So, Am I Out Now?

I’ve had a tough time figuring out how to approach National Coming Out Day for a while now, mostly because I haven’t really known whether coming out was something for me or not. And by that I don’t just mean whether I wanted to or felt like it, but whether it was even something that applied to me. Do I get to come out? What am I even going to say if I do? I’m not gay, I’m not even bi, and I’ve never experienced oppression due to the way I express my love or the body I’m in. I’m straight and white in the body of a man! What do I have to come out about?

But one of my earliest memories is of being convinced that I wasn’t a boy at all, that I was a girl. I don’t think I really even understood that people are generally perceived as being born one way or another, so there may have been a part of me that thought that being born with a penis meant that I could either grow up to be a man or lose my penis and grow up to be a woman. And I wanted that penis gone! I mean, like, as a 4-year-old. I would lie there and feel things tingling down there (yup, penises do that long before even the first whispers of puberty come along), and my immediate assumption was that it was slowly receding and becoming a vagina (I’m not sure I knew the word “vagina,” but you get what I’m saying). I would always look quickly and see that there was just a penis there, but a couple of times I felt like if I lay reeeeally still and let the process fully take hold, I would have “earned” it and would be penis-free. Even on those occasions, having been so good about it, I would find that my penis was still alive and well and not likely to go anywhere. So eventually I forgot about it.

Which is not to say that I forgot about wanting to be a girl. I tried really hard to kiss my elbow, for example (that being the method I’d heard people talk about for changing one’s sex). I even postulated that it might be possible to break my arm and thereby get my elbow close enough to my lips, but either I was too aware that it might not work or the thought of a broken bone was enough to dissuade me. Whichever it was, I didn’t go down that road, and I’m grateful for that at least. But I had dreams in which I had been transformed into a girl, and I wrote a story about a boy who woke up as a girl (influenced somewhat by Tom Hank’s Big, I suspect) and had to hide her long hair and breasts (because to an 8-year-old, these were the things that signaled girlhood). A few years later, I wrote another story in which I was tricked into stepping into a machine that switched my body with a girl’s. And then there was just the quiet longing for being like them, one of the girls, but feeling like this was destined never to be.

I didn’t hear the word “transgender” until after college, during a testimonial from a trans woman given after a performance of the Vagina Monologues. Coincidentally, I’d worn a skirt to the show–because I like to do that sometimes–and had been asked going in if I were a cast member. Why would I be? I thought at that time. Just because I’m wearing a skirt? Can’t a guy do that? And a guy can, of course, but whether the person who asked me was equally oblivious to transgender issues or was in fact quite progressive for their time, I nevertheless felt happy that someone could think that I was involved in a project that seemed so thoroughly feminine. After listening to this woman’s testimonial about being born in the body of a man, I felt quite certain that I’d discovered something about myself as well.

My wife at the time had been distantly supportive of my feelings about these things, and she had been aware of the difference between gender and sex even before I was, but she didn’t like the idea that I was transgender. She’d married a man, after all, and that was that. She felt that I was trying to be something I wasn’t, that I was possibly even taking something away from people who “really were” transgender. And we discussed it, and I mostly let it drop. At the same time, I had become enamored of the notion of “male lesbians,” a term I thought I’d invented, and I even had some lesbian friends who referred to me as such. I couldn’t have been prouder to have this title, as close as I could ever be to being a woman. But even then, I felt like I was taking something, like I was going where I didn’t belong and claiming something that wasn’t my own. I wasn’t a woman, so who was I kidding?

Since that time I’ve struggled with exactly how I feel I should represent myself, eventually realizing that “should” has nothing to do with it. I am who I am, and that may not fit any nicely defined categories. I can’t count the number of times I’ve worn women’s clothes, starting at a very young age, though it’s not something I’ve ever desired to do regularly. Finding out that there is a spectrum at work here rather than a binary was liberating, but I still tend to present as male. Well aware, now, of what it means to transition in pursuit of a body and an outward manifestation of what is inside, I’ve often wondered if that could be for me, and yet it’s truly not something that I’ve ever found appealing. In the end, I’ve always said that I want to be a woman (in body, I mean), but I have no interest in becoming a woman (again, in body). I’ve struggled with what this means for women who have transitioned and are very happy with their choice, as if my choice not to transition somehow affects them. It doesn’t, but it took me a while to see that. I am who I am, and I’m comfortable with that, but although I’ve always been comfortable, it took me a while to recognize that I could be comfortable where I am and still not fit, still experience a longing for something else that I feel would best express who I am.

So what’s there to come out about? Is there such a thing as a non-binary transgender person? There is, I checked, but even if there weren’t, so what? That’s who I am. But even so, is that enough? For all intents and purposes, I’m a guy. I use he/him/his pronouns and have a penis that I have no intention of getting rid of, nor do I ever see myself doing any kind of hormone treatments. Am I not just half-assing this, then? Isn’t it a slap in the face to the LGBTQ community for me to “come out”? Some of you may even say that it is, but I don’t think so anymore. For one thing, a person’s sexuality, gender, kinks, and so on are their own, and letting that flag fly proudly is a good thing, whatever pattern may be on it. But I also know that there are people who are struggling to fit in, struggling to even understand what’s going on with them, and I feel like I can help by showing them that there’s one more person out there who has a complex mosaic to present to the world, and that’s a beautiful thing. And again, it’s not about what I should do, it’s about what I want to do.

So here I am, whatever you want to call me. It will be completely unsurprising to many of you, somewhat surprising to many others, and perhaps a few will even be shocked. Not my intention, but also not my problem. This world is too big for a few little labels, and one day we’ll have evolved beyond labels in general. Until then, you can call me Peter, as you always have. I’m still exclusively into women, and I likely always will be; I still use he/him/his, and I likely always will (although I’m fine with they/them/theirs and she/her/hers as well); I still have a penis, and I likely always will; I still love whoever is reading this, and I likely always will. I’m still the person you’ve always known, for better or for worse, and nothing about that is ever going to change.

 

* PS Is it a coincidence that Rocky Horror is playing in Oberlin on National Coming Out Day and it’s my first time seeing it in the theater? Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it!

Parting

How cruel a thing to achieve a dream forsaken.

I picture your eyes as last I saw you,
The wonder sealed within,
As you beckoned me to follow,
To approach the ripple’s edge—
For there,
Where once but air had hung,
Shone dancing, joyful light.

Softly you’d crept
From our lovers bed,
Drawn instinctively toward
That rift between these worlds.
You’d known at a glance
What was there,
What lay beyond.
Could see in it the memories—
Of dreams forgotten,
Of lives interrupted,
Of destiny stolen—
That you’d shared with me
And I with you.

My quickened pulse beheld this truth
Long before I reached you,
Your shining face
Window enough
Into the space between the spaces,
The place we’d hardly dared to hope for,
To which our souls alone could long to return.
But framed by light and marvels,
There loomed the answer to a life spent wandering:
The contours of a home I’d never truly known
Embraced my gaze
When once I’d wrenched it from your own.

