Writing (or Writhing) in the Margins Between the Political, the Professional and the Personal

This old tree of ours never reads the news, and look how it’s doing

“Crisis, change, all the myriad upheavals that blister the spirit and leave us groping—they aren’t voices simply of pain but of creativity.”
—Sue Monk Kidd

I spent a lot of last week—and with only vague success—trying to not read too much news. The drumbeat of madness from Washington has had a paralyzing effect on me. I am accustomed, even eager, to read several sources of news in the mornings, and go from there, informed and alert, to my current writing project.

But recently my reading has left me stunned, so that I fidget at the keyboard, make a false start with whatever I’m writing, glance again at a different news site, look on Twitter for mounting evidence of our government turning its back on its people, and then having a numbed, shell-shocked sense of dislocation.

I was around when Nixon was in his heyday, but this is the most cynical, least statesmanlike administration I’ve ever seen. Our president is not simply incompetent, but spectacularly deceitful. It boggles my mind.

Perhaps worse yet I sense that he has no moral compass: he is not a decent man.

Maybe this sounds like the standard liberal pabulum, that I need my pacifier and my stroller for my nanny-state government. But it doesn’t feel that way. I do know the Democrats missed a significant message from a wide swath of the population that’s really hurting. But this “solution” feels like less of one, for all of us, every day.

The Headlines Hurt the Head

Because I have deadlines, and work to do, I vowed last week to avoid reading the headlines and analysis. But I was only partially successful—the sheer luridness of it pulled me in, though less deeply than weeks before.

My purpose in writing this is to look at how this strange situation has given my writing the jitters. I’ve still met my business-writing deadlines and have penned some creative pieces as well, but there’s been so little joy in it. But raging against the machine seems like a Sisyphean sort of response, no matter how justified.

Have I actually done anything about these threats to our republic? Other than signing a bunch of online petitions and frothing at the mouth in front of my friends, no. No attendance at rallies, no writing/calling my congresspeople, no marches on Washington. I’ve bounced on the trampoline of my mind wondering if there’s something or someone I could write that could make a tangible contribution, without it being some kind of self-congratulatory “Well, I did my duty, where’s the beer?”

Strange Days (and Daze)

There’s a confluence of concerns in my household’s air these days: not only is the Orange Beast spreading his malevolence, but several of our friends are in late cancer stages and others are undergoing emotional turmoil. At least we can reach out to them and offer connection and concern.

But in the face of poisoned politics, mere rage is pointless. There is some evidence that writing about your emotional turmoil is a helpful way to distance yourself from distressing life experiences, so while I’m musing over some more effective way to address my squirming, I’ll take comfort in that.

Thanks for listening.

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