Dear K-
I sympathize with your despair at the nation's current state. I haven't felt truly American for a long time, mostly because I never really felt quite right here, never really totally at ease, at least in the same way I seemed to instantly click with Czech culture. Since then I've always pushed a bit against the "American way", and by that I mean the stereotypical American that you see on desperate television series like The Bachelor or MTV reality shows: ignorant, unhealthy, and usually a bit culturally insensitive. That being said, I still have to admit to my birth place and write on paper documents of importance my place of origin. I am American. That is a fact. Now, it brings me more shame than ever. I am embarrassed to discuss politics, in private and in public. It makes me feel sick. It makes me feel hopeless. It makes me shake my head slowly back and forth while staring at something infinitely far away, out of focus, and struggling to find any words at all.
Just trying to get through it the only way I know how,
-k
Friday, March 10, 2017
click, click, click, click
Dear K-
I apologize for the radio silence. I’ve been in a weird place lately. I haven’t been myself, and that’s been eating me away for the last few weeks.
When I say “I haven’t been myself”, I don’t mean it in the usual sense in that I just haven’t been feeling well. I mean I have been prevented through various means and commitments from doing the normal bits of my life and routines that make me feel like myself. Over the last four weeks, the nights that I have had off and to myself I can count on one hand. I haven’t been able to go on my normal runs. Even my weekly grocery store trip has been disrupted.
I shouldn’t complain; it is no one’s fault but my own. I’ve stretched myself too thin. Too many social engagements. The tedious burden of the working day. A new boyfriend who gets nervous if I don’t devote a certain amount of time to him. I like him, and I like spending time with him, but when I haven’t had a night alone to myself in several weeks I start to feel like everything is a burden, even him. And I know that isn’t a good place to be. I tried to explain it once but it didn’t go over well. I don’t think I had the right words. I don’t know if I’ve ever really had to right words.
Tonight, I cancelled plans with my friends. I saw them last night. I have plans to see them tomorrow night. I love my friends and I love the time I spend with them, but I really just can’t do it right now. I needed a night off. I need a night to go home, strip down to nothing but my underwear and an old club basketball sweatshirt from college and lay on my couch, petting my dog and playing video games. I need a night where it is okay for me to sit in silence and not have to actively engage my mind in listening and responding.
I really knew I needed a night to myself when I believe I offended a friend earlier this week. She was actively talking to me, vomiting up story after story about work, and I felt my mind drifting to and fro, weaving in and out of her stream of verbal onslaught. I nodded occasionally and tried to appear engaged, but I’m sure my eyes gave me away. I felt dead. I felt numb. Although I wanted to listen out of politeness and respect, I couldn’t force my brain to give a damn. I think she caught on and I could feel the shift in her mood from that point on. She still kept talking, but when I started to fade out and then return to focus, I’d meet her expression of exasperation and disappointment that I wasn’t providing the reception she demanded. It made me feel like I wasn’t a good friend. Similar to how I feel when I have to explain to my boyfriend how I love him but I don’t want to spend time with him. It’s like I’m on the high wire and trying to manage a difficult balancing act, and the wind has just picked up and started to gust.
I’m going to try to handle it the best I can. I’m being more active about identifying sources for my discomfort and trying to manage the cause rather than just the symptoms.
I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you lately. But, to be honest, I really don’t seem to have been there for anyone, even myself. But I’m working on that.
Still faithfully yours in friendship,
-k
I apologize for the radio silence. I’ve been in a weird place lately. I haven’t been myself, and that’s been eating me away for the last few weeks.
When I say “I haven’t been myself”, I don’t mean it in the usual sense in that I just haven’t been feeling well. I mean I have been prevented through various means and commitments from doing the normal bits of my life and routines that make me feel like myself. Over the last four weeks, the nights that I have had off and to myself I can count on one hand. I haven’t been able to go on my normal runs. Even my weekly grocery store trip has been disrupted.
I shouldn’t complain; it is no one’s fault but my own. I’ve stretched myself too thin. Too many social engagements. The tedious burden of the working day. A new boyfriend who gets nervous if I don’t devote a certain amount of time to him. I like him, and I like spending time with him, but when I haven’t had a night alone to myself in several weeks I start to feel like everything is a burden, even him. And I know that isn’t a good place to be. I tried to explain it once but it didn’t go over well. I don’t think I had the right words. I don’t know if I’ve ever really had to right words.
Tonight, I cancelled plans with my friends. I saw them last night. I have plans to see them tomorrow night. I love my friends and I love the time I spend with them, but I really just can’t do it right now. I needed a night off. I need a night to go home, strip down to nothing but my underwear and an old club basketball sweatshirt from college and lay on my couch, petting my dog and playing video games. I need a night where it is okay for me to sit in silence and not have to actively engage my mind in listening and responding.
I really knew I needed a night to myself when I believe I offended a friend earlier this week. She was actively talking to me, vomiting up story after story about work, and I felt my mind drifting to and fro, weaving in and out of her stream of verbal onslaught. I nodded occasionally and tried to appear engaged, but I’m sure my eyes gave me away. I felt dead. I felt numb. Although I wanted to listen out of politeness and respect, I couldn’t force my brain to give a damn. I think she caught on and I could feel the shift in her mood from that point on. She still kept talking, but when I started to fade out and then return to focus, I’d meet her expression of exasperation and disappointment that I wasn’t providing the reception she demanded. It made me feel like I wasn’t a good friend. Similar to how I feel when I have to explain to my boyfriend how I love him but I don’t want to spend time with him. It’s like I’m on the high wire and trying to manage a difficult balancing act, and the wind has just picked up and started to gust.
