D is for Dear America

From Simmons Buntin, co-editor of Dear America, a collection of personal essays, narrative journalism, poetry, and visual art from more than 130 contributors:

     "Dear Reader,
          "When Alison Hawthorne Deming sent me her letter to America a week after the 2016 U.S.
     presidential election, I had just hung up the phone with my daughter, a college sophomore,
     biologist-in-training, and young woman who had just voted in her first presidential election --
     and now found herself devastated. It was the fourth or fifth time we'd talked since the election,
     and as her father I felt that I was in the position of talking her down from a ledge. A ledge on
     which we both teetered.
          "Alison's letter arrived just in time. A response to the shaken American landscape so
     vividly illuminated by Donald Trump's win, it was written -- she told me in offering the letter
     for publication in Terrain.org -- to encourage herself and others as we reeled with the dis-
     ruption in our sense of national well-being."

Terrain.org is a nonprofit literary magazine published online since 1997. It continues to accept submissions for publication -- including for the ongoing Dear America project.

I attended the Association of Writers and Publishers Conference in San Antonio during the first week of March. I, too, had "teetered" on that ledge. When I heard the first panel of writers from the Dear America I was reassured that I was not alone. Reassured that we need not acquiesce to the anti-American policies of the Trump administration. I was inspired. I was braced for action. And I spent my book budget on copies of Dear America so I could lend or give it to people I love.

The essays and poems in Dear America are not diatribes against Trump and his cronies. In fact, they are celebrations of the America I remember and still believe in. Celebrations of escaping urban noise and motion while fishing off the end of a pier. Of immigrant dreams. Of not racist treatment.

I have been afraid of how far we were falling away from our American values. The goal of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for all people regardless of and respecting our individual differences. But not dividing ourselves into us and them.

Where once I thought of America as being the Leader of the Free World, I have watched in fear as we were led away from the Free World toward the oligarchies, and the tyrannies of the world.

And now America is experiencing a greater danger. One that is without national boundaries, without politics, without any concern for any individual or group of individuals.

We are being schooled by Covid-19 in just exactly how much good it does to "go it alone" -- as a person, as a demographic, as a nation.

And again, this book, this collection of writings from more than 130 people, this Dear America reassures me. That woman's letter which steadied Mr. Buntin from "teetering" on the ledge back in 2016 continues to steady us and call us to action.

"Think of the great spirit of inventiveness the Earth calls forth after each major disturbance it suffers. Be artful, inventive, and just, my friends, but do not be silent."  -- Alison Hawthorne Deming

Rage -- Nonfiction

Anger 2 by Theuukz on Deviantart

I know I'm not alone in this. There are demonstrations across the country. My friends and family are reacting with sadness, depression, rage.

My friend Ruth Ann shared an email her assistant minister sent out. In part it said "Even those of us who share the same overall values about this are going to be in different places at different times, because we react differently. That person reacts with rage, this person reacts with tears, this one goes numb."

I am that person who reacts with rage.

Hillary gave a gracious concession speech encouraging us to "work together." President Obama gave a speech reminding us that there will be a peaceful transition to the next administration. He will do his part to make that happen and we should do our part, too.

Did their words do anything to assuage my anger? No.

I went to my morning class to be around people I know. People that I don't know how they voted. I can continue to believe that these people are good people. I can believe they are not people filled with fear that their place in American Society is endangered by people who don't look like them, people who don't pray like them, people who speak accented English or who do not embrace the same sexuality they do. I can continue to believe they are not threatened by people who are better educated or less well-educated or are richer or poorer than they. I can believe they do not translate fear into hate.

The election shattered my faith in the general American electorate, those people beyond my morning classmates.

I have been exhorted by Hillary and President Obama to accept the election results. How can I accept as my representative to the world, a buffoon who spouts profanity, denigrates women and people of color, perpetuates lies, and encourages violence?

We are expected not only to accept, but to endure. We have endured. For generations we have endured. How much longer must we endure?

My friend's minister's email offered reassurance. “You do not have to be brave today. You do not have to roll up your sleeves and get to work. You do not have to take steps toward unity or peace. You don't have to move from grief to resolve.

You get to be you, you get to feel your feelings."

The minister offers endurance delayed.

I'm not yet willing to embrace endurance.

My rage has only begun to cool. And harden. Into glittering, sharp-edged crystals. Maybe I will scatter them in my hair. Diadems to catch the cold starlight of that great goodnight it feels like we have been cast into.

"One foot in front of the other, friends," the minister's email said. "Let us be gentle with each other; let us be gentle with ourselves."

