Today I’m reminded of where I was on this day four years ago, in the woods of Stanley Park, on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, literally talking to the trees.
I’ve spent the last four inaugurations in British Columbia. It is a strange disconnect, to watch these historic moments from outside the country of my birth, and I’m unsure of whether it has made me feel more, or less, “American”.
In 2016, I went to the woods, talked to the trees and tried to process how bad things were going to become. In the end, I only spent one year in Trump’s America, and by all means the worst one. When I had to return to the U.S. in 2019, it felt like stepping into a bath that was already way too hot. I felt grief for my fellow Americans for the three years they’d already endured with that bath filling up. Maybe it’s because I’m reading Hanif Abdurraqib’s They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us that I’m reflecting on grief, but I’m thinking about how being American may not be about all the hopes of liberty, or the lie of exceptionalism, but may be about carrying grief. We are burdened by our collective trauma, and formed by it.
Four years ago today, there was a burden of grief. Today, I feel a momentary sense of relief. Not because life somehow magically transforms from this day forth, like we for some reason believe that each year is reset on New Year’s Day, but because we can pause from the daily barrage of psychic abuse heaped on us like a coat made of hardening cement.
The problems Americans face won’t change today, or a year from now. I don’t have faith in what’s next other than that I am confident it will be less bewildering because it will be more of what was before, wrapped in the hopeful compassion it projects. In fact, it will likely further the divide because the country will likely return to the policies of business that led half the country to take us all on this wild and wretched five year ride.
But today, I’m not thinking about my apprehension as much as I’m thinking about relief. The cynicism can resume tomorrow. Followed by the hope for something better one day.
And with that today I give you one of my favourite Curtis songs, from my favourite Curtis album. Also, go read anything you can written by Hanif Abdurraqib. He’s remarkably human.
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