Right Now, I Cannot Look Strangers in the Eye

But maybe I can look for a bridge.

The oak tree near my house. This is a winter sunset from last year.

Hello Beautifuls,

I want to welcome everyone who is new here this week. I think it’s even more important than before that we connect and build community together. So thank you for being here. And of course, welcome back to everyone who’s been here before. What we’re creating here is because of all of you. Thank you thank you.

Did you know that if you ❤️ this post (or share or restack it) it helps others discover Hello Beautifuls? So many of you are doing this and it is leading to more and more wonderful people being here. Thank you.

It’s also the biggest thrill when another Substacker recommends Hello Beautifuls. It means a lot to me and it increases the visibility of this space exponentially. Voices really do matter. Yours and mine. I still believe this. Maybe even more than before.🙏

It's been a tough week. I still haven't crawled under the covers, but my heart is tired, my mind is tired, my spirit is dragging its white feathers in the dirt. 

But the golden light is all of you. It's all the people who reached out to me over this last week, who walked with me or called me or sent me love notes. The golden light is the dogs who play behind my house in the park, who run and chase and bark and sniff. The golden light is each breath. We are bigger than all of this, even though we feel smaller, so much smaller. 

I don't know if we can fix this, I don't know anything right now except that I want to go on living a life that is kind and finds the beauty in small things, touches the wonder and magic of being alive.

My resilience is crushed right now, but like a can someone pressed with their thumb and middle finger, not an acorn run over by a truck tire. It will spring back, I just need a minute. 

My beautiful friend

Monika Kosmakova

and I have been talking this week and she said something powerful and beautiful about moving through this time to something good, “as we resist with love.” That’s exactly it. Resisting with love. She also shared this quote from Rachel Maddow, "Recognize your rage, recognize your grievance, but also choose kindness. Choose humanity over scapegoating.”

I am recognizing my anger and sadness right now and using all the tools I have to balance that with love and keeping my heart open. Because do you know who loses when I close my heart off, after nearly two decades of re-learning how to open it? Me. And the people I want to be open with. 

And here's the thing. That's all the people. 

I have lofty goals. I want to love everyone, not just the people who are good to me and good to other humans and animals and the planet. I want to be able to love the people who do and support things I think are horrible. And by love everyone, I mean: not cause myself pain and anguish by hating them. I don't mean accept or agree or make what they're doing okay. I mean loving humanity anyway. And that means all of it. All the f*cking people. Even the ones I hate right now.

I try not to use that word, it's powerful and terrible. Hate is bred by fear, a lack of understanding, and feeling powerless–and I feel all three of those right now. 

Here is what I know. Most people who voted, either way, are afraid, don't understand the other side and feel powerless. Each side feels these things for different reasons, sees the world through a different lens of fear and desire. At the same time, most people are going around loving their families, doing small kindnesses to others – probably even others who voted differently.

This is where I'm falling down. I feel too betrayed to ignore differences and choose kindness, and I know for my own survival I need to get back to that place, but the path there is dark with thorny bushes and unseen puddles of inky mud. 

Right now, I cannot look strangers in the eye. I did not leave my house for the first few days after the election. I wanted to work, to sleep, to ignore the world except for those closest to me. I needed to stay removed from both the fear and the gloating in the news. I finally took a walk on Friday, in the dog park behind my house and I couldn't look at anyone, couldn't bear to say hello to someone who might have, probably did, vote for Trump. The likelihood is high. I live in Austin, yes, but I live in South Austin, close to the country, where red is more prominent than blue. As I walked, I got more angry, and felt more hateful towards people. 

I got off the path and out of the park, walked through my neighborhood in the oncoming dusk to a field that borders what was left of the ranchland out here. I looked for the cows and the calf, but didn't see them, so I sat in front of the single huge oak tree that had been left standing in this field between housing developments. I watched the sun set and the single brush stroke of clouds turn a dusty pink. And I cried. 

Saturday morning, in an effort to feel better, I took myself for a long run on a trail near my house that is mostly deserted at sunrise. I felt less hemmed in after an hour and a half outside on 650 acres with lots of deer and only two other people. But as I drove home, I passed a middle-aged woman striding down the country road, blue shirt, blue baseball cap, platinum blonde hair, big puffy lips smiling. I was angry at her for that smug smile that told me she’d won. I said out loud to no one but me, "She 100% voted for Trump." Then to her, "Fuck you." Not that she could hear me, I was past her by then and the windows were rolled up, but I could hear me, and I could feel that quick hit of righteousness rush through my body. 

It felt powerful for a moment, that rage against a stranger. It felt powerful to blame her for things that happened last time and things I'm afraid will happen this time. Hate is a form of numbing, like drinking or shopping or sex or TV can be. The election went the way it did because it is easier to believe a lie you think will help ease your particular suffering than to sit with your suffering and notice it in everyone else. 

In an effort to be kind where I can, I offered to go pick up the curbside groceries yesterday. Nine-point-eight times out of ten, my husband does this chore. But he’s tired too, so I went. The young woman finished loading the food into the back of my car, then walked around to my door, carrying a small bag with something oblong in it. I must have looked puzzled as I rolled down my window and she offered me the package. She smiled and said, "Eggs!" She wanted my eggs to be safe from rolling around all by themselves in the back with the pea milk and frozen corn.

What she probably doesn't know is it takes a lot of very specific force to break an egg. They are inherently strong and can bear an incredible amount of pressure and weight. Much like the human heart.

Without wondering what was fair and who was winning, without being afraid or angry or full or rage, without thinking at all, I looked her in the eyes and said, “Thank you.”

I know the only way we will survive this is by finding the small bridges that connect us and walking towards one another across them. I’m starting with a tiny bridge built of eggs. They are stronger than we think.

Editor’s Note: This post has been updated. I mistakenly attributed this quote, “Recognize your rage, recognize your grievance, but also choose kindness. Choose humanity over scapegoating." It belongs to Rachel Maddow. The attribution and some of the text has been changed from the original to accommodate this error.