After seeing pictures of children in cages, it’s nearly impossible to write about anything else. Even writing that sentence makes me uncomfortable – mostly because to go on living as we do – just the regular stuff; get to the bank, stop by the market, write the blog post, choose the poems, think about summer – all feel, in light of knowing that children are in cages and separated from their parents – obscene, or as one woman in Wild Writing wrote this morning, “has me feeling complicit.”
How, many times over the years have I thought about the people in Nazi Germany who watched as Jews were taken from their homes and businesses, and who turned away and got on with their lives. I’ve wondered about the fall out for them, and what it means to turn away from something you know in your bones is heinous. How the crime of turning away lives in you forever, no matter how you might want to spin it. How that same student from this morning, a mother of two young children, wondered why she wasn’t just selling everything and going down to the border.
That’s one option. The other, the easier one, the one most people I know can handle is writing letters, making phone calls and giving money to one of many causes addressing this.
We do what we can, and still, I’m thinking about the way we hold it all; children in cages, the suicides of celebrities we don’t personally know, but which dismantle us, news of a friend diagnosed with an incurable illness, the divorce of two people I love who might have made it, another friend felled by a mysterious infection that has kept him from working, more than three people I know with cancer, another friend with ALS.
Business is not as usual and it’s a lot to hold. And although I’m touched by it, my life is not necessarily impacted by it, really, as I sit here on Powers Ct. drinking tea and consider going for a run. And I think that’s the most disturbing part for me; how to be a human being standing in the midst of so much grief. How to respond and do what I can – send money, take dinner for a friend, give someone a ride to the doctor, take a phone call and just listen – but also get back to the business of my own mundane life, which includes boring bullshit and true pleasure.
Sometimes it feels like some schizophrenic changing of the channels, flipping from one reality to another in one breath. “What do you think about Anthony Bourdain? Someone said he’d just bought a piece of art, that he was trying to quit smoking so he could live long enough to see his daughter grow up. Can you believe what’s happening on the border? Did you hear about Lisa? They found something. What are you doing this summer? Do you need a renter for your place? Can I have that recipe for the lentil salad? There’s a deal on Southwest if you call now. Did you see that picture of the children in cages?”
I feel uneasy as I scout for airline tickets for a summer trip, or go out in search of jeans that fit, or wonder where I’ll take my daughter for dinner this weekend, when I know that my friend is sitting in his yard pounding cocktails and smoking cigarettes because he doesn’t know what the hell to do with his wife who might be an entirely different person in one year and who will have to have 24/7 care.
I keep trying to find a place to stand in it all, imagining myself like some Wu Li master who can navigate all the trouble, catching knives as fast as they’re thrown, dodging others, not a one piercing her focus and composure. But that might be impossible. Knives will pierce. I’m going on a vacation with my daughter. My friend’s wife will never be the same. I’ll offer a room to a friend in need. I will send money so the children on the border can reunite with their parents – though that damage has already been done. My friend with ALS – not good.
As I write this, I’m searching for a word to describe this way to be – this middle place – a place you stand with your eyes as open as they can be, where you will respond as you can. It won’t be enough, but we will be there.
Perfectly and beautifully stated. This post sums up just exactly how I’m feeling these days. Love you ❤️
Steph
You’ve nailed it, exactly. And yet I haven’t quite found the middle place to be. I sent money. I called. I had nightmares about the theft of these children, of the pain of separation. I want to hide in a hole somewhere and not come out until things are better. Part of it is jet lag and bone tiredness, part of it is my introvert nature where I’ve been jostled in too many lines and throngs of people (travel) — but the only thing I can do is one thing at a time. Today it’s taking everything out of my office and dumping it on my daughter’s old bed, and deciding that I will spend one hour a day taking apart one pile at a time. It seems silly, but it’s all I can think of to make the world and my life less crazy.
Thanks for articulating this, Laurie. You captured all the things I couldn’t figure out how to say.
Thank you for expressing my feelings with such clarity and honesty. I too have spent the day stymied for words, fighting anger, disgust and sadness, exhausted from a sleepless night, stunned into inertia, unable to focus on the book I’m writing. Nor can I avoid the parallels with Nazi Germany – the dehumanizing of immigrants just like my Jewish ancestors. I think I’ll contact the ACLU to see if Trump and his enablers can be sued for kidnapping, false imprisonment, and child endangerment! They are the real criminals!
Frightening times. Thank you for having the courage to write about these children who are desperately need of our compassion and advocacy. Thank you for taking time to put words together to describe the almost indescribable state of our country and our people. I am finding myself taking many, many mindfulness moments these days.
Hello, you speak of the ‘middle way’
While I do not support the recent (now stopping?) policy of separating children from parents, I am frustrated that no one on the side of outrage in this issue ever addresses THE ISSUE.
What are we to do with people traveling 1000s of miles to cross into our country undocumented? Do we want to discuss how to handle this situation or just bury our heads in the sand?
Many administrations have struggled with illegal immigration.
As you may know, the process of vetting asylum seekers is painfully slow. Far too slow to allow holding people in cells while they wait. (With kids you can’t hold people more than 20-30 days – forget exactly) Under Obama they were just released into the US, most of them never to come back to their scheduled asylum hearings.
Asylum seekers are the minority of the many who come over the border. Many of those USED to be migrant workers, who could come and go with low risk, and return to their families as had historically been possible. As things tightened up in the 80s-90s the return was too risky and many of these migrants stayed, needing to bring over their families, also illegally.
So I implore you to discuss a ‘middle way’ with your friends/audience in which the actual issue of immigration is covered. Why are we hiding from the issues of borders, laws, different people coming here for different reasons, and many others.
We need workers, we have green card systems, we have embassies, we could have programs to vet and issue work visas faster, the slow justice system, xenophobia by whites, resentment by american minorities being displaced, etc. — there are a million issues to cover. Screaming about children in cages is ver valid, I strongly support that. But Nazi Germany?? You lose me on the analogy – exterminating people from one religious background already in your country, then invading neighboring countries to exterminate countless more in a systematic way has nothing to do with what the US is struggling with. We are ATTRACTING these good people, not exterminating them. My guess is that most of them would rather be in our slow and rights-based justice system than face the challenges and dangers back home, let alone a Nazi concentration camp! Please be thoughtful in the analogies. Comparing any activities to Nazi camps is a very high bar. I do not think we are anywhere near there.
I also recommend you listen to today’s 6/21/18 https://www.nytimes.com/podcasts/the-daily
NOT for the simple title (Trump is not really ‘ending’ anything, and this issue is not going anywhere.) But for the in depth look at this issue and how many administrations have struggled with it. If we do not put heads together to discuss this seriously, it will just be a bunch of people screaming hyperbole at each other on social media.
We are better than that.
I also haven’t had the words. Thank you, Laurie, for putting pen to paper and helping a few of us sort through our own feelings –empathy, “complicity,” hopelessness, how we go on each day. The needs of the world are great, compassion and action necessary.