Managing Despair

By Jeanne Treadway from Next World Stories, published in January 2009.

FOR MORE THAN 20 years I’ve relied on three musical traditions to carry me through the ferociously maniacal holidays. On Thanksgiving, Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant Massacree makes me laugh so hard I usually pee myself. Dec. 8, I mourn John Lennon’s death and celebrate Jim Morrison’s birth. I dervishly dance to Spanish Caravan, Waiting For the Sun, LA Woman and When the Music’s Over until I fall in a puddle of sweat and spent euphoria. Then I play a hodgepodge of John and Yoko and add my personal chorus to So This Is Christmas. I thank John and talk a bit to him about the state of Peace on Earth these days.

Finally, on New Year’s Eve, I play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Jessye Norman’s incredible soprano lifting Ode to Joy to the heavens. These personal rituals remind me of the essentials: ecstatically singing out loud, dancing long and hard, laughter, peace, love and joy. So often during the past 10 years, though, I felt as if I was just going through the motions during these sacred days. What the hell could I say to John Lennon about peace?

Since Nov. 5th, my mood has improved. I actually feel hope stealing around my heart and into my thoughts, that �audacity of hope’ thing. It’s not a gushy goofy hope either. I am all sunshine and daisies because Barack Hussein Obama got himself elected but I still simmer in an edgy stew of 10 outrageous and unholy years, which can suddenly boil up and choke me with fury. So, I’m cautiously happy. No matter how brilliant, well-mannered and beautiful he is, Obama is a politician and most of them are scoundrels, so he might be one too. But when I read that our soon-to-be-President called Nancy Reagan to apologize for making a joke about seances in the White House, my cheerfulness settled in for a while. This man just might have integrity. He might understand his power to wound and to heal. Imagine.

The rampant abuse of privilege during the past decade nearly destroyed my body and my heart. Be it our domestic policies or our propensity to invade first and be diplomatic later, this departing administration crawled under every low bar of vituperative insanity in our history. Parading around as fervent Christians and crippled by the Rapture concept, that regime misused the power of their office and oath beyond anyone’s comprehension. And every time I hear some exhausted but sanctimonious voice droning that we all are doing our best so there really is no abuse, my raging, pissed off tiger aspect roars to the front, scaring children and scorching bushes.

Not only do we destroy any country that might stand up for itself and its citizens, we crush our most tender Americans, our children, beneath unacceptable poverty and uncontrolled fear. Abuse fills every newscast, every conversation, every policy, nearly every thought US citizens have had for this last decade. Abuse in the form of rampant terrorism by our own government. Abuse meted out as sound fiscal policy in corporate board rooms; no CEO or CFO or ChiefDoohickyOfficer should make more than the President of the United States, let alone $4,000,000, when bonuses are included. Abuse in the wanton destruction of our Earth. Abuse in the number of children who disappear each day and the number of murders and the number of rapes and the number of home foreclosures. So much abuse glossed over as security. So many abuses explained away by free enterprise and the beastly nature of humans. No beast does what we do.

My immune system, coincidentally or not, crashed about the same time we suffered through endless cigar jokes. I fell down and went boom mostly because of the toxicity swirling around this precious planet, the unrelenting nastiness in the corporate world, and a genetic disease, but having to stand proud and uphold Bill while he lied toppled my very shaky house of cards. There were only so many times I could say out loud: “It’s none of my business nor of yours.”

I was still working at Sprint when I first heard about Bill Clinton. One day while a passel of us were outside leaning into the blasting downtown Denver high-rise air stream, Michael, a friend reared in the deep South, commented about Mr. Clinton’s predilection for pussy, especially black pussy. Yippee! I thought. Finally! We might get a president who’s sensible about sex. Am I naive or what? I got the sex part right but not the sensible. Black pussy should have been the giveaway. Jeez, what a twit he was! A truly charismatic man but a twit nonetheless.

His arrogant stupidity dredged up all the half-buried, thoroughly rotted puritanical anti-sex, anti-woman, anti-other hatred simmering down in the bowels of our occasionally civilized country and, in a backlash of ludicrous proportions, we would soon sort-of elect someone who prides himself on being just like the local loser down the block.

Talk about karma: We scratch our heads about the wisdom of deregulating banking, but, hey, Bill says it’s okay, and he’s such a good guy it must be true. We figure out what NAFTA really means and survive a homegrown blast-furnace initiation into the realities of the WTO only to become an international laughingstock when we go gaga about William waving his willie.

