A Week to Make Us Think, Is 2021 Going to Be Worse? Attack on America from Domestic Terrorists, and Poetry as Solace

Double Pileated Woodpeckers

A Week that Made Us Think, Is 2021 Going to Be Worse?

A week that started out for me, optimistically, with Georgia wins in the Senate, and trying to keep my intentions of staying off of social media and write more. Vaccinations for coronavirus had started being rolled out, albeit slowly, as deaths went up due to Christmas travel and visits. I felt something like hope.

And then Wednesday happened. The last time I felt this communal trauma was 9/11, but this time the attack was coming from American people. Traitorous, violent, ignorant, cult-crazed – Trump’s people. He had whipped them into a frenzy and told them to March on the Capitol, telling them he’d go with them – and then went back on his room and watched the violence unfold with glee. Bookshelves with books about women in politics were smashed, the Capitol was urinated and defecated on, congresspeople feared for their lives as the crowd chanted “Where’s Nancy” and erected a noose, and murdered a policeman (who voted for Trump as it turned out) who was just doing his duty. Trump is the ugliest, stupidest and maybe the most evil cult leader I have ever seen. I don’t understand anyone who believes his lies.

All I can hope is swift repercussion for Trump, the Republicans who egged the crowd on, including Hawley and Cruz, and the people who perpetrated violence and destruction with no worries to going to prison or being shot, because they were white, because some police were on their side, giving them high fives and taking selfies. The most disgusting display of treason I have seen in my lifetime.

There are indeed two Americas – those brainwashed by Fox News and Infowars, and those who are not. How can America come together after this? I’m not sure it’s over, either. I’m worried Trump and his ilk are planning even more violence, especially on the inauguration. It’s not enough that Trump has been banned from social media (too little, too late, Facebook and Twitter) but that he needs severe punishment. He needs to be put in prison for treason. Then there was an attach on our governor’s home, where a Trump mobbed got almost into his house while he was there. We need more defense against these traitors, against domestic terrorist. There must be swift, serious, public repercussions.

So, personally, I lay in bed shaking with fear, anger, and anxiety, considered how to escape my own fucked-up country during a pandemic. The next day I woke up sick enough that I almost had to be hospitalized (and I managed to stabilize over the weekend, I might still need surgery or very serious antibiotics to get better, so think good thoughts for me.) My immune system can’t fight back against germs – I have a primary immune deficiency, among other problems – especially when I get stressed, it makes everything worse. I rested during the weekend, the doctor called in tests and antibiotics. I tried to focus on my writing (and someone else’s manuscript, as well, which helped – and it was a really fun manuscript) but I was thinking, “Oh my God: is 2021 actually going to be worse than 2020?

Triple hummingbirds

Poetry as Solace

It’s a few days later, Sunday. I have talked to my little brother, who actually lived through a coup attempt when he live in Thailand. I tried to tell myself I was safe, I drank liquids and slept at irregular hours. I’ve tried to write some poems about America, but they weren’t any good. I sent out a sample from my pandemic manuscript (yes, I’m probably not the only person who wrote a book of poems during the last year – we certainly had the time on our hands) and sent one of my other manuscripts to a publisher. I tried to take pictures of my birds. January is a cold, wet month typically, but we’ve had colder, rainier weather than usual, resulting in landslides and giant trees coming down around my neighborhood. Talk about pathetic fallacies.

So I’ve been reading poems – old poems, that I loved as a kid. Fragment 68 by H.D., sonnets by Edna St Vincent Millay. Does poetry fix anything? No. Does my furious doomscrolling or tweeting at Mike Pence or the GOP congresspeople to impeach or invoke the 25th amendment do anything? Maybe not, either. Being a poet sometimes means being an observer. Being an observer sometimes makes you feel powerless. I’m in bed right now, looking at the rain, feeling tired and anxious.  I know there will be better days ahead. Sending love and hope out to you, my friends.