But long before I’d had my fill
Of watching humbly what moved within,
You whispered softly,
Called my name,
Took my hand in yours,
And crushed our hopes
With a press of your finger against the rift,
Where it moved no further,
As though a plane of glass
Were raised to bar your entry,
And no force,
Gentle or firm,
Could win you further on.

We stood
With spirits broken,
Condemned,
It seemed,
To have our mad desires
At once proven true
But held forever out of reach,
Ours only to see
And never to embrace—
Though even then
The light began to fade.

I will curse until I die,
If that luxury is ever granted,
The elation that arose
When once I’d raised my own hand
And felt warm air surround it
As I slowly passed it through.
My eyes were yours again,
My love,
As I firmly clasped your hand,
And you nodded slowly,
Disbelieving,
As I shared my aspiration.
But it was everything we’d scarcely dreamed,
Or half imagined it could be,
And so I knew that,
Never fear,
Our love would soon prevail.

And stepping through,
I pulled you near,
My touch uniting there and here,
Until my fingertips alone
Were left to know your true design.
For once your hand,
Though grasped in mine,
Again drew near that wretched plane,
I felt that dread resistance,
Saw your knowing eyes grow dim.

And then,
That gaze that haunts me still,
Crept across your beaming face,
And if I live a thousand lives,
Never shall I understand
What terrible notion could inspire
The fateful choice that next arose,
Nor how it seemed,
Between the two,
The judgment that would serve me best.

You must have sensed it,
My intent,
As you knew my every thought,
And before my foot could cross again,
Before my world return to yours,
You forced your lips into a smile—
Agony of ecstasies to behold!—
And softly pressed my hand
From yours.
And as the static quickly grew,
Etching skies,
Strangely familiar,
Across our fading home,
You looked with love and confidence
Upon this broken soul,
Whose only desire,
Then, now, and eternally,
Was to leave the only home I’ve known
And return to where my heart knew peace.

And so it is that I wander
This land of which we often dreamt—
A universe concealed behind our own—
The world to which I once belonged
And should
By rights
Rejoice to have rejoined.
But its taste is ash,
Though its beauty be great,
And I long now for the world that I scorned
Before we found one another,
Before we dreamt of this together,
Before I’d found all my heart could want,
All my soul could cherish,
Before I’d let this world recede
And replaced it all with you.

How cruel a thing to achieve a dream forsaken
At the expense of a dream fulfilled.

Pleasure Cruise

At first it actually garnered a chuckle. There was plenty of shrieking, of course, as much from surprise as anything else, but even as a good number of the passengers began to flee the ballroom in hopes of sparing their fancy clothes, elaborate hairdos, and desperately-unsubtle toupees, several others let go a snicker of resignation. A few even laughed outright, a childlike glee triggered somewhere inside of them as they held out their arms or danced and splashed about. No matter how each passenger reacted to the event, however, the cause of it all seemed plain to everyone: something had triggered the ship’s sprinkler system, and they were all getting very wet.

The phenomenon was not limited to the ballroom, either, as those who poured out into the atrium were soon to discover. The dining areas were suffering the same fate, as were the shops, the hallways, and even the individual cabins. Some irritated souls doubled down on their bad luck, retrieving umbrellas from their bags and opening them up to hold over their more hydrophobic possessions. It soon became apparent throughout the ship that there was no escaping the sudden deluge, but annoyance gradually gave way to something darker. Hidden under tables or chairs, under spiral staircases or even the odd umbrella of the less superstitious, droplets of water began to form.

As the passengers became aware of what was happening, their first thoughts again grasped for the logical explanation. They reasoned that the water must be getting through somehow, or rolling underneath until it fell. But as the downpour grew steadily heavier beneath beds, newspapers, overcoats, and raised hands, the unwelcome conclusion began to assert itself even among those least willing to accept it. There was no sprinkler malfunction, and there were no leaks in their coverings. The water was simply falling from everywhere, and there was no refuge. When the temperature dropped and the hail began, even the few nervous laughs that had persisted thus far fell to silence or screams.

The hailstones grew quickly from pebbles and peas to mothballs and marbles, and they drove with a force that gravity alone could not have inspired. They first scraped, then began to pierce the exposed skin that they encountered, and windows, mirrors, and dishware all began to shatter. Sinks filled to overflowing, and the floors began to rise. The enormous chandelier that linked the atriums of the upper and lower decks shed layer after layer of clouded glass, competing with the hail for the damage that could be wrought. Clothing was gnawed to ribbons and discarded coats and umbrellas soon lay dismembered where they had fallen. Tables began to crack and bones to rupture.

The shouts grew louder as the passengers, dizzy from the blows, tried to fight their way free of bathrooms, cabins, and entertainment complexes, only to learn that the full effects of the storm had infested the entire ship. Some fell unconscious, and many succumbed to the allure of madness that promised a respite from the pain and the dread that had so swiftly encircled them. These were soon buried, the dead and the dying, by the rising ice tides that altered the dimensions of every space.

The temperature plummeted further, and slower passengers began to feel a tugging at their legs as the slurry of hailstones and water began to freeze. Lightning bursts electrified the landscape and cooked screams in midair, singeing the throats of their makers. The panicked drive toward the exits trebled in urgency, yet the frozen grip from below was far too strong by then for most to fight. Those nearest the outside windows had spied blue skies and sunlight just beyond the glass, and the cries of the ones trapped within sight of their redemption were the cruelest to bear. Finally, a blessed few emerged from the horrors within the ship and collapsed onto the warm, dry deck.

The sun shone down on the dozen or so who had managed to wrench themselves free, and they slowly gathered, most of them bereft of their wits and many grieving the loss of a loved one left behind. But none had time to reconcile what they had seen with what reality had always promised them, as the cacophony of swelling ice from within the ship was drowned out by other ominous sounds. Crashing could be heard somewhere far below, along with an occasional pop and a small burst. The deck seemed to shake, and awareness struck that not even the engine room had been immune. Those still in control of their thoughts formed a plan: they would lower one of the lifeboats and put some distance between themselves and the lurching ship.

They made their way to the evacuation point but could go no further. Near defeat, they addressed the chains that held the lifeboats in place and searched longingly for a control box or a lever to aid their endeavor. Meanwhile, another explosion rocked the ship, and despair shook the few who had any hope left. They gaped desperately at the swinging instruments of their escape, their minds nearly ruptured from all that they had experienced, but somehow not even tears would come. And finally one of them let go of a tired, helpless sound that began to churn itself into a laugh. The rest looked on with pity and confusion before turning their eyes toward a more bewildering sight, the one that had inspired the mirthless laughter. Far above them, the heavens had opened in the cloudless sky, and as the first drops of rain began to fall, a cold wind swept toward them from across the sea.