All this idiocy pushed me ever deeper into my debilitating illness. It was if my body reflected the communal disease. Weekly acupuncture treatments, biweekly doctor’s appointments, monthly phlebotomies didn’t slow the downward spiral. I was so sick I couldn’t function, so ill my friends paid my mortgage and fed me. Ever more pain, despair, exhaustion. So tired I couldn’t brush my teeth. So confused I consistently put my phone in the freezer or washing machine. Days upon days of nothingness, no will, no feelings, no color, nothing. God, I despaired. As I slipped into some black hellhole, my country became ever more unfathomable to me.

During my periodic forays into the internet looking for work I could do at home, I found Eric Francis’ offering of astrological counseling. Why not? I called Eric a month or two before the Grand Cross in Leo brought me to my knees. I was in the midst of losing everything: my home, many of my friends, nine-tenths of my worldly possessions, my ability to work, a precious felioness, my 401(k), my glorious herb garden and my little bitty aromatherapy business. But I’d call Eric, hear him take a deep, calming breath, and we’d talk about how this extravaganza in the skies was manifesting in my part of the world.

Both the voice and the astrology helped me find a tiny, precarious center. Eric would urge me to write, to get the feelings on paper, to ponder the reality of my inner world. So I wrote Too Dang Much. He published it on Planet Waves and people liked it, which encouraged me. I wrote some more. I scratched out a bit of poetry and he put that on the web too. Eric and the folks he was gathering into the world of Planet Waves joined with my network of dearly beloved friends to become a beacon of kinship coaxing me from my cave. Since all this human interaction was primarily on the internet, I could respond when I able to do so, I could participate as long or as briefly as I needed.

Even with all their help, withdrawing from adrenaline, caffeine and politics became mandatory. I could do without coffee and I could reduce the times I interacted with the outside world, but politics is personal and I allowed myself to continue reading national news. I didn’t have TV and only listened to music on the radio so I hadn’t heard that man speak until his inauguration.

When I heard his voice I got totally creeped out. One of those body-hair-bristling sensations ran up and down my spine. It was if I was hearing the bogey man himself or maybe even the inquisitor at my last witch burning. Yikes! I honestly could not translate his words; they were just meaningless syllables scrambled in my primitive brain. I only heard the voice, a voice full of arrogance and privileged smugness; a collection of tones resonating with dislike for anyone or anything different from him and his shiny white un-Christian Christian world; a voice oily with greed and thick with the power now in his hands.

And he was using words about healing the nation and bringing everyone to the table of plenty. He actually said: “…this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity.” “I ask you to be citizens,” he said. “Citizens, not spectators. Citizens, not subjects. Responsible citizens, building communities of service and a nation of character.” Subjects? When did we become subjects? Character? Exactly what sort of character was he envisioning?

I actually think he believed that he could be a unifying force. He had never unified anything, including his family, but for some reason he thought he could do it. With huge amounts of luck and grace, he might have been able to lead us into some less hateful reality. Maybe. I’d lived through the Silverado Scandal perpetrated by Neil, his brother, and I personally thought anyone from that weird family had a snowball-in-hell’s chance of doing anything decent for this country. I tried to pay close attention to the new regime’s first eight months, but it just made me sicker and sicker. The people he chose to fill cabinet positions were scary people and it seemed each new appointee was worse than the previous.

Can you remember when you glimpsed the truth about John Ashcroft? Here’s how the BBC described our reaction: “Mr. Ashcroft’s record as a senator helps explain why he is so controversial. The conservative Christian Coalition gave him a 100% rating for the year 2000, while the environmentalist League of Conservation Voters and the left-leaning National Organization for Women each gave him a zero.” The man was truly frightening in his self-righteous rage.

Cotton Mather reincarnated hanging drapes over tits on statues. Gad, even the word sex was dirty, let alone a well-formed bronze breast. And, how very very disturbing to see those evil twins of the Nixon era, Donald Rumsfield and Dick Cheney, popping up everywhere looking like a couple of Stephen King’s creations come to life. Then good ole, mild-mannered Gale Norton chimed in, swore to gut every environmental protection law to the best of her ability, and proceeded to be good to her word. Poor Colin Powell failed to realize he’d signed on as huckster extraordinaire, soon to spend much of his time seriously supporting the idea of WMDs and showing vials of anthrax to underscore the danger we all faced. The United States had turned into a frigging circus and we were all stuck in the house of horrors.

I eventually realized that my adrenals kicked my butt every time I read something about this unfolding abomination of an administration. My heart couldn’t accept that a sizable number of citizens thought these people were doing good things. I couldn’t logically or emotionally figure out why they thought all of this was good. What was I missing? Each time I really pondered the situation, I’d go into a brain fog and wake up unable to get out of bed.

During that first year, the news was so consistently frightful that I was forced to reduce the number of TruthOuts, MoveOns and newspapers I read, sneaking headline-fixes every other day or so. Even then, my body rebelled against the toxicity, crippling me with increasingly widespread pain, migraines, hours of blankness and debilitating exhaustion. Then the towers came tumbling down.

