He is not about politics. This is about politics. Catch it. I am also trying to catch it. Imagine the unspeakable happening. In this case, it is a terrible act of terrorism. In this case, it is a terrible act of terrorism in a country established as a refuge. Imagine the terrible reactions. Imagine people seeing, hurting, hurting, getting angry, getting sad. So sad. The word doesn't reach the depth - shock, sadness, helplessness. Clearly it is October. The sky is impossible where I live. The trees are golden, orange, and crimson.
As with everything happening in the aquarium of 24/7 news, social media, and smartphones, news is not news but shooting. Violent people. Information and misinformation and information. There is intense disagreement between real and false. It is happening faster than I can handle. But there is urgency. Delay. To say. What? All the violence we focus on is happening where our hands cannot reach. I feel like a child suddenly having a nightmare in front of the tracks in front of a train. Trying to jump from the platform to the track. Put yourself in the shadow of the inevitable train barrel in Harm's Way and you cannot avoid it. But it's a dream, and the legs sting like sharp pins and needles as if frozen. When you wake up, your heart races and the train hasn't reached the body, but you know. You know. We can never reach the people we love. And that's the worst.
What is happening in real time is that some of my friends felt very differently about the war than I did. What is happening in real time is that some of our family members felt differently about how to respond to the war. What is happening in real time is that my reaction did not match that of my friends or family. My reaction did not match the speed and politics of the 24/7 social media steroid situation. Even journalism seemed unsure of its bias. I couldn't understand the scale of loss of loss included in intergenerational trauma (my people, other people, all people). There was as much history as people. I was dealing with what I knew and felt. I was working hard. I didn't think much about anything else.
Time travel. Almost immediately after 9/11 and our country's decision to go to war, I knew we would go to war in the fall of the towers, the hole in the Pentagon, and the plane in the field in Pennsylvania. The impossible glorious day - the blue sky of robin's eggs across the entire northeast, its beauty and smoke and fire, and the dissonance of life before. I thought of the city I knew, people fainting, panicking, getting angry, proud to band together. I saw hatred like sudden growth. Brown people were not safe, not trusted, not welcomed. This was wrong. Hatred would break us, I was sure. I said we needed almost all Democratic votes until the war started. I went on vacation with my family. I said, "This war is wrong." My dad, a D.C. Democrat, disagreed. He declared, "We have to go to war." There was basketball playoffs and war coverage on TV.
The beach was the beach, reminding us that beauty and peace exist, holding the sea and sky. I looked outside and still tried. This is a moment over time and different moments have happened and if not shells over time, what is sand? I was so sad it was despair. On the way to the airport, we passed protesters at the Kiss pieces in Sarasota, Florida. I thought some of us, not all of us, had never resolved the war. I could blame my Quaker School and Quaker Camp for my faith. I could see Vietnam as a child and see violence as a terrible wrong.
On the first day after October 7th, my child asked, "Did you feel the Iraq war start?"
"Almost, yes," I said. I wrote a letter to Barbara Lee, a congresswoman who opposed giving blank checks to George W. Bush for the war. I remembered what I wrote on a postcard 20 years later. You are my representative today. Thank you.
Just as many people thought what happened after October was stupid, among Jews there was more support for Israel and at least at some point more military response, but more young people - often their own children - protested Israel's actions. Many young people stood up for Palestinian rights. This is not about age or religion. There are many judgments on both sides. Concerns about how those opposed to the war will vote in November. Concerns about the rise of anti-Semitism, racism against black and brown people, and people of Arab descent. I think we are continuing to ask the most constructive questions. Whose suffering is the greatest? Meanwhile, the intensity increased at the end of the semester. Protests popped up across campus as students protesting on campus popped up across campus and whacked moles.
I am in an increasingly visible environment that I am starting to lose. It is important to clarify that the pain of those directly harmed is most important before asking questions about the loss of human relationships and how they appear. People lose their lives or lose their lives. I started listing the streets, but we know what they are.
I caused discomfort by making friends and friends angry to avoid loss of life in Gaza. Because to some extent it was not about avoiding the horror Hamas had committed. I was angry enough about the loss in Gaza to make others angry. My Jewishness and internalized anti-Semitism were summoned. I did not become close friends with friends. I became close to family and friends. I thought we were losing the war because war is an insane proposition.
But what emerges is always a vulnerable proposition. How many times did I say I was wrong when someone was suffering? The answer is too many to count and probably unknown. Is it a way to respond in a numb way because I have not learned how to confirm myself to the extent that privilege as a CIS, queer, white, wealthy woman does not cause harm? Again, some I know, and many I don't.
What I can honestly say from the knockout is that pulling out on social media is far more damaging than reacting. Especially trying to support organizations that address domestic violence means violence gets more. Violence, so war is not a solution. My awareness of the personal cost of survivors of domestic violence, regardless of whether children have been physically harmed, has been reinforced, regardless of whether efforts to the personal cost for the violence experienced and the next generation have been reinforced. War is exponential. Every family directly touched will have a direct impact. And from that perspective, all sides are lacking to those caught up in political urgency. I heard I was deaf. And it could be.
Personally, the difficult feeling is the essence of how not being able to have conversations online that help understand each other's perspectives in real time and love makes it impossible. By saying less online, I have had many conversations with people who carry all other perspectives in real time and feel all other ways in real time. This includes many families, American/Israeli women and children and spouses who do not agree with friends. Due to my relatively quiet online presence, I was able to participate in that conversation. Friends I talked to said they could listen better than spouses or children, and I said I could listen to them. We didn't go straight to politics. We started and often kept emotions.
I have a perspective. I was a host and activist. As a writer, I believe in the power of our voices. So I continue to contact my representatives and the White House, pushing for a ceasefire, no military aid to Israel, and continued advocacy for humanitarian aid to Gaza to reach safety. If I had a job at my alma mater's campus, I hope the administration would have a respectful space for peaceful protests. I hope we all hold each other with gentleness, empathy, and care, as we strive to hold them as carefully as possible. Courtney Martin and Garrett Bucks, author of The Right White, summarized what I want to do and said we must continue to strive to learn without finishing or completely "getting it." This is the challenge: Do I care more about my personal self or am I interested in other humans? The moment I relied on the right religion, I created many aspects of my life, such as politics, faith, relationships - what they can prove about me. The moment I fell in love with the right religion, I worried about how I appeared to others and cared for them.