Hush

The train is running late, and the man in the pointy shoes taps his left foot three times in irritation. Three quick taps, and then nothing. A pause. Then three quick taps again. He shifts in his seat, removing his phone from his pocket to check the time. Three more taps. He cranes his head to look around the long train car, lets air escape between clenched teeth, but none of this seems to make the train go any faster. The phone is now back in his pocket, even though it will be back out in two minutes for a resumption of the staring contest. The process, the in-and-out of it, are his only release. That and the three quick taps. There they are again.

The man in the pointy shoes looks over at the woman in the wool blazer, but she doesn’t see him. She’s looking at the girl in the light-up sneakers who is holding on to the pinky finger of the man in the black homburg. The man in the pointy shoes looks over at them, too. He taps his pointy shoe three times, absently, while silently ridiculing the man in the black homburg for the affectation of wearing a black homburg, for wearing a hat of any kind. The woman in the wool blazer closes her eyes, the girl in the light-up sneakers releases the pinky finger of the man in the black homburg and strolls back toward the man in the pointy shoes before being called back to her father and grasping his finger once more. Three more taps.

Further ahead in the train car, the man with the bald spot adjusts his newspaper, and all the way at the front the woman in the plaid jacket appears to be chiding an unseen companion, or perhaps the train itself. Towards the middle of the car, the woman with shrill laugh laughs shrilly at something the man with the large teeth has just said. The man with the pointy shoes didn’t quite catch it, but he has the impression that it wasn’t really funny. His phone is back out, the time noted and immediately forgotten, and back into the pocket it goes. Tap tap tap go the feet of the girl in the light-up sneakers as she tries to make her escape, giggling as she’s pulled back and placed in her father’s lap, the pinky finger clutched securely once more. The train continues to be running late. The man in the pointy shoes adds three more taps of his own.

The train stops. Warm seats grow cool, cool seats grow warm. The train moves on once more.

Designer perfumes mingle with stale cigarette smoke and waft into the nostrils of the man in the pointy shoes. He twitches his nose. The woman in the wool blazer opens her eyes and watches the girl in the light-up sneakers wriggle out of the lap of the man in the black homburg. The newspaper rattles in the hands of the man with the bald spot, a snort erupts from the man with the large teeth, and another exaggerated demonstration of mirth peals from throat of the woman with the shrill laugh. The man with the doughy ears, a newcomer, looks back in annoyance, and the woman in the plaid jacket continues her shushing.

The train stops. Reunions replace goodbyes. The train continues.

The man in the pointy shoes taps his feet and looks at his phone. He watches the playful struggle between girl in the light-up sneakers and the man in the black homburg. He watches the woman in the wool blazer watch the same. He allows himself to be annoyed by the laughter and the shushing sounds and notices casually that the latter have gotten louder. The man with the doughy ears seems to have joined in, though the reason for their shushing remains obscure. The newspaper has disappeared from view, as the man with the bald spot is silently observing the man with the doughy ears. The man in the pointy shoes tries to shut out the world for a few minutes, but even this does not help with his delay. Neither, it appears, does the tapping of his feet.

The train stops. The train goes.

The man in the pointy shoes looks over to see that the woman in the wool blazer has been replaced. The woman in the business suit glances back, and he averts his gaze. The girl in the light-up sneakers is back on the lap of the man in the black homburg, and both the man with the large teeth and the woman with the shrill laugh have begun to stare at the man with the bald spot, who is shushing along with the man with the doughy ears and the woman in the plaid jacket.

Gradually, the sound of the three shushers begins to fill the train, until the man in the pointy shoes realizes that there are four voices now, and then five. The man with the large teeth is sitting forward in his seat once more, and woman with the shrill laugh has likewise abandoned her surveillance of the man with the bald spot. Both are now sitting still, heads slightly inclined, repeating a single sound. The man in the pointy shoes hears it more clearly now. It’s not a sh but a ts. Ts ts ts ts.

The man in the black homburg is trying to figure it out. The man in the pointy shoes watches him watching the other commuters and catches his eye when he turns around. The man in the pointy shoes shrugs at the man in the black homburg, and then both look away. The girl in the light-up sneakers giggles and slides out of the lap once more. The man in the black homburg purses his lips experimentally, and soon his own voice blends with the rest. Ch, the man in the pointy shoes now hears. Ch…ch…ch…ch…ch…ch. It’s a deliberate sound, almost an attempt at a sound. Ch, chh, cch. Or maybe tsh, or tshh. Somehow the man in the pointy shoes finds it difficult to pinpoint. The girl in the light-up sneakers takes a few steps from the man in the black homburg, expecting to be returned to his lap, but the man in the black homburg doesn’t notice. He’s much too busy saying ch or tsh or maybe even dzh, so the girl in the light-up sneakers squeals and takes a few more steps away, smiling at the man in the pointy shoes, who can think of nothing better to do but smile back.

The train stops. The man in the pointy shoes considers getting off, as things have grown strange, but his is the next stop and walking from here would make him even later, so he remains. In the center of the train, a woman in a cable-knit sweater stands furtively in the doorway, sees the car full of people saying tsch—dsch?—and slowly backs out onto the platform as the train pulls away.

The man in the pointy shoes watches the girl in the light-up sneakers race up and down the aisle, forces a smile whenever she meets his gaze, and watches the little lights blink on and off as she goes. Something isn’t right, but the man in the pointy shoes can’t seem to decide what it is. Everyone seems to be saying something, but it’s not anything he’s heard before. It’s familiar, but somehow very different. Not exactly a tsch, really, or a dsch. Definitely closer to a dzh, but a very light one. The man in the pointy shoes is not sure why it’s important. He knows, in fact, that it isn’t at all important, but somehow it seems worth figuring out. The woman in the business suit is having a go. The man in the pointy shoes observes the signs of a struggle conquering her face. She’s having trouble deciding what it is as well. The woman in the business suit begins softly, almost drowned out by the cacophony that resounds from the ever-expanding chorus throughout the car. But the man in the pointy shoes can hear her more clearly now. It’s definitely a dsch with a tzh, and almost something like a kkh.

The next station is approaching, and the man in the pointy shoes watches the little red blips go in and out as the girl in the light-up sneakers continues to play in the aisle, wondering idly if she’ll be alright when he leaves. The man in the black homburg, after all, has become fixated on his dskh or his tzkh. The man in the pointy shoes dismisses his concern for the girl in the light-up sneakers for a moment and tries once more to zero in on the precise sound that he’s hearing, but it simply won’t come to him. He feels almost disappointed as the train begins to slow, knowing that he might never find out just what it is.