And maybe those steps will lead into the sunlight. Maybe an end to the need to endure bigotry and hate is nearer at hand than it feels like it is. Maybe behavior that was accepted by too many during the campaign will not be accepted any longer. Maybe. Maybe.

Something Woke Her -- Flash Fiction

Something woke her.

Fear kept her eyes shut. Her chest, so tight it hurt.

A dream maybe. 

She moved her hand to his side of the bed. Empty. She hated it when he traveled.

She felt stupid. Of course there was nothing to be scared of. Her house. Her neighborhood. A safe neighborhood.

She opened her eyes. A shadow spread up the wall.  A strange, long-beaked bird across the ceiling.

Think. She had to think. The bathroom door stood open. The nightlight above the sink. Behind the soap dispenser. Nothing more. Just the almost empty soap dispenser which she should refill in the morning.

But something woke her. Was it a sound?

The cat? No. The cat stood rigid at the foot of the bed. Eyes wide in the gloom. He must have heard it, too. 

A cat. A scaredy-cat. She should have a dog. Her husband wanted a dog. A big dog, he said. For when she was alone. But she'd argued that you have to walk a dog. Every day, rain or shine. Or snow.

She pulled her arms close against her sides. She liked to sleep naked. There was just something about slipping into an empty bed. She could take up the whole bed when he was gone. Stretching as far as she could. Her skin, warm from the shower, against cool, smooth, freshly laundered sheets.

Not now, though. Being naked made her vulnerable. At risk. Defenseless. 

Quietly, she moved the duvet aside and sat up. The cold struck her bare skin like a slap and she reached for her robe. For her phone. 

Three, thirty-eight. She could have slept another hour and a half. Maybe longer. No need for an alarm. He was gone and she didn't have to work that morning. A day off. On her own. She could do anything she wanted. Or nothing.

Light seeped through the closed blinds. Moon bright light on snow. Something clattered across the deck outside her window. Should she look through the blinds? If she moved even a single slat, they would see her. If there were a 'they' out there.  

The wind. That's all it was. Chinook winds coming down out of the mountains. Snow eater winds bringing warm days to February. Sixty-seven degrees, the forecast high. She could walk to Starbucks. Then maybe around the lake. She didn't have to have a dog to walk.

She padded barefoot down the hall and through the kitchen. The floors were cozy warm. That was the nice thing about living in a house with a basement. The floors were always warm in the winter. She'd never lived in a house with a basement before.

The basement. Had she remembered to close the window in the basement bedroom? Yesterday was warm, too. She loved opening all the windows and letting the world in. It was a perfect day. Not as warm as today would be, but welcome sunshine and winter neighborhood sounds.  Children playing, taking advantage of the warmish weather. No lawnmowers, yet. And no snowblowers.

Was the window locked? It stood less than two feet above ground. No bars. She hated barred windows. Bars made a home look besieged. Susceptible to invasion. If there weren't real danger, why would a home need bars? What if there were a fire?

She hesitated with her hand on the basement door knob. She hated scary movies. They were either dumb or really scary. Screeching violins warning the hapless heroine not to go down those stairs. But she always went. The idiot.

The cat rubbed against her legs then sat waiting expectantly for her to open the door. He always wanted to be first down the stairs.

She held her breath and opened the door just a crack. The cat -- his ears and eyes focused on her -- waited for the door to open enough for him to run through. She knew he thought she was acting strange. She thought she was acting strange. 

She listened for a sound, any sound. The heat came on and the vent in the entryway across the hall rattled. Just as it always did. The familiar sound should have calmed her. Or irritated her. She'd asked him to try taping it open so it wouldn't rattle. He said he had duct tape in the garage. She'd do it herself in the morning.

She opened the door wide. At the base of the stairwell, the laundry room door stood ajar. A narrow beam of light sliced across the basement floor leaving the terracotta tiles beyond in deep gloom. Maybe she should have chosen light colored tiles. 

She didn't remember leaving the laundry room light on. Growing up in her father's house inculcated the mantra "waste not, want not." On leaving a room, she always turned the lights off. Sometimes to her embarrassment, if someone was still in the room.

The cat did not rush headlong down the stairs. Had he heard something? Sensed something? 

Should she call the police?

And tell them what? It's dark? Her husband is gone? The cat's afraid to go down into the basement?

Maybe she should just make a pot of coffee.

She closed the basement door. And locked it. She was glad he'd put the lock on the door to keep their youngest grandchild from tumbling down the stairs.

She'd wait and see.