The Great White Hope

I teach a film class and last week for some reason or another we started talking about movies that deal with diverse topics through the welcoming eyes of a progressive white person. We talked about THE HELP and how pale red-headed Emma Stone had to navigate the civil rights era. How Kevin Kline suffered through Apartheid as a white South African man in CRY FREEDOM. How straight lawyer Denzel Washington gave us a glimpse of the AIDS crisis as he helped a dying Tom Hanks.

And yes, I know that Donald Woods, the Kevin Kline character, was a real person and a good friend of martyr Steve Biko and suffered for that friendship and his activism. And Denzel Washington is not actually white, but if you do the math – he is still the “regular guy” in PHILIDELPHIA: it fits the theme. I and contend that THE HELP is a flawed film. Amazing performances all around, and it's heart is in the right place, but it still has that air of – let's just peek into this world, but not too far.

We will circle back to this later.

I read a very reassuring article from the Boston Globe entitled “Seven Reasons to Move to Massachusetts Instead of Canada.” http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2016/11/10/seven-reasons-move-massachusetts-instead-canada/LNy3P3GcWxbAmgoCFGiKrJ/story.html?s_campaign=bostonglobe%3Asocialflow%3Afacebook it made me feel so much better about this election. We have universal health care, marriage equity, legal weed, nice people, progressive state government, we're close to the border if you have to make the jump and you don't need to emigrate to move here.

Yes, I am still nervous about the economy and women's rights, but I also enjoy my comfy New England cocoon.

But then again, I am a middle aged, middle class white lady.

I have a good friend at church who moved here from India. She was a tech writer and a radio DJ before and now she is a stay at home mom. Her husband is an engineer and they are here for his work. Their two extraordinary kids were born here. This fall, the kids invited me to attend their school's grandparents day program because their grandparents are all in India. I was both honored and a little concerned. (It was actually grandparents and FRIENDS, their mom was quick to point out. But let's face it, I could easily have grand kids that age if things had gone differently. Again, a post for another day!)

Anyway my friend organized the missions meal on Wednesday – feeding 40 or so people in town who otherwise wouldn't eat – and we were chatting in the parking lot. The subject of the election came up. She and I had been out to dinner last month and we joked around about how if she and her husband got deported, I would be happy to raise her kids. (And I really would, they are so fun...) But when we talked on Wednesday, it was less funny. She asked if I would hide her and her husband. It was still a joke, but my first thought was Anne Frank and Meip Gies didn't see it coming either.

Do I think that it is going to come to building a fake room in my attic? Of course not. And my attic is horrible. But the fear is real.

I wrote a college recommendation for one of the best students I have ever had. She is super smart, very funny, brave, ballsy and kind. I took my son and some of his friends to a free concert in Boston last year and she was there. She wanted to see the band so she snuck out and went. She is just the kind of girl I wish I had been in high school. She is also Muslim and her parents emigrated here from Iraq.

I read her college essay where she talked about them fleeing oppression in their country, meeting in a refugee camp and building a life in America. It was a masterwork. (She is seriously getting into college on that writing alone...) It was a beautiful illustration of the American Dream at work, with a side of adolescent identity crisis and a dash of humor. Man, it was good.

Well, this morning I woke up at 4 am in a cold sweat (okay, hot flash, whatever...) and I remembered that this student told me her parents were going back to Iraq for a month. She would be staying with her adult siblings at home. And I felt so very bad. Not just for my student, but for her mom. How awful to come here and build this life and raise strong, smart, able children and know that while you are thousands of miles away, your little girl is waking up in a country that just elected a man who has more than implied that all Muslims are terrorists, who wants to ban people based on their religion. I picture her coming back in a few weeks, feeling less welcome. Worrying about getting through customs.

I don't have these fears for myself, but these fears are real and I am heartsick for GLBTQ friends and students and the worry they are facing now. Again, Massachusetts is cool with whatever. We love you here, man. But the whole country is not Massachusetts and there are kids all over the the U.S. thinking – well, maybe I'll just just curl up in this closet a little longer. Or worse. We all know the suicide statistics. I pray for these kids.

I am trying not to say anything bad about the president elect. I am not really typing his name. And it's not because of the Voldemort thing. And I am not saying anything about him that is not factually true: no opinions, no comparisons to Frito-lay snack foods. And it is not because I fear eventual death squads coming for me. I am not going to protest. I am not going to say, “Not my president,” but I recognize that there are lots of people who need to stand up and scream just that.