But then he’s got it! It’s right there in his head! The sounds of the woman in the business suit and the man in the black homburg are blocked out, as are those of the woman with the shrill laugh and the man with the large teeth, the man with the bald spot and the man with the doughy ears and the woman in the plaid jacket. He doesn’t need to listen to them anymore, hear them struggle to approximate the sound. It’s resonating within him, and it’s clear now what it is. It’s not a dshkh at all, or a tzschkh or anything like that. It’s a, it’s a, it’s more like a txsch, or a dxzhkh. Yes! Like a dxzhkh! But with a sch or a tsch at the end!

The train stops. The seats yield no territory and accept no settlers. The train departs.

The man in the pointy shoes sits in his seat, softly repeating the sound to himself, surrounded by all of the others doing the same, each of them certain that with the next try they’ll be able to replicate the sound precisely as they hear it, that then all will be well. The next station approaches and recedes, but the train does not stop. Little red lights flash on and off, up and down the aisle, the playful laughter quite overwhelmed by the shushing or the chushing or the, the dzhushing, the tschkhushing, the dxzhkhushing…

 

Neverland

It’s not really a door in a tree or a passage through a grandfather clock, or even a wardrobe. We think of fairy dust and magic rings, an afternoon that somehow tumbles on and on, and we long for the tingling feeling which whispers that we are experiencing the impossible, hardly daring to hope even then that we are on our way somewhere else, somewhere enchanted.

Most of all, we imagine that this tingle is a thrill. We would never believe that it is a horror. The elevator that plunges to the ground, trailing its severed cords above, provides a very different sensation. As we plummet, we long for impact. In our desire to live, we delay death as much as possible, yet when it is imminent, the wait becomes unbearable: the shaft will soon run out and the box will meet its cradle, but worst of all is that we do not know when. We unconsciously count the seconds, number the floors that must be rushing past. We cringe, and we wait, and we covet the end. Those seconds of anticipation are no longer precious to us. We have abandoned, in that moment, our desire for life, and the embrace of death appears as a relief. Those seconds, when stretched, are tortuous. They are not counted among the moments we spend living but instead are added to those we spend dying. And as the elevator reaches its fifteenth second in free fall, its twentieth, its thirtieth, there is not even then the room for hope. We find only the agony of the wait, the impatience for the crash, and as the climbing of those seconds continues long past the impossible plateau, there is nothing of whimsy or mystery in the air.

If only we knew that the door to another world is one that we would never willingly open, perhaps then we would realize why so few of us ever leave this plane. The journey is not through an enchanted forest, and there are no beckoning merfolk or sun-dappled paths along the way. There is only fear, mounting exponentially: the excruciating final moments of drowning that refuse yield, the terror of endless final gasps of air when buried in a landslide, the frenzied hurtling down a bottomless elevator shaft when all that we desire is simply to no longer be so that the nightmare will finally end.

That’s when the magic happens.

Autopilot

When did it get dark? Late afternoon seems minutes ago, but now the sky is dense and inky. You adjust quickly, but the question hangs a moment. You don’t wonder so much why you didn’t notice it before. It’s more a question of what changed in your mind, what brought you back. But you glide past this, you glide into the darkness. Diamonds sparkle out of the corner of your eye, and you look over at them, covetously. Another “why?” You don’t need them, and a lonely soul like you has no business with diamonds. They would only get you into trouble, so you let the diamonds fade, along with everything else. Now it’s only the water, and inertia. The surge that happens when you see it. You’ve started to get that feeling again, like dying. You can’t remember it, what it’s like, but that’s not what the feeling’s about anyway. It’s how many times it’s happened that gets you. The water rolls along and you feel like you’ve died a hundred ways. How many lives did you move through to get here? How many times did you have to start from the beginning? You don’t like the idea of starting over, doing it all again. You like now, and something whips innocently past your eye that threatens you all the same. A shiver, a reset of the scene, and you’re sliding on. Your deaths recede, and you become immortal again. Dying is a joke played on the living, to frighten them. Even if it’s real, you’ll never know it, not for certain. You laugh at the warnings of experts and friends. It could kill you? Shit. The only thing with a perfect mortality rate is living. Life eventually kills everybody. So just slide. And you do. But now the sky has gone funny. Red halos blur your vision, and you feel a rush, but it’s not the good kind. You wonder if this is it, if this is what it all comes down to. But it’s not the end. You make another adjustment, your heart voices its annoyance, but the red has faded now. The cool darkness returns to the sky, and you laugh again, but you’re not thinking about life anymore. The diamonds have caught your eye. Not for you, my friend, but then who would know? They are there for the taking, and so you take them. You wonder where they might take you, but then your smile returns: they won’t lead you anywhere new. Everyone goes the same way, diamonds or no. They are worthless, a matter of expediency, nothing more. Some will take them, others won’t, but the path remains the same. Dreamy eyed, slipping forward, diamonds fading into dust. On you glide, your mind askew. Familiar sights float before you, but they slip back as you slide on. You don’t see them anymore, and it’s a while before you realize that familiar is far behind. And it’s dark. And the water, too, has left you again. You are alone. You are surrounded. You’ve gone too far, but it doesn’t matter. You have abandoned your diamonds, or they you, and yet you glide, you slide on, you slip forward into the darkness, the embrace of an old friend, but you turn it away just before contact. Your light rebukes it, pushes it aside, but it is not dismayed. It is forever filling in the path behind you, longing to catch up, just as its arms open ever forward to greet you as you cast it back, cast it back. A dance of light and dark, of worlds that never meet. You smile and wonder if that’s what it’s like, a meeting of worlds. Light embraces darkness, a reunion of severed halves, and death meets life with a grin and a tear, their separation having been so long. Your smile widens at this, and you glide on, glide on.

Encounter

It was raining when I reached the station, and a knotted crowd occupied every inch of dry space underneath the platform shelter. No umbrella to hand and not quite soaked through, I opted to remain on the stairs–where there was at least an awning that shielded me from the growing deluge–and amuse myself with a book. It was a curious tale about the grazing habits of short-haired sheep, which makes it sound altogether dull, though this was far from the case. It was in fact a most engrossing affair, and the rain had stopped and so thrown open the invisible walls of the platform shelter before I again looked up from its pages.

The willingness of strangers to mingle at close-quarters is indirectly proportional to the size of their refuge and directly proportional to the discomfort of remaining outside and at the mercy of the elements. No sooner had the clouds parted (and sooner still, I’d wager, if there had been a period of intermittent sprinkling between downpour and drought), the new-found companions dislodged crook from shoulder and scattered onto the slick, grey cobblestones of the waiting platform. A meek smile or an awkward shrug was all that was left of their shared experience, but as their train pulled in to receive them, there was a brief huddle once more as man, woman, and child jockeyed for primacy in the great race to find an empty seat that was soon to begin.

And their train it was, in point of fact, for mine was yet to arrive on the opposite track. A few paces away stood the superior, if now forlorn platform shelter, which, in addition to its roof, was also outfitted with three glass walls. The wind had picked up again, if not the rain, and without a thought I abandoned the faithful stairwell for my new sanctuary, thankfully quite unaware of any potential jealousy or haughtiness on the part of one or the other that my action may have engendered. So unencumbered was I by such musings that I had just lifted the book to my nose to find my place on the page when a man running up to the newly-filled train caught my attention.