Within hours, that pitifully inadequate man started mainlining blood power. Like all new junkies, he and his power-crazed pals required ever-larger doses to maintain that amazing power high. With the blessing and monetary support of nearly everyone, off they went, revenge in their hearts. Into Afghanistan. After routing the Taliban, we think, we drop to the survivors thousands of food canisters that look exactly like the antipersonnel bombs we’d strewn the week before. Into Iraq, bombing, burning, strafing, full of our own righteousness, the smell of brimstone perfuming our wake. Death and destruction everywhere. Kill. Kill. Kill. If you aren’t for us, you’re against. Can you believe people really accepted this crap?

Held captive by a corrupt media, force-fed lie after lie after lie, patriotism puked upon our every thought, we waded deeper and deeper into the shit. Remember the insane steps we took to find some level of happiness during those times? We’d try almost anything to numb ourselves for a bit. A couple of my friends became heavy-duty Jesus freaks and regularly insisted we were in the final countdown for the Rapture; I sometimes agreed with them. Another of my beloveds married his bicycle, riding a minimum of 300 miles ever week — because he loved it! Yeah, sure. My doctor increased my dosages of antidepressants and pain pills and I painted bright Mexican colors on anything that stood still: floors, walls, computer monitors, filing cabinets.

I swear it was truly worse than living through Nixon and that befuddled, unctuous actor who so loved his little queenie in her designer twin-sets. Only this time there was no rising up in the street; at least there wasn’t much if you read the newspapers or watched TV. We weren’t allowed to disagree with our government anymore because national security kinda frowned on it. Those people chose to stand up were first cordoned off, then attacked by cops, then arrested and detained. So, we all walked through life with our heads tucked into our armpits: big, tall, awkward, unfeathered chickens. Plucked. Fucked. Exhausted. Afraid. Consumed with despair.

Social Security finally awarded me disability benefits and I moved back to my beloved heartland, New Mexico, back to the culture I understood. Day after day, the clean, unrelenting wind scrubbed the American political and corporate ethos out of my pores and slowly my heart began mending. I lived near people who view life differently than what is deemed normal and their kindness added another facet to the jewel of community I was experiencing with my longtime friends and those new friendships I was developing among the Planet Waves clan.

I started paying attention to those who were awake and to those who loved me. I started waking up myself. New Mexico gave me haven and slowly, slowly I began to heal. I was able to reduce the dosage of my antidepressant and wean myself from my sleeping pills. I wrote more essays; some even had a bit of humor spicing their construction.

Other art forms teased me into exploration. I painted Altoid tins, gluing tiny symbols on them, and creatingВ novenas to tie the colors and objects together. Wet paper and glue turned into sculpture. Poems turned into ceremonies. As my protective rage and pervasive sorrow receded, beauty swirled in. It was glorious.

But that man was still convincing Americans that we truly had something to fear in this world besides his own little precious self. Hate and fear, rage and lies swarmed into our culture like Biblical plagues. Our astonishing language was turned inside out and the Babble administration’s cacophony sickened our hearts against each other, creating distrust and uncertainty in even the most sacrosanct relationships. Just think what destruction has been unleashed by those outrageous and hideous oxymorons: the Patriot Act and Homeland Security?

Their implementation destroyed any sense of unity or safety we, as a people, had ever felt. Neighbors were encouraged to report any suspicious activity, with special toll-free hotlines proliferating like ragweed. Was performing a shamanic ceremony at midnight suspicious? Damn tootin! Farting in public was too, probably. No brown man with a mustache was safe from being arrested and dragged away, not to be seen again for months, if ever. Secret gulags were airily reported and summarily dismissed: can’t happen in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Sure.

We became afraid to be who we really are, be it witch, homosexual, sexually active single person, scientist, truth activist, peacenik, any color variation other than that fallacious pure white, feminist, single parent, disabled, oldster or youngster. It was clear that we were no longer protected by our laws or our courts. There was no safety, no sense of security, no haven.

We are now shackled with the Ku Klux Klan-gone-corporate, better known as the Department of Homeland Security. We’re still chasing bin Laden in Iraq, a place he hasn’t visited in many years. We’ve developed a border patrol that shames Chinese emperors, and a debt so large, a debt so large, jeezo peezo, a debt so large.

While our pensions paid for the fifteenth house of our CEOs, we lost our mortgages and now rent our homes from Chinese businessmen. Each day untold numbers of our citizens choose between food or rent or health. And insurance companies keep getting rich while whining about how hard it is! Nothing works anymore.

