Breakfast: The Cost of Everything

Most mornings I eat breakfast burdened only by the day ahead.  I sit down with my perfect cup of coffee to read the news on my phone while I eat. Often it is news about a bitter, seething country. Our country.

I don't think about my coffee. I need it like I need air and water. I don't want to know which habitats have been destroyed so that I can make it through my day after a sleepless night. I don't want to think about the species I am driving closer to extinction with each sip. I don't want to hear about the lives of the people who grow those magic beans.

When I turn on my phone, I may check to see if it's charged. I've managed to ignore the environmental and labor issues around its production in China, but recently I read about the battery. Somewhere deep in the Democratic Republic of Congo, children are digging by hand to get the cobalt for my rechargeable lithium-ion battery. There are pictures and videos of this happening. I don't want to see them.

I read the news on my phone. It describes my enemies. The other side. People who are evil for knowing right and voting wrong. Gullible fools who can't see through the lies. This reductionist view feels safe now. I have my candidate, and they have theirs. Territory staked out. They are wrong, and I am right.

There will be a cost to this. Maybe not violence at the polls or a post-election revolution, but in two weeks, we'll begin to pay. If my side is victorious, my enemies will be silenced. But in time, every diminished voice will call out. Every enemy we make will gather strength. They won't forget.

Breakfast is hard. Maybe I'll hit the snooze button one more time.

Dead Trees

I've been spending a lot of time in the woods lately. Two weeks ago, I was up on the Canadian border, on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. We hiked to Magnetic Rock, and up to the High Cliffs above Gunflint Lodge. The poplars glowed a muted gold, and a few flaming maples shouted amid the pines.


I've been out to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, where you can wander

through the woods with only the birds for company. In the late afternoon, you can walk under tall oaks and maples, listening to a pair of owls call to each other. You can stand, mesmerized by a flock of robins, hovering in a tall ash tree near a winterberry bush, watch as they take turns diving deep into the shrub, feasting on its red berries, then flying back up into the tree.

Five minutes from home is Hyland Park. You
can hike through woods and grasslands, up to a ski hill where the city spreads out below. Beyond
Bloomington's tallest buildings, you can see their echo in the Minneapolis skyline.  Wild turkeys saunter on the slopes. You can encounter a large salamander sunning in the path, who will seem as stunned as you at the encounter.

It's fall in Minnesota, a glorious, post-mosquito, pre-blizzard moment. Nature is spectacularly adorned, perfect. But when I'm in the woods, I notice the dead trees. They're not hidden away, something to be ashamed of. They stand tall as long as they are able, among the young and growing trees. Then they lie at their feet, rotting, until they are no more.

We're uncomfortable with death. We see it as a failure to live. If only we were better, stronger, smarter, thinner, healthier, we would live longer. So we strive to be the best.

Donald Trump is a master at this. He is smarter than the generals, healthier than Hillary, more Christian than the evangelicals, and stronger than, well, everybody. He cannot acknowledge any weakness, or his world will collapse. But that is not sustainable. No one is without some rotten parts.

The forest knows how to use dead trees to nourish growth. I am comforted by this.

Dear Donald

A letter to the editor I wrote this week:

Dear Donald,

            Here is what happens when a woman “lets you” touch her:

            Nerves react, sending panic throughout the body. Muscles tense. The heart pounds. Breathing is difficult. The brain collects all this information so that later she can wake up in the night, remembering the sight, sound and smell of you. She will not get back to sleep.

            She can’t move when you touch her. Shock, disgust, and anger are paralyzing. But later in the night she will lie awake, rewriting the scene. Maybe she speaks, maybe she runs, or maybe she stands and defends herself.

            The most difficult thing to rewrite will be the lesson she has learned. She is nothing. She is worthless. She has no rights, even to the boundaries of her own body.

            Unwanted touch is an abuse of power. You should not be given the most powerful job in the country.

           

            

Virgin Sacrifice

It's a girl! Parents buy pink balloons, tiny pink dresses, those little socks with bows. Girls are adorned with adjectives—pretty, adorable, cute, sweet—that dangle like jewelry from tiny bodies. When they're small, girls need only smile and accept these accolades.

It's when they're older that they know their weight. Are they still pretty? Adorable? Cute? They don't feel it. The praise has slowed. Stopped. How will they know themselves without it?

The world gives them plenty of ways. This actress. That model. This ad. That post. Always prettier, but how? Starve yourself. Dye yourself. Pierce yourself. Shave yourself. Spend your money. Spend yourself. You will never be pretty enough. Never.
And it's a zero sum game. Girls are either pretty or ugly. Ugly is evil. Ugly is stupid. Ugly is invisible. Intelligence can't overcome ugly. Strength can't overcome ugly. It is a terminal condition.

We like dichotomies. Pretty or ugly. Saint or sinner. Winner or loser. Republican or Democrat. It's probably hardwired into our biology. Early humans saw a predator and needed to make snap judgements to save their lives.  Fight or flight.

We see these categories as fixed. People who commit evil acts must have been born evil. They must have been evil babies. If only the people changing their diapers could have detected it. Maybe we could've locked them up before they were able to walk around. They must have been evil toddlers, scheming to steal an extra crayon from the kid across the table at preschool. Where was the school discipline? Certainly they were evil children, torturing animals as practice for their future crimes. Don't we have detention centers for juveniles? Never mind that one was just closed because of sexual abuse. Those kids are evil, anyway. And they will always be evil, so we may as well put them to death when they're old enough. Or blow them up by robot. Or shoot them.

And now we have an election that has laid bare just how strongly we believe in fixed dichotomies. Donald Trump has never pretended to be religious, so according to the Christian right, he should be labeled sinner. But he is willing to say terrible things about anyone. So when he says hateful things about the right people—gay people, trans people, abortion providers, Hillary, Obama—they declare him a saint. Anything hateful he says about anyone else is discounted. His sainthood is permanent.

Hillary is too blurry. She was never pretty enough. She should have stuck with the limitations nature gave her. Instead she claimed that competence and intelligence gave her a right to speak out. And people pushed back. She was forced to bake cookies to prove she could behave herself. She was forced to step back from healthcare reform to prove she wasn't above herself. But she didn't learn her lesson. She became a senator and Secretary of State. Then—baggage in tow—she entered the ultimate popularity contest, running for president.

It absolutely goes against the script. The brainy, plain girls—think Velma in Scooby Doo—can come up with ideas, which the good looking people will use to solve the problems. They will never be popular. I've wondered about the intense hatred of Hillary. Is is really about her honesty? Some will grasp anything they can to declare her evil. But the real problem isn't about truth or lies, its about boundaries.

Something went wrong with Hillary. Yes, she does everything women do to be beautiful—hair, makeup, whatever else. But she doesn't let the results limit her voice. And that's threatening. What if women can't be controlled by standards of beauty? What if they all speak out? Where would we be then? Probably in a better world.