He had the air of a gentleman about him, despite his present gait and lack of a hat, and was dressed in a long wool coat, dark trousers, and tapered leather shoes. He pulled once at the doors, to no effect, and then, although the carriage was already moving, and he must have noticed this, he pulled at the doors once more. They remained firmly shut, as all proper doors must under the circumstances, and I found myself nodding to them as they rolled past. “That’s the way, doors!” I might have said, but in fact I remained silent, for who in their right mind would address a pair of doors on a moving train, or any pair of doors, truth be told.

The strange man had moved further down the platform by the time I returned my attention to him, but I soon forgot him entirely because my own train was quick to arrive afterward, and I boarded immediately and settled myself in for the ride. I was beginning to lose myself in my book once more, the sheep having wandered down to a stream to drink, when a movement to my left drew my attention, and I spied the same man who had missed his train sitting across the aisle.

What nonsense! The train on which we both sat was preparing to whisk us in the opposite direction of the one whose locked doors he had so unceremoniously jostled. What could possibly be his aim in boarding this one? I was not about to allow his absurdity to put me off my reading, and yet try though I might to disengage from his aberrant behavior, I found myself continuing to turn the question over in my mind and fell to observing the man in hopes of finding some clue as to whether he had noticed his mistake.

This was not an altogether unpleasant activity as he was a most interesting looking fellow. His face was two-parts street tough and one-part polished university professor, this cooling of his features perhaps owing itself to the neatly trimmed beard that drew some attention from the bulging cheekbones, pronounced eyes, and sharply sloping nose. His was a lean face, a hungry face. It was of the kind that looked alert and rested, though one might distinguish within it a haggard quality from which it had recently recovered, like that of a werewolf on the morning after a long-waning moon. Unfortunately for my endeavors at divination, it was also an inscrutable face, offering no indication of what worlds might toil within the skull beneath it.

After a time I finally resigned myself to ignorance, but unable to return to my book for comfort, I instead directed my attention to the evergrey terrain beyond my window. As we shuffled past the rain-bedraggled landscape, I watched the sculptures of masons and carpenters give over to a world of living wood and stone, trees and meadows settling in earnestly as if I were witness to some weary reclamation carried out in reverse.

A quick look, and no more, I allowed myself at the man across the aisle. He was seated, as before, with his left knee covering the right, his face a perfect image of calm as he stared out of his own window. I turned away from this portrait but found my thoughts consumed by it, by the calm. My eyes had found the emerging forests, but my mind no longer felt my own. Inexplicably, I began to wonder the strangest things, such as what names the trees might give themselves. Upon crossing a bridge and seeing the water rush below, I asked myself what a river truly was. It could not be the raging torrent, I reasoned, for this was always moving, never there for long. The riverbed itself, by contrast, was something that wasn’t, not an object in its own right. Was that, then, what a river was? An absence of land, of a particular girth, filled with running water? The river as something permanent, I began to suspect, existed only in our minds.

I soon grew troubled by this line of inquiry and sought the comfort of the rational world. Here was this man across from me, the ideal opportunity for the application of logic. I could speak to him, I decided–looking away lest he return my gaze. I could certainly do that, and I could ask him what he meant by taking this train. Was it not possible, after all, that he was confused? Perhaps I would even be helping him by engaging him in conversation. This course would benefit us both, providing me with a solution to my questions and him with a speedier end to his wasted time! And in my mind, I suddenly knew precisely how the words would fall.

“Excuse me,” I ventured, catching his attention.

The man unfolded himself and turned toward me with a smile.

“Yes?” he offered.

“My apologies,” I began, “but are you not the same gentleman who was attempting to board the train to Maidenhead?”

A frown broke onto the other’s face.

“I’m not sure,” he answered, which was in itself so preposterous a response that I was tempted to abandon my investigations then and there. I pressed on, however.

“I’m certain I saw you trying to board that train just a few minutes ago,” I continued, “but it was already departing.”

At this my interlocuter nodded and smiled.

“Yes,” he confirmed, nodding slightly, “I was trying to board that train.”

His head turned slightly away from me then, as though he suspected that this would end our volley.

“And yet here you are now on this one,” I persisted, not about to lose my quarry so easily.

“Yes, here I am!” he beamed, and once more he seemed satisfied that this was a sufficient explanation for his behavior.

I paused, believing that soon he would have to offer something more, but nothing further came.

“But this train is going in the opposite direction,” I informed him. “The first stop is not for another half an hour or so.”

“Alright,” he nodded curtly, though his smile indicated that this was not meant to be hostile. Nevertheless, I was near exasperation.

“You’re going quite out of your way, sir,” I insisted.

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” he countered. The man’s thickness was positively intolerable!

“But weren’t you trying to get to Maidenhead?” I demanded, my voice carrying more of my frustration than I am wont to reveal.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” the strange traveler said, his smile widening as he leaned slightly in my direction. “It was never my intention to go to Maidenhead.” He nodded again, with his tongue in his cheek. “Or to go to any other place in particular,” he added. “Where is this train going, by the way?”

“To Oakton,” I replied, dumbfounded, “by way of Stanchion Lake. That is, it continues on some ways past Oakton, but…”

“Ah, excellent. Choices! But I believe I shall ride it to the end just the same.”

My indignation was making way for curiosity, but not entirely, and it was a struggle to keep my tone from registering this.

“I’m not sure I follow you,” I admitted. “You don’t want to go to Oakton, either?”

“No, not in the least,” he assured me. “Or rather, I wasn’t intending to go there.” I believe he descried the mystery that was forming within me, for he soon continued. “You see, I arrived at the station today with the object in mind of boarding the very next train, wherever it was going.”

“Is that so?” I asked, suddenly less amused.

“Yes,” he smiled. “I’m on an adventure of sorts!”

I frowned inside myself, having only then begun to suspect that I was conversing with a full-grown child. I must have frowned outside myself a bit as well, for the gentleman’s smile grew weaker, and he nodded kindly before looking off to the side for a moment.

The mystery was solved. No more riddle left to unwind. I could have left things alone and had done with it, resolving that the fellow across the aisle was some sort of lunatic, if an apparently harmless one. After all, who would choose to do such a thing? What madness must possess such a person to make him board a train at random on a flight of fancy? And one with the peculiar stricture that it be the very next train? Best would be to make an end of it and put the man out of mind. His quest, however, rang hollow for me, and that tenacious part of my brain that moments before had been wondering about trees and rivers refused to move on. Within a few moments, I hit upon it.

“But this wasn’t the next train, after all,” I challenged, calling him out of whatever reverie he had found with a slight jolt.

“I’m sorry?”

