Sunshine at the Funeral
When I was in college, my aunt was dying of cancer, and I used to go home every weekend I could to see here. I'd get on a bus in Boston Chinatown at midnight, arrive in Times Square at 4AM, kill an hour in Penn Station before hopping on a train home so someone could pick me up at a reasonable time. The thing I remember most about these months is how absolutely ridiculous Times Square looked to me, so bright and glitzy in the middle of the night, its relentless projection of all the things that might buy happiness, when I was so, so sad. The first time I stepped off the bus, bleary-eyed into those lights, I laughed; it was so incongruous with what I felt inside I couldn't really square it.
Later, I turned this into a writing exercise with my students--what details does a character notice in the setting around them, and what does that reveal to us, the reader, about their mental and emotional state? (If you're a writer, I recommend this--it has revealed surprising things about characters to a lot of students, and to me, too.)
One student wrote a really lovely, sad and funny scene about being at a funeral for a friend who died too young, and the spring weather being absurdly beautiful and everyone sweating in their dark clothes and finding themselves mad at the very thing--sunshine--they had been waiting for all winter. Lately, I've been thinking about, and identifying with, those imaginary people a lot.
A couple weeks ago, my family and I went on vacation, to an island so warm and beautiful that, when we landed I had that same feeling from Times Square, as those characters in the writing exercise, from all those years ago.
I'd planned the trip before the election, when a very different future was still within reach. And now, it seemed impossible that this tropical paradise and back home--slush-covered and succumbing to a coup-- existed simultaneously.
(ID: The backs of two small boys splashing in a very clear blue ocean water.)
At first, I couldn't reconcile it. Fortunately, my kids' ability to be present, and their unceasing requests for me to do the same reminded me that, independent of my mood or my worries or all the very real bad, beautiful things also still exist. More than that, it's ok for us to take them in. Most of the time, this does not mean vacation, it means little things--good food, hugs from friends, brilliant artwork, silly internet memes. We don't have to hate the sunshine to hate the fact of the funeral. Or at least, maybe we can walk and chew gum. The sunny parts are why the fight matters in the first place.
News
Fire hose of terrible continues on many fronts. Attacks on disability rights are vastly underreported, and yet, if our rights go, yours do, too. The Spending Clause, which is the enforcement mechanism for The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Section 504 currently under attack, is also the enforcement mechanism for the Civil Rights Act. We need solidarity more than ever. If you're interested in learning more, please follow the work of our new collective at Disability Rights Watch for weekly updates and action items.
Also, I wrote a poem. I've never written a poem before...at least not as an adult. Thanks to the Virginia Quarterly Review for giving it a home.
Finally, thanks to those who have signed up for the pay-what-you-want subscription to this newsletter. (Subscribers receive another bonus letter monthly.) Please note that the default for the subscription is monthly, not annual. Thanks!