself silently the satisfaction of finally sharing with Burt the joy of the magnificent vehicle, even if he wasn’t technically there to share it. This was his true legacy, his son be damned. He could feel him in the white leather seats and in the purr of the engine, a soul escaping through the tailpipe in heated plumes of translucent vapor. But Owen was filled with a feeling of vacancy, as if the wind was not rustling his hair, but pulling at the raveling hem of his consciousness.

He sped down the familiar road and his mind began to wander as he senselessly contemplated apophonic words and the smell of rain.

Now…now…new…naw…song…sing…sang…sung…

It was in this moment, when he had begun to sense the lingering clouds and realized, with regret, that he would have to put the car’s top up, that he saw her. A woman with brilliant red hair in a white dress was standing casually beside the road, wind whipping at her legs and rippling the fabric of her dress, her hair thrashing about the side of her face as if alive, and when Owen craned his neck to look behind as he passed, she was gone. His eyes searched the cloud of dust left by his own rotating tires, but found her nowhere.

Suddenly, from somewhere in front of him, a car horn shrieked and as his head turned, arms locked, eyes widened, and foot slammed desperately on the brake pedal, he could not pull his mind from the vision of her face. A car he could not see, could only feel, pushed its way gracelessly into the front end of his father’s beloved Cadillac.

Screeches pierced the air and cacophonous shudders rattled Owen’s teeth and pounded in his head as his body was flung toward the windshield. He felt the cold glass cracking against the impact of his skull (or perhaps it’s my skull that’s cracking) and a warmth that he thought must have been blood spread slowly down the front of his face. Somewhere deep within the shadows of his subconscious, Owen felt pain. Not just pain, but a terrible agony that consumed his entire being like a rush of fire, burning and melting and scorching his body, gnashing its dull teeth ceaselessly against his brain. It gnawed at his nerves and raked rough nails against the imaginary chalkboards between his ears, deafening him with strident screeches that did not come from outside, but emanated from within. Owen could not escape these sounds because he was making them. Am I screaming? Or just screaming in my head? His back hit the seat with a momentum that felt as if it had been building for years, for his entire life, waiting to be harnessed and then unleashed upon the fragile marrow of his most critical bones.

But this awareness was trapped deep inside, and even amidst the penetrating resonance of the metal-on-metal crush there was peace. And when the movement had stopped, not more than ten seconds after the horn of this other car had wailed in its vain attempt to preserve its passenger’s safety, there was no sound. The traffic of the tiny particles of air seemed to have stopped and there was only the aeolian breath of aftershock and the fluttering leaves in nearby trees anticipating rain.

Owen’s mind grew blank and dark. His consciousness began to slip rapidly away, and just before the darkness of sleep overtook him, he thought of a strange woman standing beside the road, a woman whose face was indistinct and vague in his mind, but which shone more brightly than even the most powerful stars in his mind’s galaxies, that stood apart so definitely from even his most cherished memories, and Owen knew that he was not dying. He did not see his life flashing before his eyes, did not think of his father or the fact that he was being crushed beneath the body of his legacy. He thought neither of the pain nor of the fear that gripped the cavernous recesses of his agnostic doubts. Instead, he thought of a stranger, a woman he may have imagined, and her red hair, and as he closed his eyes and allowed his body to surrender in hopes that the torture would subside, he felt his heart beating and imagined the wind rustling her dress in time to reverberations in his chest. But then, it was very dark, and very quiet. So he slept.  

Sometimes

Sometimes I'm not sure what I'm thinking, or whether or not it matters, or whether or not in ten years I'll still be here or if what I'm thinking now will matter to me or anyone else ten years or even one year or a month or a day from now. Sometimes I wonder if I really wonder or if I'm just trying to convince myself that it matters. Sometimes I think that I've screwed up and will be indelibly denied the truest satisfaction. But sometimes I just don't care. Because sometimes it seems enough to be happy for the moments that you have, regardless of whether or not these moments will last for as longs as you might like them to. So the hell with it. And who wouldn't choose the short-term happiness over the undeniable failings that we will all have to face one way or another? Who wouldn't choose to be blind to all realism by embracing realism itself? I find satisfaction in knowing that I will, ultimately, be satisfied that I have chosen what I have. And I find my happiness in knowing that I can be satisfied with that. And I am happy, as much as a truly realistic and pessimistic person can be. What more can we ask for? In a world where everything seems to work against us, isn't it nice to know that we can be happy? At least sometimes. I live and breathe in those "sometimes," and to anyone who doesn't believe that they exist, I can tell you from experience that they are few and far between, but they are real and they are attainable. And they are beautiful. It is so good to be happy sometimes.

Regarding Life and Being Truly Free

(For some reason, I rarely have anything to say. But I cannot help feeling compelled to say something now, because how else will I come to terms with these cavernous holes I have dug myself into? On the other hand, how does anyone go about accepting life?)
     I have known that I would die for so long that I can't recall ever seeing life as more than a line segment, a short span of time during which I, along with everyone else in turn, would develop, and subsequently deteriorate. To me, life has always been an anxious wait for the hammer to fall while dreading the thought of seeing myself slowly waste away. And yet, I have never wanted for passion, never succumbed to the inevitable self-destruction of my pessimism. Even now, I imagine being free and perhaps being at peace and at ease. 
     But I do not know what freedom really is, or really feels like; not because I haven't been free, but because I have always felt trapped. Trapped by my own idiosyncratic flaws, all my god awful failings, all the people I've hurt - so many fucking people - trapped by an environment I didn't ask to be brought into, and by painful awareness I might have lived without. I am forever damned by the scars I allowed myself to make, by the weakness that is all my longing and desperation, the love I allowed to wound me and render me bitter and cynical. 
     So even though it scares me immensely to suggest it, the only solution I have ever employed is fueled by a philosophy that life is short and although joy, for me and many others, is bittersweet, it is the only joy available to you. If we are not all searching for joy, it is only because we have yet to understand it. In spite of all the things I have kept inside and allowed to boil, things which will stay tucked away for the rest of my life, I have found joy. Somewhere outside of ourselves, there is much more to life. I take comfort knowing that a happier world exists outside my head.  

