On destabilizing truths, what makes us thrum, and being there (or not) when it’s called
November 6, 2020
Dear Eva,
As I sit down to write this letter, Joe Biden has just overcome Donald Trump in votes in Pennsylvania, and the breathless political reporting has reached a fever pitch. I have five tabs open in my browser with different news outlets, waiting for one to make the official call. I contemplated getting a livestream of one of the networks going in the background, but I decided that was a step too far. (And certainly wouldn’t be conducive to letter-writing!) Generally speaking, I have done all the wrong things the past few days, refreshing news feeds like I am paid to do it, using up all of my mental bandwidth outside of work time fretting.
In a year of month-long weeks, this one takes the cake. While I walked the dog this morning, I had a short internal debate about whether it could possibly have been Monday—just four little days—that I spoke with you. It might as well have been two weeks ago in terms of how much time feels like it passed. I spent much of Election Day at a local polling place working as an observer for the Iowa Democratic Party, beginning in the wee hours of the morning. I slipped into a catatonic state later in the day, where I was stuck until some time on Wednesday evening when the hope started to return. At this point, I am just anxious, almost frantic with expectancy. And yes, I know none of this is healthy. I am certain I should have tuned out of social media this week, not given into the urge to turn on MSNBC late in the evening and watch them say the same things over and over until we finally gave up for bed each night. But no one is perfect. And the weight that will be lifted when they say Donald J. Trump has not won reelection cannot be overstated.
I am amused by the political reporters and junkies who turn this sort of senseless dedication to the news cycle into some sort of bizarre heroism. I am guessing you are too wise to watch cable news, so you probably do not know who Steve Kornacki is, but he is a reporter who has the illustrious job of standing at a screen during the election coverage and pointing at a map while spitting out numbers and county names and projections at a rapid pace. He appears to have been living at the studio these past 72+ hours, and he has said he is so tired that if he sits down he will fall asleep. On Twitter last night, the network announced Kornacki was passing the baton to a colleague so he could sleep for a few hours. Just a few minutes later, he changed his mind and announced a triumphant return back to the board. He couldn’t stand the idea of missing the moment when Pennsylvania is called…. I just peeked at the MSNBC livestream (just a tiny snort of political crack, I swear!), and there the man is, still awake and standing at the board, looking perky as ever and determined as hell to be standing there when the election is called. Bad life choices, no doubt, but you have to admire his gusto.
I get it. This has been a long four years, and we are still in it—still falling to the ground—so it is too early yet to try to make sense of it all. I just want it to be over, and not because I think a darn thing will be “fixed” when Trump leaves office. This country has revealed itself the past four years, and what it showed is and was reprehensible. When we were talking about the election this week as a family, I told Jonah that one of the most difficult things to grapple with in life is that the most beautiful and inspiring people and events must always be viewed side-by-side with the most gruesome and hateful. It sounds like such a simple and obvious idea, but at least for me, it remains the most destabilizing truth there is. The people I most admire and want to emulate are those who can recognize the darkness and the light and sit comfortably with it, still full of hope about what new goodness they can help bring about.
That seems like a good note to end on today, and it somehow seems fitting not to yet have an official call about the election as I finish writing this morning. I have the day off today, and I plan to take full advantage with an extra long and leisurely bike ride and brewery stop on this sunny, perhaps soon-to-be jubilant day.
With love,
Sarah
Friday November 6 2020
Dear Sarah,
I am running on fumes today! This week really took it out of me! For the first part of the week I was running on a nervous energy, pushing things forward with the little bit of gas left in the tank. On Tuesday night I think I had dreams about the polls (even though I voted by mail): visions of election-day processes, the vote tabulations coming in, candidates’ heads turning left and right as their eyes swept the rooms where they stood looking at crowds.
I am exhausted by the 24-hour news cycle, the updates from news outlets every time a fresh handful of ballots is counted, the play-by-play on every statement, every snippet of a comment, every teensy new development. The New York Times’ miniscule updates to their homepage headlines as we creep toward something like a democratic victory are trying my patience!