“This train,” I said. “It wasn’t the next train leaving the station.” It was the stranger’s turn not to follow, and so I led him further. “You said that your object was to board the next departing train, but you didn’t. The next departing train was the one to Maidenhead. The one you missed.”

The man cocked his head to one side, contemplative.

“So this really is the wrong train for you,” I summarized, “however you choose to look at it.”

It was not intended as a spiteful comment, by no means an attempt to put him in his place. In all honesty, I found myself somehow saddened at my realization. The man was soon grinning again, however inexplicably, and I knew that I had crossed a turning point and would not be able to rest until I understood precisely what was motivating this odyssey. He spoke before I had the opportunity to do so.

“You know, you’re right about that,” he admitted. “This isn’t the next train at all.”

“Then why are you smiling?” I asked.

“Because the spirit of the adventure doesn’t require following the rules to the letter.”

“But you’ll always know that you missed the next train,” I chided him. “How can you know that your adventure didn’t leave you behind?”

“On the contrary,” he laughed, “it did!”

I balked at this, but he was already speaking again.

“Or one did, I should say. The adventure of ‘the next train’ left without me, but I caught a different train with a different adventure. And I can always try again to catch the next train tomorrow, or the next day.” He paused for a moment, then said, “And if you think about it, there is always a next train. Any train can be that next train!”

His voice had taken on volume as he talked, and in spite of myself, I grew excited. The man’s passion was truly infectious.

“Fine, then,” I conceded, “I’ll allow that you make a fair point. But what is it that you plan on doing once you get to this adventure?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well,” I hesitated, not certain that I understood myself what I meant or why I was even interested in continuing this game, “your adventure is waiting for you at the last stop, correct? What do you think it will be like? What are you going to do once you get there?”

“My friend,” he exclaimed, the unexpected intimacy of the word resounding in my ears, “this is the adventure!”

I nodded, but it was a nod of uncertainty and quickly interpreted as such by my fellow traveler, who did not fail to elaborate.

“This ride on the train, meeting and talking with you, seeing whatever is at the end of the journey…this is all part of it!”

My confusion did not yet know an end.

“Then once you reach the end, and the train stops…”

“I shall have a look at where I am, take a turn through the town square or past the local churchyard or along the edge of the wood, whatever I may find there, and then board the next train back to where I started.”

Fascinating. That a man could be so intrigued by something so banal had never before occurred to me. I wished him well, for my part, I truly did, but I failed even then to see the gain in such a journey.

“And that’s all,” I pressed. “Nothing more. You won’t, say, have a nice dinner there at least, or take in a show?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what awaits me there,” he shook his head. “There might be an old city, there might be nothing be grass, and I suppose my activities are somewhat dependent upon the local amenities, but not knowing what to expect is part of–”

“The adventure,” I supplied.

“Quite so…” his voice trailed off.

I sighed, not wanting to have hurt this man’s feelings but nevertheless still genuinely at a loss.

“But don’t you have employment of some kind?” I asked. “Responsibilities?”

“Surely,” he said, “Sometimes I do. Oftentimes, in fact. But then there are times when I require something for myself. So, I find an adventure. What do you do?”

On a level deeper than my conscious mind regularly penetrates, this question terrified me, but that was hardly something that I could admit to a strange man on a wild adventure aboard a train to points unknown. Again, this man seemed somehow to understand what vexed me concerning this. He leaned forward and halfway across the aisle.

“Why don’t you come with me?” he proposed.

“Where?” I sputtered, knowing full well the answer.

“Wherever we end up!” he laughed.

“But I have–”

“Responsibilities?” he supplied.

“Yes.”

“Employment of some kind?”

“…Yes…”

The man nodded solemnly, finishing with another smile.

“Then take care of all of that,” he said.

The strange gentleman sat back again with a final, friendly nod, and contemplated the scenery once more. And for a moment, I was certain that I would go with him. After a brief assessment of the day’s agenda, I decided that there truly was not much that could not be done the following day, perhaps with greater efficiency after a break from the norm. I smiled to myself then, imagining what it would be like to simply ride the train on past my stop, taking it to the last station, a town whose name I only knew because it was the destination of my train. An adventure, even a small one, might be just the thing, I thought. So many books, so little actual experience! What could it hurt, really? What was I afraid of in the end? The time had come to carve out a day for adventure!

I turned away from my window, resolving once and for all to address this strange gentleman, sitting all twisted in his seat and yet somehow so calm, but the train was slowing, and he was rising. He scratched at his oddly slanted nose as he stepped out into the aisle, and my eyes followed him as he walked past me to the door of the train and stepped out. We had arrived at Stanchion Lake, the first stop since we had boarded. The stranger had never even looked at me. Why should he have done? Who was I to him? Simply another man on his way to work, just as he was, and our imagined intimacy was wholly of my own making.

As the man hurried toward the footbridge that led to the other platforms, it suddenly occurred to me that Stanchion Lake Station was a transfer point to Maidenhead. That was my mystery solved, then. There had been no need to talk to the stranger at all. My train was already moving again, and now there were only fifteen minutes more to Oakton. I wondered briefly if I might continue, take the train farther and allow the day to lead me as it would, but that was ridiculous. Frivolous banality, if such a thing could be said to exist. Nothing more, in the end, than the imagined folly of a stranger, a man who was himself doing nothing more than finding the most expedient means of reaching his own destination after arriving too late for his train.

Missing Words

There’s been a lot of discussion around whether there’s a word missing in the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” There isn’t. To paraphrase a paraphrase, it says what it means and means what it says. It’s short and self-contained, and yet it’s bursting with insight that others have elucidated much better than I can. But there’s another bit that I feel I can discuss, and that’s the insight that the supposed missing words provide into our own assumptions and biases.

By now the phrase “All Lives Matter” is heard more often ironically than as a sincere response to the BLM movement (at least it appears that way, and I really hope this isn’t just my bubble talking). I imagine that’s less because most people have caught on about what “Black Lives Matter” really means and more a factor of the increasingly brief shelf-life that ‘pithy’ sayings tend to experience. Just because it’s fallen out of fashion, however, doesn’t mean that the sentiment has ebbed along with it in any real or lingering way.

But some of us liberals, in our quest to be helpful and informative, often don’t know when to leave things alone. In this case, we tried to get involved in the early days of this back-and-forth and “explain what black people really meant,” because “black people can’t do this for themselves,” more likely phrased as, “black people left out an important word that would have prevented all of this.” And shame on us, liberals. Will we ever learn? But we decided to involve ourselves in the “Black Lives Matter” versus “All Lives Matter” debate because we could see where the breakdown was and we knew how to fix it.

“What they really meant,” we said, “was that black lives matter just as much as other lives matter. It’s not that they matter more, it’s that they also matter. Really, there’s a word missing, and it should be ‘Black Lives Also Matter,’ but it’s a bit late for that, so just take our word for it.” Bang up job, white people, just like always. And please understand, I include myself in this. I might as well be quoting one of my own responses to people’s Facebook posts back in 2015. I’m certainly no better.