Our infrastructure is in shambles. It’s not safe to drive over US bridges; sewage systems swell past capacity; water is poisoned everywhere and our prisons spread like cancer. Our financial system is bankrupt, as is our auto industry, as are the airlines, as are most entrepreneurs and small business owners. We don’t trust each other. We converse only superficially. Every aspect of our lives has been diminished and we still quiver at the mention of bin Laden and weapons of mass destruction now hidden in Syria, spending trillions of dollars and killing hundreds of thousands to track down an illusive villain. Every time I think of all this killing I run smack up against that wall of Christian dogma: Don’t kill unborns: wait until they’re 18, then kill them. How does that work on the soul level?

Do you remember what it was like to not live in fear? Do you realize how pervasively fear now exists in our lives because of his raping of our country? How can we be safe when our own government is the terrorist in our life?

Here’s an example of what I am talking about. Just a few years ago, when she was about ten, my beloved niece lived through grade school hell because someone overheard a young boy talk about the bullet he brought to school, which became in some adult’s brain a gun, which then developed into an arsenal aka Columbine in several other adult brains, which then became a terrorist attack, which then was discovered to be a bullet casing in the hand of a curious young boy.

Meanwhile, my sister and all the other parents got no information about any aspect of the situation except what was on television, which was pretty damned scary. My niece’s school was completely locked down. Armed personnel flew in via attack helicopters from a nearby military base. Flak-suited humans raced through her upper-middle class, white American grade school corridors screaming orders and scaring the hell out of everyone. She spent four hours, feet apart, head on her desk, hands in front of her head.

When it was all over, people in charge shrugged and brought in counselors for the kids. That’s nice but do you think she or anyone from that grade school, adult or child, will ever feel safe? Think they’ll speak out? About what? Think they live in the land of the free?

It finally became really clear to me that all this toxic duplicity and fear-mongering ate away at my health, so I started making changes. I developed these little mantras. Live well within the parameters of my health. Become disciplined. Make art. Play with dolls. Laugh. Plant gardens. Change the language in my head. Eliminate poisonous words: duty, guilt, should. Speak up. Tell the truth. Be real. Be honest. Have integrity. Honor my words. It sounds like a bunch of hoorah, but it works for me. Leave that shit behind and take one step onward.

It seems our country might be waking up a little bit too. It seems we are beginning to comprehend that most of what that popinjay said was false and self-serving; that his rage and anger affected our lives in real ways. This waking up is difficult, because it requires considerable thinking and a huge amount of accepting responsibility. Hmmm, if he lied about WMDs and what the Patriot Act really meant and how secure duct tape/plastic sheeting would make us and, and, and, then maybe there’s truth to umpteen other stories about what was really happening in Guantanamo and how he protected the Saudis and, and, and.

It’s painfully embarrassing to admit that we were incredibly gullible dupes. It is also gut-wrenching to realize the damage done to our personal lives and our country because we let that group of thugs instill fear in every aspect of our lives. But dupes we were and there are still a hell of a lot of us who want to continue living in that hideous stupidity.

Here is where that audacity of hope thing comes into play. Dare we hope to be less afraid? Dare we hope that we can change the focus of this country? Dare we hope to learn to accept each other?

I think this idea of hope is an important part of our decision to elect Obama. I think scads of us are sick of the crap and want to change. So, now we have work to do. First, we gotta shred the living-in-fear rags and dust off the right-to-be-happy knowledge. It’s onward from there. Give back, clean up, throw out, reuse, get healthy, stop buying shit, either the plastic or the verbal kind. Laugh, love, participate. Add 10 minutes a day to the amount of happiness you spread around to your own self. Stop telling the nasty truth about someone else’s bad habits. Learn how to talk gently again, with grace and good humor. Stop passing around the turd sandwich. Get rid of the whiny.

Give this brave man a chance to alter the course of this nation. Help him accomplish a tenth of his goals. Shut up with the anger and nagging. Remember all children. Do what needs to be done with yourself so you can leave them the understanding of what living a good life is all about.

This Thanksgiving, Arlo and Alice brought more laughter into my life than I’ve had for years. Dec. 8, I danced until breathless and then profusely thanked both Mr. Morrison and Mr. Lennon for the astounding gifts they gave us. My spirit soared with Ms. Norman and Ode To Joy as I welcomed 2009.

Obama is not the cause of all this happiness, certainly, but he is a part of it. There is a real possibility that this country can begin healing. Yes, there will always be the underlying issues; genetic diseases don’t go away for either me or the nation. And yes, there is so much to be done. So very, very much to be done. But, healing is a real possibility. I know for certain that it is possible because I am healing.

I hunted down and read, twice, I Have A Dream, that magnificent speech that ends with Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaiming:

Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force…

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal…”

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!