Breaking Reality

I read an article by Aleksandar Hemon (read it here) that has undone the last stitch from my tightly held hope of reality. Thanks to Hemon, that reality is lost and gone forever, only to be replaced with freedom of seeing and foreseeing. Reality for me was the good and stable indestructible America. Now I understand that America is just as vulnerable and unstable as any other nation. History checks my fantastical reality with a long list of examples.

Oh I knew intellectually that America could not be eternal, but my heart hoped it to be an evolving goodness. Hemon reminded me of the Kafka story of the man who wakes to his own reality being completely transformed into a hideous bug. No warning, no remedy, no control. If I remember correctly, that story does not end well. I had NEVER imagined that story from the lens of a person who wakes up one day to find their pre-conceived reality was in fact a lie, or more closely, a hopeful fantasy. Hope is not a bad thing (I will write on this later). But the inability to sense possible change and evil is a naiveness. I've grown up. At least a short jut upwards into the inevitable understanding that I and my home are not immune from disaster. This growing up is necessary for the days ahead. We can't assume that everything will be OK because our vision of reality has been that everything will be OK. That's delusional. It's time to put my boots on.

Why do I write with such dark tones and scary prophecies? Because all of a sudden I hear all of the voices before me. All of a sudden I have the blinders off and I can see the future and its infinite possibilities: good and bad. Who knows what will happen, but now I realize it is all possible. I never imagined our country would elect a person like this.

I remember when I was in high school and my teacher posed a question to our class. She asked us: "Will the world get better, or will it get worse?" I was a squeaky clean Christian girl in a predominantly agnostic or atheist group of students. Many of my peers showed hope and responded "Better." I, the sweet Jesus-loving girl, responded "worse." My teacher, knowing me fairly well, was surprised. I honestly don't know why I answered that way, but something within me felt that I had not seen the worst that humanity could offer. And perhaps it was only my eyes that would open to recognize the worse, that the worse has always been here. Ignoring the evil underbelly has been a comfort. That was my privilege, one I need to shed in order to move forward.

I often refer to my Grandfather's (Opa's) autobiography. It is a bit white-washed by his Americanization (it's a word?) and loss of memory (he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's when he wrote it). But the heart of the story is authentic and true, and it still teaches me. He was a German refugee fleeing the Nazis in a time when German Jews did not often make it through the tight web of red tape that hoped to prevent undesirable immigrants coming to America. By sheer luck and the astounding good will of a handful of people, he made it to the United States. The rest of his family did not succeed. 

In his autobiography, Opa recalls the evening his father came home late from work on the day that Hitler was elected Chancellor. His father worked as an editor for the newspaper, and made it a point to be aware and informed of everything going on around him. He was aware of the growing darkness and danger to the fragile German republic. He announced to the waiting family the reason for his lateness: the people voted, Hitler was elected. Opa's Jewish mother left the room to hide her tears and fear. Opa's last stitch of reality was released on that day. His hope for a good life in Germany was cracked. He didn't know what the new reality held, but he knew that Germany was no longer the same. As children do when faced with a break in the facade, he asked his father: "what does this mean?" His father's response: "It means another world war." 

How did he know?

When I sat at the breakfast table, shocked and numb the day after the election, my son asked me similar questions. "Who won?" "Trump." My son's immediate response was one that I could not have imagined, as he had never heard these words from me or my spouse. He said "Now we're all going to die!" I soothed him, told him of course not. Told him not to worry. We would be OK and just have to do good things. But my facade was cracked. "But what does this mean?" my son asked me.

I don't know.

After Hitler's reign of terror, which began with an elected position of limited power and ended in a fiery suicide after millions upon millions of people would die in his wake... the world was facing a new reality. One that could not ignore evil. One that could not assume the goodness of their neighbor. One that found itself awake, a cockroach, squirming and wondering how this could ever have happened. 

People tried as quickly as they could to recreate a new happy reality. Don't mention the holocaust. Don't mention internment camps home and abroad. Just move on. Forget.

Never forget, said those who had no choice.

The author of the article I mentioned, Hemon, talks about the person that lives inside of you that notices things. That person that sees military targets and bomb shelters. The person that has flashes of apocalyptic scenes flash in front of them as they imagine their home in a new reality. That person that has seen the disintegration of places like Syria, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur that were not household names until bothered with genocide. When the old reality unravels, the person's imagination is given permission to notice, to predict, to wonder unwonderable things. 

Will we all die? God I hope not, not like that. Is that a chance? It is and always has been. I cannot be blind anymore. There is no such thing as security. That other person inside of me is counting out the years, assuming that even if Trump were to make it as long as Hitler and have whatever reign he wanted, that Hitler reigned from 1933-1945, that's twelve years. My oldest is eight. In twelve years he will be twenty. Maybe only two years in military conscription. That's too long. My youngest is five. In twelve years he will be seventeen. Is he safe? My husband is too old, right? I am not healthy enough, right? We will not be forced to serve in whatever war a ridiculous man invites, right?

I pray that my other person is paranoid. She is being ridiculous. Please let me be wrong. Please let me be wrong. Please, please let me be wrong.

The person we have at the head of our nation is unstable, unable to take any correction or even the slightest jab. He selects financial bosom buddies to be his advisors on topics they do not know or care about. He is unstable. When a world leader wants to pick a bone, what will he do? My other person hears my great-grandfather's words: "It means another world war." What will he do? I cannot trust him. I do not give him the benefit of the doubt. I won't assume the best, because what has been offered is far from it. 

War is not confined to the years that it is fought. I interviewed the living ghosts of World War II- people who seventy years later have not shaken the terror. They have never been able to restitch reality. It stayed shattered at their feet. Anni, who lived in Berlin through the war, died two years ago with the shadows of Hitler, her friends, the souls her parents couldn't help, the life of light she never managed to find. My cousin Ruth struggles everyday with the whispers of her grandparents who wrung her mother's soul with each letter they sent her from Berlin telling her "you're not doing enough, we will die, you are not doing enough." They did die, but she did everything. It was not enough. My Opa had a "happy" ending by living out the war in the United States and reuniting with his family afterward, but his mother was a shell carved out by a concentration camp, his father lost years and half his body weight to the war, his sister aged many years in a short time and learned to be vigilant and ready for evil whenever it inevitably crept in. 

War does not end. War seeps down through the generations. The start and end dates are a lie. That verse in the bible is right, whether we want it to be or not: the sins are visited upon the generations after. Original sin is not necessary when you have a boulder of sin rolling down over every newborn back. Generation to generation. Crushing fear and darting eyes.

And yet here we are, choosing hate. Choosing a fighting peacock over a dove. Choosing a bully over a friend. God why?! Maybe the Americans were so sure of their reality, so sure of the iron-clad fabric of their lives. So sure that America cannot be rent, rent, or rendered undone. So sure that the boulder of evil would stay "over there." The boulder is on all our shoulders, and it will crush us all if we keep bowing to the god of power and false security. If we keep crouching over our lives as if goodness is a scarcity that we cannot spare. The boulder will keep rolling over our shoulders onto our children.

To stand is to be blasted head-first. To stand is to see it. To stand up is to give the next generation time before it rolls on. To stand is to slow the boulder down. Am I brave enough to stand? 

America, you are bowing. You are being crushed. Your reality is vanished. You cannot depend on goodness now, because you have elected a fraud. You cannot assume the boulder will pass you by, because you have willingly bowed to it and it will roll right onto you. 

Wake up. See the possibilities, and with fierce honesty to what could actually happen: STAND UP.