M and I recently watched a show from the 1980s called The Wartime Kitchen Garden (sandwiched between our watching of The Victorian Kitchen Garden and The Victorian Flower Garden, both relaxing evening watching experiences) which went into the details of how people grew food and made ends meet during the rationing of WWII. The show involved a combination of semi-staged period acting and cooking, plus a recreation of the gardening practices of that time. I reflected this week on the episode of Wartime Kitchen Garden in which the women of the house hear on the radio that the war is over. That was it — the war went on for a very long while, which they also heard about presumably a couple or few times a day, and then when it was over there was a special message on the radio. Finished!
This week I would have loved to tune out and be notified when everything was finished! Wake me up when it’s over! It’s partly my own fault (I don’t have to look at the news if I don’t want to) and partly the news’ fault (minute-by-minute updates) and partly the whole social media machine’s fault (what’s everyone saying, and is it funny?). It would perhaps have been (would be, as it’s still going) a little less angsty to have the states get back to us one by one as they actually finished their vote counts, say. I can’t handle this dropping of minute installations of newly counted ballots into the mix, a few here, a few there. I have no recollection of the election and ballot-counting procedures before the seeming ubiquity of the internet and social media, but it must have been marginally calmer. Right? Right? Also, what is the story with polling? Why do we even bother having polls any more? Who are they for? Why did they fail again, like we worried they would? Ack!
I’m curious to see what the tone of your letter is like this week. I’m burned out on everything! And yet we are having exceptionally glorious weather over here, with a high in the high 70s today. After a dogged lunchtime run and a refreshing shower I feel a bit like a moody baby who has been ever so slightly placated. I’m ready to hit the sack and wake up in early 2021, please!
Earlier today I looked up the definition of fatigue (as I revisit this letter later in the day I’m feeling better, but fatigue was the mood of my midday): fatigue, noun, extreme tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness; a reduction in the efficiency of a muscle or organ after prolonged activity. I felt like my mental muscles were a loose noodly slush, unavailable to flex and be strong in other areas. (I wanted very badly to just look at your letter, my letter unfinished, and then to fall asleep!)
I loved your reference, in your letter last week, to the On Being interview with John O’Donohue, and his words Music is what language would love to be if it could (including them here again because they are perfect!). I had some notes on music for my letter last week that weren’t fully formed and didn’t make it in, but you captured the feeling well. There are things that cannot adequately be put into words, or perhaps just words — we experience the world in multisensory ways that can’t always be pressed out in the form of language. I am thinking of literal tools for expression, like a mold or a cake-frosting tip that lets you turn globs of soft frosting into star-shaped dollops or finely piped strands. Not every material is going to fit into and pipe through a cake decorating tip, nor a pencil point shaping words and sentences!
When I hear music I love I get feelings in different parts of my body for different songs, prickles and thrums and resonances and pulls like a magnet. Trying to describe the music itself never quite results in the same kind of resonant feeling, though I often enough come across stories and authors who try to write music into their works. I understand the impulse — when music makes you feel a certain way you want to communicate it, you may want to translate it onto the page, capture the feeling that is so visceral, turn it into words so you can see it the way you feel it. But it doesn’t necessarily work that way even to describe a feeling for oneself, let alone to try to convey the feeling of music for someone who might not feel the same way about a song or a piece, and who certainly might not be hearing it as they read your words. It is a reach for a borrowed sensation, a hope that a reader will either be familiar with a particular piece or type of music, or that they will have some knowledge about the people who do like that kind of music, or perhaps that they will just have any experience of music that they can bring to their reading. But it never quite works for me! And the music that makes each of us thrum is often very different. I think many people (at least, I) have had the experience of telling someone, listen to this! and getting a blank stare or a friendly shrug in response. We don’t all feel the same things in the same ways. Language helps us bridge those differing feelings, but it can’t always make ends meet!
I’ve only begun replying to the elements of your letter last week that I wanted to dig into further, but I will have to pick it up again next week! It’s the evening now and I think it’s finally time to sign off on this letter and read your words! We made it to the end of the week, at least! Wishing you a restful and happy weekend!
Until soon,
Eva