But that’s not what they meant. They meant that black lives matter. That’s what they meant. Because that’s what they said. Sure, we can infer that ‘also’ there, and that’s great. We could even infer an ‘actually’ instead, as in: “Black Lives Actually Matter.” That might even be better than ‘also’ because it sets off the phrase as being less a statement of fact (of course black lives matter) and more an indictment of the state of affairs in our great nation. People weren’t acting like black lives mattered, so reminding everyone that they actually do makes sense.

The word ‘actually’ isn’t missing either, though. It’s just a word we can read into it, and we’re free to do that. We can fill in missing words in our own minds all we want, and we can discuss these nuances with our friends and with black people themselves (this is recommended!). But what we can’t do is say that this word, or any other, belongs as a part of the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” It doesn’t.

I think Michael Che put it best when he said, “We can’t even agree on ‘Black Lives Matter.’ Not ‘matters more than you,’ just ‘matters.’ Matters. Just matters. That’s where we’re starting the negotiations.” And this, of course, was in response to another attempt to infer a word in the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” In this case it was the predominately white, conservative assertion that what was really meant here was “Black Lives Matter More,” or as I also heard it, “Only Black Lives Matter.” “That’s what they’re really saying!” friends of mine contended. “You have to read between the lines,” family members assured me. “Well, it’s just misguided because it sounds like they mean, ‘matter more’ if you think about it,” still others reasoned.

But they weren’t thinking about it. They weren’t trying at all to think about it. What they were doing was the same thing that liberals were doing when we said, “What they really mean is that they also matter,” and conservatives would respond with, “Well, they should have said that!” or even, “They would have said that if they’d meant it!” We were leaving black people and what they themselves said out of the conversation.

And so, as with all things, we have a spectrum. There’s the well-meaning liberal who wants to interpret black people’s movement for them and help them express themselves better, while at the same time translating for scared white people. There’s the conservative who doesn’t know what to think, wants to believe the best about everyone, but just wishes people would do things the right way. And there’s the conservative who thinks they’ve seen the light, who thinks they know the hearts of all women and men involved in BLM to be entitled and lazy and reverse-racist. None of us is off the hook, though, and none of us is listening to black people and what they have to say. We’ve heard words and then reentered our own narrative, and that says a lot about us. As I said at the beginning of this post, the words that we go on to infer can even tell us who we are.

If you hear the phrase “Black Lives Matter” and your first reaction is to assume that the person saying that is trying to elevate themselves above you or imply that they’re more deserving than others because of their skin color, if you infer the word ‘only’ or the word ‘more,’ that inference reveals an underlying bigotry within you. I’m sorry, but it’s true. What that assumption does is out your inner racist misgivings; it gives that voice what it’s been quietly looking for while it waits inside you: evidence that black people really are different, or that at least there’s something to the idea that skin color can play a role. If “Black Lives Matter” means to you that black people are getting ‘uppity’ and too entitled and trying to get a handout or special treatment, then that says that this is something that you already inherently believe about black people. The phrase itself is innocuous. There’s no claim of anything other than mattering. What you add to the phrase comes from within you.

And if you protest that you heard others say this first, that someone told you that when people say that black lives matter, they mean that only black lives matter, and you thought they did their research or they’re someone you usually trust or feel is a ‘pretty with-it individual,’ then those words you are inferring reveal two things about you. First, they still reveal your inner racism because you were ready to swallow that explanation when it came along, and second, they show that you’re not using your own brain to come to your own conclusions. But don’t worry, liberals aren’t off the hook either, as I’ve said.

Before we liberals and ‘allies’ start feeling haughty, those of us who inferred words on the other side of that spectrum have something to answer for as well. Sure, we had the best intentions and our inferences are a lot closer to what black people mean when they say this, but when we go so far as to imply that “Black Lives Matter” is missing something that could make it clearer, we’re showing our racism, too.

The idea that black people (who started this movement for and about black people and the idea that their lives matter) didn’t get the name right is also racist, not to mention arrogant. Sure, it seems less offensive at first, but think about it: what we’re saying is that white people know better. White people speak better or write better or come up with slogans better or organize better or even just know how to talk to other white people better. Even if the last one is sometimes true, no one asked us to be mediators. No one assigned us the role of translating the black message to the whites. To say that the phrase “Black Lives Matter” could have been clearer is to try to take ownership of black lives mattering away from black people. I know, we didn’t mean to. But really, when was that ever a valid excuse?

So no, there aren’t any missing words in that well-known phrase. It really is just “Black Lives Matter,” and that’s all it was ever supposed to be. Those extra words we think belong there, they’re cries for help from our inner selves because sometimes the voice inside of us is not our conscience and not a deeper wisdom. Sometimes it’s the voice of our deficiencies, of our weaknesses, of our insecurities, of our fears, yes, even of our hatred. We have to learn to tell the difference before we open our mouths and give air to those voices, but we’d also better make damn sure we listen closely to them, and with a critical ear, if we ever want to learn and grow. And white people, we’ve got a lot of learning and growing to do.

Precedential Fixation

Any fight against Trump must by necessity involve a struggle to reach the hearts and minds of those who support him. There can be no successful strategy against Trump that does not also include the one-quarter of the electorate that voted for him. There are many among that number who we might like to write off as lost causes. There are those who believe that facts are simply not real, those who, like Ben Carson, believe that religion must be used to interpret science because science might just be propaganda. This is frustrating, and perhaps we will never be able to convince them that what Trump is doing is simply wrong. Not a matter of opinion, not a partisan disagreement, just wrong. There may even be some who truly are lost causes. But as of the latest count, just under 63 million people voted for him. That is not a number that we can simply write off. This is a demographic of its own, and we have to address it as such.

As I sit here on December 18th, the eve of the true election day, and contemplate what fresh misery tomorrow will bring, I feel an odd sense of resolve about the coming fight. I do not believe for one second that there will be enough faithless electors to force this decision on the House of Representatives, much less that there is a potential outcome that puts Hillary in the White House. The time for denial is over, and many, if not most, of us have known this for a long while and have been facing things head on and organizing for the struggle to come. No, Donald Trump will be elected tomorrow, and he will be sworn in in just over a month. It’s not Bernie’s fault, nor is it Jill Stein’s or Gary Johnson’s, or even the Russians’. The fault lies squarely with the American people, and it is there that our focus must remain.

The 2016 campaigns divided this country more dramatically than perhaps any in modern history, and the result will be the election to our highest office of a man with no political experience, very limited knowledge of how the government functions, a fundamental disconnect with the average American, and a surprising lack not only of diplomacy itself, but also of any interest whatsoever in gaining a deeper understanding of how one conducts oneself with foreign governments and emissaries. He has chosen to fill his cabinet with men and women who are either equally as inexperienced in the fields which they will be directing, or who are grossly unfit to serve the institutions that they will head. Not only that, but he is surrounding himself with his children, including his son-in-law, and a white supremacist as some of his closest advisers.

