Day 11. March 26, 2020.
I am thinking about my father and mother and all they have been through. They triumphed despite their fears, imagined and the kind that grab you by the side, the kind where there is no Plan B, no Plan C, no Plan.
They are not exceptionally daring; in fact, quite the opposite. They have always been quite calculated in their risks but there have been plenty of risks. I suppose one has to keep moving when you are making decisions involving survival with four children to provide for and no other support network.
People can’t even move to another city within the state they are born in and here they were, two beautiful young people, moving from country to country until they arrived in United States of America, not for money–they made more in the Middle East–but for an idea. That idea was freedom, especially freedom of and from imposed religion.
I am thinking about 9/11. University of Kansas was deserted for days. I can’t remember when the decision to resume classes was made but it was. I thought everyone on campus was asking me for an answer; now I know people didn’t even have questions. I was enrolled in a course called “Protests and Revolutions” and the professor, one of the most brilliant researchers and educators on the topic, explained the phenomenon of a revolution. It was never something “big” like Black Lives, Occupy Wall Street (I know: bad examples since those “protests” have just about vanished given the Social Media attention span), or anything of that sort. It was always something little that brought everyone together. The Russian Revolution, he told us, began by a group of people just not showing up to the baking factories. The consequences were harsh and yet no one went to work. There was no secret-note-passing, nothing. The collective consciousness of the people had had it. Of course he was only talking about the inciting moment and not what led to it nor what followed. He brought that up because it was around that time when U.S. citizens, collectively, began placing little American Flags on their cars and homes. There was no memorandum that went out, no media propaganda (at least not related to that). Personally, our home phone line was wired, international calls to certain countries not allowed, followed by names on No-Fly lists.
It was a very dark time; there was no one to provide answers because no one knew what to ask. But one thing my parents were not confused about was whether or not they were Americans and whether or not Islamic fundamentalism was a plague, a plague in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere.
In times of disproportionate hysteria, it’s very important to hold onto what you know no matter what CNN or FOX or Social Media keeps repeating. This knowing doesn’t happen by putting your head in the sand and turning off the news (which, unfortunately, we have to because it’s just sickening how anyone can think of making a profit out of people’s circumstances and fears) but it does require honesty with yourself.
Times like then and now and all the other times in between and the times in the future, where there is more darkness than light, you have to reconcile opposing truths. Extreme example: there are people here in NM who didn’t vote for and still don’t like Governor Michelle Grisham Lujan but they have to accept she has kicked it out of the ball park with her leadership when it comes to this virus (of course she is not doing it alone and she has bipartisan support). We are doing great in NM because she didn’t wait to get a Memo and acted on instinct and shut schools when there were only 6 cases in the entire state (which is not as populated to begin with). Same goes for anyone else that you may adore politically (why anyone would adore anyone politically is beyond me? You are their constituent and it’s your job to hold them accountable to their job; you task isn’t to “like” them as some guy or gal you can see yourself having pizza or beer or a photo op. with!) but you have to accept if they are not doing what they are supposed to be doing. That’s the kind of honesty I mean.
Should we have carpet-bombed Afghanistan after 9-11 (we are still there!) to show (who?) we “got’em”? No. Are the Taliban a plague then and now? Yes.
Is this virus serious? Yes. Is everyone trying to do their best so we can control the harm? Yes. Is this going to pass? Yes.
Leave you all with a Maya Angelou quote that Mr. Gallagher shared last week:
