Vulnerable

Trigger warning (which I do not believe in, in principle): This is a personal and political post.

I am feeling very vulnerable these days for lots of reasons. My health is increasingly a question mark. There are many nights I crawl into bed with something—the cancer, the treatment, anything—muscling its way to the top. For several nights now I have reached the flat plain of the mattress with gratitude, hugging it as a shipwreck survivor must cling to the first land she washes up on.

Earlier this week both a Confederate flag and a White Power flag went up outside a house about two blocks from here. Even in our "nice" neighborhood, there are people who want to see people like me—any of us who are "other"—eliminated. The neighborhood response was to write affirming slogans of equity and love and acceptance on the sidewalk of the house next door. The flags came down sometime in the middle of the night, but I doubt it was a one-off incident.

How appropriate that I feel that way these days, and that our community had a polarizing event, because I also feel vulnerable as an American living under the current administration. My safety—personal, religious, medical, physical, you name it—is increasingly at risk. All I think about, especially in light of the just concluded High Holy Days, is I have been guilty for being "aware" but not really "getting" what individuals of color go through every single day of their lives. I am so sorry that until the last several months I have only sympathized and occasionally added my verbal support, but have stayed too quiet otherwise.

I am sorry it took Charlottesville to make public what I'd already suspected but not said aloud since the new administration took over: people of color, Native Americans, LGBTQ individuals, Jews, people in poverty, Muslims, anyone who is "other"—we are all in danger. I am sorry that it took this year's attacks on the American Care Act to point out the wrongfulness of my thinking "oh, they'll never take away protecting those of us with pre-existing conditions because even the most flinty hearted conservative Congressman doesn't want to see people die." I am sorry that it took the threat of a Justice Department headed by Jeff Sessions becoming a daily reality of "where am I not safe now?" or, more correctly, "where are we not safe now?" to catch my attention.

I just read The Wrong Way To Save Your Life by Megan Stielstra and found strength in her words. A few months before that, I read Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay and found strength in her words. I just copied two essays, one from each book, and sent them to my friend Anne, hoping they give her strength. I tell myself there are strong voices and minds out there and I draw strength and encouragement from that.

I worried whether to allow comments on this post. Steilstra writes about the vulnerability of writers in this electronic age, the ease with which one could be traced, stalked, threatened, and she concluded she might as well be public about her voice and her stances as a determined individual could find her no matter what. I don't worry about being harmed in that way (fantasy thinking of an older white woman living in a "nice" neighborhood, albeit one with a White Power adherent two blocks away), but I worry about something far more insidious in me: offending others. I am still learning to speak up for what I believe in, even if my voice shakes.

Like right now.