the slow and unyielding march of time | episode 21
Last Sunday, David and I set off to go snowboarding at Lake Placid. (Or in reality, David was going snowboarding and I was going to scream and fall a lot.) I borrowed Rebecca’s car (she’s so generous!), and followed the GPS directions winding through Brooklyn. We eased onto the highway and I accelerated, and all of a sudden my vision was obscured by a wall of red; the hood had flipped up and hit the windshield, smashing it and blocking the forward view. I probably screamed “OH MY GOD” as I braked, slowly and instinctively nudging us off the highway. Cars honked while David guided me onto the shoulder. Within moments, we were safe.
We found an auto glass shop that could replace the windshield within a couple of hours; we had a chilly brunch and walked around Park Slope and then were on our way. The drive took a little longer because it was later in the day, but we still managed to get to the Golden Arrow (“the only thing we overlook is the lake!”) 15 minutes before the hotel’s restaurant closed for takeout orders. After a night of uneasy dreams, we strapped boards to our bodies and threw ourselves down a mountain.
It’s a real wonder that something so terrifying and dangerous can happen and moments later everything is … fine. I keep trying to grasp onto my emotional response of the smash, of the sudden violence of noise and inability to see the road ahead. Shock, surprise, my brain trying to make sense of what was happening. It would have been equally easy to burst into peals of laughter of tears immediately afterwards; instead I just sat numbly and called Rebecca.
Dare I connect this with our broader world experience? With the fact that a mere two and a half weeks ago, a bunch of deluded, racist, very scary fucks stormed the Capitol, and now life goes on. The news gets hung up on our new president’s exercise bike and expensive watch. Members of the Republican Party is trying to reframe impeachment as “cancel culture.” They want it to be business as usual. And on the whole, things do feel better. I nearly weep with relief every time an executive order is announced now.
But that relief only goes so far; the country has been pushed to a brink. We can’t just “go back to normal” because normal doesn’t exist; it never has. Besides, who besides historical revisionists and white supremacists really wants to go back? It’s a real failure of imagination to picture our past as the apex of existence. And the idea that we — that anyone — can just absorb trauma and move forward without being affected is delusional thinking at best.
We’ve been living through really rough, bad history these past few years. The bright shiny thought that keeps attracting my attention (POLLYANNA ALERT!!!) is that this means we have the potential of living through real progress, through real change. Through actually good history. But without looking back at all the traumatic things that have happened or been exposed this year, without addressing the cracks in our social infrastructure, the racism that permeates all aspects of our government and culture, and the enormous class rifts, we can’t really move forward.
My brain keeps running through all the different, worse possibilities. What if I had swerved in shock? What if we’d been going faster? What if we were in the middle lane? What if I’d been alone? What if Rebecca had been alone? Being alive and unharmed and only slightly inconvenienced feels like a miracle.
I was on pins and needles the whole ride up and back, determining my highway exit strategy just in case. We didn’t know why it happened, so we didn’t know if it might happen again. But now we know; Rebecca took the car to the shop. Rust and dirt worked their way into the manual release, unlatching it. The hood’s automatic release jostled itself open over the potholes and uneven streets of Brooklyn. As soon as there was enough wind resistance, the whole thing popped up.
For a little while, I’ll treat cars a little differently, because I’ve been reminded that they’re scary and dangerous. But knowing that someone looked into it, and an actual thing was wrong and that care has been taken to fix it will reduce my anxiety the next time, and the next time, and the next time. But I’ll never fully forget.
Debris:
I went snowboarding! It was mostly fun and very hard! It requires a lot of core muscles, and my core muscles are currently the consistency of mashed potatoes. I fell *immediately* on the long run that I did and then it took me ten minutes to get going again as a children’s ski school all started down the mountain, navigating around me. Those little monsters.
Should I buy a cat bag?
If you want to understand the thing that happened with stocks and GameStop this past week but don’t want to investigate, here’s a good basic explainer.
My new years resolution was to consolidate all the terrible think pieces (EXCLUDING MY OWN) I come across so I could do an end-of-year bracket this year, but I’ve stopped being on the internet so much, so I haven’t seen any! If you see any, please send them my way.
I started rewatching twin peaks and now I’m obsessed with this sweater of Audrey Horne’s which has led me down a dark path of vintage Darlene sweaters. They’re so wild and beautiful.
What I’m reading:
Currently:
Interior Chinatown, by Charles Yu:
I’m so excited to read this book; Yu wrote How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe which was one of my favorite books I read last year, and I love his experimental approach to structure and narrative linearity. I’ve only just started, but it seems like it is exploring themes of identity and assimilation and the roles that we see ourselves enacting in our day-to-day lives.
Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijoema Oluo:
Yes I am book mulit-tasking! I’m very early in Oluo’s book, an exploration of American history, reexamining the past (and through the present, I would imagine, but haven’t gotten there yet!) through the lens of the false belief in the superiority of the white supremacist patriarchy. She’s *so* good at laying out basic truths and connecting the dots.
Finished:
The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson:
Remember when everyone listened to Serial, all at once, and birthed a thousand true-crime podcasts? This book is Serial: The YA Novel, except fictional. Pip is a high-school student who, for her senior capstone project, is investigating a disappearance that happened in their town five years prior. The prime suspect killed himself and the case was declared closed, but Pip always had questions. As she starts pulling at the threads of the case, she slowly unravels a town full of mysteries, Twin Peaks style. (Except no Black Lodge.) I think Jackson went heavy on the plot and extremely light on the character development, which on the one hand makes sense because there were like 30 suspects, but ultimately I didn’t buy much of the wrap-up, and often Pip behaved in ways that felt out of character. A fun, tense read that was a little too easy in places.
Cress by Marissa Meyer:
The next installment of the lunar chronicles, the cyberpunk retelling of several different fairy tales in a light dystopic wrapping!. Cress is a young hacker who is a prisoner in a satellite for the past seven years, with only her screens to keep her company. She has decided to help Cinder because she has damsel-in-distress fantasies of being rescued by her crew, in particular the Captain of the spaceship, for whom she has developed intense feelings of limerence. I’m pretty impressed with Meyer’s ability to juggle this ever-expanding cast; as the party splits because of circumstances beyond their control, she does a good job of checking in on their points of view, and giving each of them agency.
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community by Martin Luther King:
King’s words feel both timely and ageless, probably because they are. It will continue to inform and further articulate my own thinking as I ponder the future of this whole America project. I mean. Everyone should read this, probably.
Hope you’re staying warm. Maybe next time I’ll connect my love of the Bachelor to the F Scott Fitzgerald and QAnon! (Am I threatening you with a good time?)
Love to you all, as always. Thanks for reading.