Instead I am going to pray and try to spread kindness and be aware of the needs of others and, hopefully, be helpful.

The litany of fears for me is pretty dull – middle aged fat lady fears dip in retirement savings and possible book burnings. Maybe being referred to as a “dog” if I meet the president. (We know he hates Rosie and she is one of my celebrity dopplegangers.) But I don't want to forget that for many people this is completely gutting. And if you need to talk, or need a surrogate mom, or grandma, I am here.

THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

I don't know how many of you have heard. But this weekend marks the end of one of the most important relationships of my life. We have been together 30 years. Man, I was only 11 when we met, but from the first time we were together, I knew it was going to be the sort of love that lasts a lifetime.

But sadly, sometimes you know that even though you are soulmates, one of you gives too much, one of you takes too much. It can be toxic. It can dull your senses, hurt your heart, give you emphysema and, of course, cancer.

Yes, I am breaking up with cigarettes. And it's killing me, but also, it's killing me. They say that breaking up is hard to do. And I know, I know that it's true. We have split up before.

I would occasionally try to be good in middle school. Yes, I was that creepy middle school kid, walking along the train tracks, stunting my growth with a pack of my father's Winstons burning a hole in the pocket of my sweet denim decal pocketbook listening to my new walkman play Billy Joel's badass PIANO MAN album. But I knew it was wrong. So I would stop and then I would start.

In high school my single most vivid memory is sitting in the girls bathroom reading Stephen King's THE SHINING and smoking True blues that I stole from Mrs. Dansik whose demon children I babysat for twice a week. Her kids were awful. She owed me! Plus they owned a deli and had, like, eight cartons of cigarettes open in the kitchen at all times. They were practically begging me to help myself. Reading and smoking. They go together like the apostle Paul and guilt – forever married in my mind.

Okay, college. I promised my mom I wouldn't start smoking when I went away to college. This was an easy promise to make since I had been smoking for 7 years by the time I left. Hey, there is a difference between careful syntax and lying to your mom.

I started out with Marlboro lights. So freaking cool! Freshman year I would go into Boston alone one day a week and buy a pack and just sit and read and watch people. The McDonalds in Downtown Crossing in the morning, the Public Garden in the afternoon and (after a trip to the Boston Public Library, of course) the bar in the Copley Plaza where they never once thought I was a hooker looking for business in the hotel bar. Must have been my Levis and crew neck sweater.

Sophomore year I met my new roommates, Sheila and Cheryl. They were gorgeous and popular and probably never would have befriended a geeky little nascent-hippie like me except for the one thing we had in common. We smoked Virginia Slims Light Menthols. Good grief, they were the cotton candy of cigarettes. We ran around and went to clubs and neglected our studies. It was glorious.

From 1986-1992 I was fortunate to live a glorious extended adolescence. I smoked generic cigarettes at Grateful Dead shows, I smoked hand-rolled in Europe, I tried to smoke less when I got home and moved in with Rich because he hated it. And then I met the man who would stop me in my tracks.

He was actually a fetus, named Frank. (Well, full disclosure, he was called Cleatus the Fetus until a few days after he was born.) Yeah, I quit to have kids. I had a pretty good run, too. I had a couple of slips between boys, but for the most part, I didn't smoke for nearly 15 years - from 1992 until after I had been working at the high school awhile.

Any teachers out there? Holla! Yeah, you all know why I went back to smoking... Actually, it wasn't the stress it was the summer vacation. All this time and fresh air and blue sky! My kids were adolescent, they loved it if I went to Salem Willows and sat on a blanket and read novels all day while chain-smoking! Granted, they didn't know about the chain smoking part, but they loved having me gone. I'd smoke all summer, quit all winter. Until my summers got longer and my winters never materialized and I realized I was just a full time smoker. And I was 50 and it was time to get over it.

So here I am. I have what I hope is my last pack of Camel blues in my purse and I am going to blow through them, perhaps weeping, as I drive around this weekend. I have a copy of Jennifer Weiner's HUNGRY HEART on my passenger seat and that looks like the perfect smoking book. And it's about food issues. Bwahahahaha! Look for that post coming soon...