In the short time between the national election and the one that will be held tomorrow, Donald Trump has managed to flout convention to such a degree that lawmakers and legal experts have warned that he could be violating the US Constitution merely by being sworn in. He has not only refused to divest his stakes in his various international holdings that many argue could lead to a violation of the Title of Nobility Clause (often called the ‘Emoluments Clause’), he has also met or spoken with foreign political and business leaders (e.g. from India and Argentina) to ensure that Trump projects that have been stagnating in legal negotiations suddenly receive the green light. Finally, Trump’s international blunders have already threatened to upset the relationship with China that we have fostered for nearly 40 years, and he looks set to reward Putin’s land grabs and power plays with a lifting of sanctions, lucrative oil contracts, and a laissez-faire approach to Russian involvement in the Middle East.

The one unifying theme of all of this is that it is unprecedented—no matter how you spell it. And we have been using this word to describe it since long before the polls opened on November 8^th. We have discussed Trump’s unprecedented attitude toward propriety, women, minorities, the rules of debate, and the use of social media. We have been appalled by his unprecedented attacks on journalists, on fallen soldiers and POWs, on peaceful protestors, and on people he generally dislikes. We now deride his unprecedented style of leadership, from his refusal to take daily intelligence briefings or hold press conferences, to his lack of concern with his ‘alt-right’ [fascist] supporters and his apparent witch hunts against scientists. We shout him down in one loud chorus, and the word we often find to voice our disgust is: ‘UNPRECEDENTED!’

There’s just one problem: his supporters are using this very same word, and they’re doing it to praise him. All of the articles we post, all of the evidence we cite, all of the arguments we make lead to a deceptively simple conclusion: this is without precedent. Its hidden complexity lies in the fact that, although everything about our current situation is indeed unprecedented, there are two very different ways of interpreting this word. When we seek to find common ground with Trump supporters, we imagine that showing them how unprecedented this all is will make them understand that it’s also wrong. In reality, however, we are only fueling the fire that we are trying to fight. It is precisely this aspect of a Trump presidency that appeals to his base, and the louder we decry that it is unprecedented, the louder they will cheer it.

What we have to accomplish in the coming months and years will require more than we may realize. While we are fighting against Trump and all that he tries to do, we must also be on the front lines with the very people we might rather dismiss. We have to come to terms with the fact that they are a force themselves, and although there is diversity among them, just as there is diversity within any group, they represent a demographic all their own. They may be privileged, but they see themselves as disenfranchised; they may be delusional, but they feel threatened. They are angry, and they are afraid. They are true-believers in the post-factual reality, and while they are by no means a monolith, they rally behind Trump for one major reason: he promised them that he would do things differently, and although he has already broken many of his promises and looks poised to break many more, the promise of being the un-president is one that he will likely keep.

Let me be clear: this is not a plea for coming together in a spirit of healing. This is not an entreaty to get along and let bygones be bygones. Everything will not be alright, and the nightmare that we are living is very real. This is a call to arms. There must be more than a fight against authoritarianism; there must also be a battle for the hearts and minds of those who refuse to believe that it is coming. Defying Trump, denying him the ability to do all of the things we believe are terrible, will not be enough. We must target him and his policies, but we must also engage with the people who want him there. We ignored them before, to our detriment. To continue to do so is to fight the effects of fear and ignorance but to do nothing about their cause. We cannot leave them behind and hope that they will go away. They are a part of us, and ultimately we must find a way forward together.

Confronting the New Reality

That Donald Trump has been living in a reality of his own making (or at least one in which he sees his skewed world views reflected, whether he made this reality himself or not) is not surprising. We’ve known this for a very long time, and since he became involved in the election last year, this has become all the more evident. But we’ve seen plenty of people come to the fore who arrive encased in their own impenetrable fantasy worlds with
hermetically sealed views that have somehow managed to prolong their lifespan. These folks gain some traction, primarily among those who inhabit similar reason-proof shells or seek change at any cost, but they never get very far. I’m not talking about people with whom we disagree ideologically here, like your McCains, your Romneys, your Bushes H.W., and even your Bushes just-W. We can say what we will about them, especially about the last one, but even if they sometimes play by their own rules, we at least recognize the game.

I’m talking about people who have a fundamental break with reality, who operate on a different plane of existence from the rest of us, and one that is by no means transcendent and enlightened. In their reality, only their impressions of the world matter, and facts are merely annoyances to be swatted away like the buzzing of mosquitoes. One might accuse such individuals of believing the truth to be subjective, but it goes one (very large and terrifying) step beyond that: these people absolutely believe in a single, objective truth, it just happens to be their own. It is an unstable truth, to be sure. It is shifting and ephemeral by its very nature, as it grows to suit the mind it possesses, but the one characteristic that remains solid and defined is its immutable, unassailable veracity. They are the sole purveyors of this truth, the real and final truth, and they alone have the clarity of vision with which to implement that truth. This myopia, combined with messianic convictions, is usually spotted underneath the ill-conceived, if not insidious, rhetoric that such individuals employ: ambition wrapped in patriotism, misinformation backed by fear, fundamentalism coupled with nostalgia, and ignorance masked by bravado.

What is different about Donald Trump is not so much that he won the election, but rather how he did it and the transformation in the national psyche that made his win possible. It is not fake news that swept him into power, but our willingness to believe it and to spread it. It is not that some sought change at any cost (for there are always those who do), it is that we were willing to believe that those costs were worth paying because the need for change was so acute. It is not that the white middle class has been disenfranchised to the betterment of minorities, but how easy it was to convince us that this is true. The difference with Trump is not that he has his own reality. We’ve seen this before, and in many forms. The difference is that Trump somehow managed to merge his reality with our own in the minds of so many Americans.

We have truly entered a new reality, and we must admit that and discover new ways to fight within it if we are ever going to set things right. This reality is upon us, and it is based on ad hoc impressions and anger and fear, driven home by simple repetition and a raised voice. We cannot give credence to this reality, even as we acknowledge its existence. We cannot play by its rules, lest we legitimize and entrench it. We must seek new ways of combating it, for our reliance on facts alone is no longer enough. To bemoan the loss of our old reality is to mourn it, however, and I am not willing to mourn. Our reality is not gone, it has not been destroyed. It still exists, hidden beneath this new one, and we have to dig it out. It will be difficult, and I cannot pretend to have the answers. I don’t think anyone does yet, at least not all of them, but this is why working together is so important. We will forge new tools, and we will carry on the struggle. We need to be fighters, but we also need to reanalyze the fight. In order to do this, we need to be seekers. We need to be diggers. We need to be learners. Otherwise, we’ll stand no chance throwing off this new reality and reclaiming our own.