I’m going to try to handle it the best I can. I’m being more active about identifying sources for my discomfort and trying to manage the cause rather than just the symptoms.
I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you lately. But, to be honest, I really don’t seem to have been there for anyone, even myself. But I’m working on that.
Still faithfully yours in friendship,
-k
Friday, March 3, 2017
Meditation On America In Late Winter
Dear K,
I've been on a journey backwards through America, and I want to set down some ideas that have been jangling in my head. Our current President disgusts me. I cannot say that in my short lifetime I have seen a man that I despise more take the presidency. I hated George W. Bush with a righteous fervor, with a fever that could only be stoked by the fiery passion of youth. I hated that man for the inglorious wars he started. I still hate him, and now I dearly miss him. More than him I miss our recently departed Barack Obama. I miss feeling like the office of president was held by a man with a cool head and steady hands. Now I feel as if it is held by a screaming infant, shitting in its drawers.
I know any number of people might take issue with this thought. But I do think America is exceptional. You can quote your Zinn at me and recount all the long list of sins committed under the guise of Americanism, and the list will be long and dark and bloody. I think it is a folly to look at American history and see anything but a long and bloody struggle out of darkness, but I think that's the history of mankind as a whole.
I think that what makes America special is not what we are, or who we've been, but who we tell ourselves we could be. The ideal America strives for is a land where each person lives by their talent and sweat. I suppose it's more than that, and has always been more than that. Pioneers didn't settle the land and prosper in vacuums. They joined in together to harvest. I don't know if there's a more powerful metaphor in my mind than farmers coming together to reap.
There's a book I read in college called Witness To The Combines. It is a series of essays and memories written by a man remembering his childhood on a farm in North Dakota. The title essay is about his father's death and the subsequent selling of the family farm. His father died a couple of months before harvest. The family was mostly grown and they all knew they would leave the farm and not take it up themselves, but still they thought they had a couple more seasons together. They needed that last harvest in order to get themselves out of the obligations they had to the land and set their mother up with a house in town. They couldn't do it by themselves. Their neighbors from all over the county came in with their combines and harvested that wheat for them together.
You know we're a republic, and one of the oldest symbols of republics in western civilization is the fasces. Now this symbol was corrupted and twisted by the fascists, which is a real shame. It was an ax surrounded by a bundle of rods. Individually the rods were weak, they would bend and snap and break if they weren't bound together. The symbol is evocative of a sheaf of wheat. The thing that makes us strong is our union, it is the bonds between us that give us strength. Whatever system of government we have, whatever symbols we use, whomever we choose to be, we must never forget that we are individual strands bound together, woven together. Together we are stronger than we are apart.
I hope you are doing well.
Yours,
K
I've been on a journey backwards through America, and I want to set down some ideas that have been jangling in my head. Our current President disgusts me. I cannot say that in my short lifetime I have seen a man that I despise more take the presidency. I hated George W. Bush with a righteous fervor, with a fever that could only be stoked by the fiery passion of youth. I hated that man for the inglorious wars he started. I still hate him, and now I dearly miss him. More than him I miss our recently departed Barack Obama. I miss feeling like the office of president was held by a man with a cool head and steady hands. Now I feel as if it is held by a screaming infant, shitting in its drawers.
I know any number of people might take issue with this thought. But I do think America is exceptional. You can quote your Zinn at me and recount all the long list of sins committed under the guise of Americanism, and the list will be long and dark and bloody. I think it is a folly to look at American history and see anything but a long and bloody struggle out of darkness, but I think that's the history of mankind as a whole.
I think that what makes America special is not what we are, or who we've been, but who we tell ourselves we could be. The ideal America strives for is a land where each person lives by their talent and sweat. I suppose it's more than that, and has always been more than that. Pioneers didn't settle the land and prosper in vacuums. They joined in together to harvest. I don't know if there's a more powerful metaphor in my mind than farmers coming together to reap.
There's a book I read in college called Witness To The Combines. It is a series of essays and memories written by a man remembering his childhood on a farm in North Dakota. The title essay is about his father's death and the subsequent selling of the family farm. His father died a couple of months before harvest. The family was mostly grown and they all knew they would leave the farm and not take it up themselves, but still they thought they had a couple more seasons together. They needed that last harvest in order to get themselves out of the obligations they had to the land and set their mother up with a house in town. They couldn't do it by themselves. Their neighbors from all over the county came in with their combines and harvested that wheat for them together.
You know we're a republic, and one of the oldest symbols of republics in western civilization is the fasces. Now this symbol was corrupted and twisted by the fascists, which is a real shame. It was an ax surrounded by a bundle of rods. Individually the rods were weak, they would bend and snap and break if they weren't bound together. The symbol is evocative of a sheaf of wheat. The thing that makes us strong is our union, it is the bonds between us that give us strength. Whatever system of government we have, whatever symbols we use, whomever we choose to be, we must never forget that we are individual strands bound together, woven together. Together we are stronger than we are apart.
I hope you are doing well.
Yours,
K
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