I have been saying, “I will quit for good when Trump concedes on November 9.” So much for good intentions. But I am not going to let him keep me chained to this toxic habit. It is embarrassing and unhealthy and while I seem to have completely dropped the “bad relationship” metaphor, I need to break up with cigarettes. I will miss you forever, my darlings, but it is a pain in the ass always scrambling around to try to find an excuse to leave the house to smoke. And also you make me smell like death. (TM, Annika McKenzie)

So (to paraphrase) I press on, grouchily, fingernails bit down to the nub, hopefully into the future.

WHY I'M STILL WITH HER

Dear Role Model,

Did you ever know that you're my hero? Not so much the wind beneath my wings, but rather the mouthy, badass, don't-mess with-me 17 year old broad my awkward, Christian-school attending, Betsy-Tacy-book reading 13 year old self longed to be.

As my big sister's best friend, I watched you and wanted to be just like you. When you and Susan deigned to spend time with me, it was a gift.

When I found out you were a Trump supporter, I was gobsmacked. You're fricking brilliant! You are well educated. You're a great mom. You are loving and kind and you still don't take any shit from anyone. You are who I wanted to be when I grew up! (And yes, the vast chasm of years between 50 and 54 is still as immense as it was back in 1978.)

I ended up blocking your posts on Facebook a few months ago. They made me sad. I know that in liberal old Massachusetts, many people think like me. Most all of my friends are left-wing nut-jobs. I am a teacher/librarian for crying out loud. I should have had a Hillary tattoo on my arm, right next to “Born to Read!”

But I know that in most other states, the ones in the middle, the ones I lived in before we “moved east” there are a lot of people who feel like you. Even women. Smart women. And they feel like they have been screwed over. “The Elites” are trying to tell them what to think. The power brokers in politics and “The Sheeple” who follow them and tacitly approve, are giving all the money and the good jobs to people who are different. And Isis hates us. And men in dresses want to go in our bathrooms and watch our children pee. And all the abortions. And they want to take our guns! It just has to stop.

And honestly, I know you are not all those women. And God knows there are other women I love, to whom I could never even attempt to explain my disappointment, who voted for not-Hillary.

I don't think I can articulate why her candidacy meant so much to me. I am crying as I write this. Just as I cried with joy when I cast my vote for her, when I drove down the highway to my friend LC's house to watch election results. I was singing along with Ry Cooder at the top of my lungs to “Women Will Rule the World”. I felt so powerful. A woman was going to be president. Mother-fracking PRESIDENT! And I got to see it happen.

And then it didn't. And I am so sad.

But it will happen, someday. Eventually somebody – maybe Elizabeth Warren (I bet you hate her!) or maybe one of my students, or the daughter of a friend, or someone's granddaughter – a woman not yet born. Someday a women will be elected. And I pray to see it. But every election year until then, this will be my happiest political memory. My false certainty that a woman I deeply respect, who has done nothing but help the people of this country, would be rewarded with the highest office in the land. That she could wrest this honor from the grip of a man about whom the kindest thing I can say is – he has not held public office or been known for any civic involvement – seemed sensible.

But I was wrong. And I am so, so sad.

And I don't mean to harsh your buzz, but those patriots that conservative women voted for are going to disappoint you. It is not going to get better for us. For women. Not for four years, and you can bet your bottom dollar I am right. They will pay lip service to the issues you care about. We're old broads now, I'm not worrying about anything I'm carrying around being grabbed like a small feline. But I work with teenage girls every day who are still being made to feel bad about their looks and their perceived worth. They are too hot or not hot enough. They are too flirty or not flirty enough. They are being judged by their peers and strangers in ways that are directly related to their status as women.

I think of them going to college in the next four years. And I am so so so so so sad.

President Hillary Clinton wasn't going to cure misogyny the way President Barack Obama didn't cure racism. But the conversation would have continued. Our voices would be heard in ways that have not yet been heard. And I sure would have liked to see it.

I don't begrudge you your happiness, or relief, or whatever you are feeling. I just felt like I wanted to have a record of what it feels like on the other side right now. I don't know if you will ever see this. Do I have the ovaries to brave your wrath by pointing you to this post? Hey, if you get mad – we've just got recreational marijuana legalized in Massachusetts. Come on up for a visit and I'll try to set you up and we can talk.

Love,
Barb