Lake of Green Water

Lake of Green Water: Ten Years Post-Trauma


       In the heavy heat of summer, the tepid water before me is alive and demonic with the trashing movements of blissful children in careless play. But I have come to visit a grave, one which has been all but lost: its tomb robbed, its stone worn bare, its earth unkempt. It is said that time heals all things. Perhaps this is true. Perhaps the slow tick of time covered the wound that was left so many years ago, the skin no longer sensitive; the scar gone.
       The summer before kindergarten, when I was five and she was six, was one of days with cold nights and hot afternoons. Ignorant of the ever encroaching school year, we went about our merry lives without a care in the world, much like any other children would. But our parents, to celebrate our final summer before we were swallowed up in a seemingly never-ending world of textbooks and homework, took us camping. We stayed in a large, two-room tent that housed Emma, my father, and myself, my father in one section and Emma and I in another. While he slept heavily in the farthest room from the zipped-down door, we sat, wide awake in the front section. We were both dynamic children, apt to bounce off of invisible walls with nameless exhilaration, so sleep was the farthest thing from our minds. It was not long before we started running out of things to talk and laugh about when Emma got an idea: fishing. A man-made lake was only a few yards from our site. There was a dock built specifically for fishing with no one outside to guard it, or notice us at all for that matter. So I agreed. I grabbed the tackle box after tiptoeing out of the tent and ran to catch up with Emma as she skipped away from me.
       In the shadow of the trees, we could just barely make out the rippling reflection of the water. Emma raced blindly through the trees while I struggled to hold on to the tackle box that was a substantial amount of weight for a five year old to carry. But somehow, I ran as well, and although she had been a few feet away to begin with, I attempted to close the space between us. And I would have, but I tripped. It was stupid, really. I tripped over my own two feet, and the tackle box fell out of my hands onto the ground where it was emptied of its contents. Silver hooks gleamed, bladed smiles grinning animatedly from within the menagerie of rubber lures and unused, brightly feathered flies. I glanced up just long enough to see my friend disappear into the darkness. I tried to pick up everything as quickly as I could, but I could tell that my knees were bleeding and to be alone, in the woods, in the dark.... I got up and tried whispering Emma's name into the trees, but all I heard in reply was the wind. I began to make my cautious way towards the soft ripples that I could see more clearly ahead. Then I ran; again. But the closer I got to water, the more worried I became. The silence crushed me, and it was getting hard to breathe. I stopped running and stepped out of the trees, but to no greater comfort. I looked all around.
        I heard it before I saw it. A wild thrashing in the water took me by surprise, and the choking muffled cry was enough to convince me that it was time to run again. I threw myself down on the dock and screamed her name, but Emma made no reply. The water was still moving, though, and I could hear her gasping for breath, so I reached my arm as far down as I could. I felt myself panic, but all I could think of was my friend, and how I needed to help her, that she couldn’t swim…. I started screaming again, telling her to grab my hand, until after a few moments, she did. I had her hand in mine and I believed she was safe.
      But she was heavier than I had thought, heavier than the tackle box that I had been carrying only minutes before. I tried to pull her to the surface, but she slipped out of my grip. I tried to use both hands, but it was cold outside, and the water was colder. I quickly lost feeling in my fingers, then my hands, then my wrists. I tried to wriggle her out of the freezing water somehow, but I couldn't. And she slipped farther and farther away from me until I lost her completely. Screaming at the top of my lungs, screaming her name, I begged her to come back, to try, but I knew she could not hear. And it was not long before the ripples stopped and the water settled and silence surrounded me.
       After that, I remember not being able to breathe, feeling my lungs contract and my throat burn, but my chest dry and empty. I made myself get up and run, run even though my legs burned and even though the cold air stung my eyes. I ran and fell, several times, disoriented by the pulsing blood in my ears. It took me a few minutes to find the tent again because I stopped seeing the world around me when she slipped beneath the cold surface of the water. I stumbled. Forced myself through the rough plastic and, wheezing, dragged myself to my father's side of the tent. I woke him up and started screaming again. After I had managed to utter a few intelligible words, he got out of the tent and started running towards the lake. I watched him go, but I could not move. I collapsed on the ground. The last thing I remember thinking about was the tackle box, and that, were it not for my dropping it, Emma may have survived the night.
       There is no way to forget. No way to go back to the harmony of youth once it has been tainted by the memory, the fear, of death. No way to close your eyes and without waking up to a harsh reality. No way to return to a dream once it is lost in the moments between sleep and waking.
I remember Emma’s hair, the graceful movement of her dark locks onto the slender bend of her shoulders. I remember her laugh…her smile. I remember the pain of ignorance, of not understanding what it meant to be dead. I remember thinking that she would come back. I remember the thick feeling of dread welling up inside when I realized that she wouldn’t. I remember not being able to cry.
       Sitting now on the bright tinctures of new swing-sets, you would never know the merciless reality of the things hidden here, for the laughter is too real. All that is left now is the burn of the phlogiston orb, the pink skin of ignorant youth, and the elation of living.