"WE'RE WINNING"

Lately, I’ve been having a difficult time with fear and despair. Renee Good’s murder affected me deeply, not so much because I’m unaware of or unused to state-sponsored violence or ICE’s status as America’s Gestapo, and not even because I’m especially affected by the murder of a fellow poet, but because if even a White woman can be shot three times in the face unprovoked and her ICE-agent murderer be celebrated by the Administration and their supporters, then my understanding of how to survive and thrive under our present circumstance might no longer apply. The threat to my own safety is nothing new and doesn’t move the needle with me, but now that I’m married, building a life and a family with the love of my life, well, that complicates things. The stakes feel higher than ever.

These ideas have been in the background of my consciousness for some time. They’re always present, but in the main, I’m able to ignore them and remain functional. This weekend, I discussed these things candidly with my wife, and all of the sudden, they became impossible to ignore. The anxiety and dread weren’t crippling, but they did cast me into a terrible mood that it was hard to claw my way back from. Add to all this that last week was the first one of Winter Quarter at Northwestern and that I’m still on medical leave for my left knee, and I was just having a hard time coping.

I went to a comedy show, watched Kechi host and perform. I made good food, cheered her on as she revised her one-woman show, did some reading, and went to physical therapy on Monday. I even baked a couple loaves of sourdough bread—something that for all the boredom and insanity of the pandemic lockdown, I’d never done before. All those things helped, but then last night, I had a couple dreams that feel significant. One was a relatively standard flight dream. Hyper-realistic, beautiful, and weightless, it was one more in a series of flight-dreams I’ve been having lately with an increased frequence in the new year. The reason I mention it is that I can’t help but connect it with another, much stranger dream I had. In this other dream, I was in what felt like a Black Box theater space where the seating consisted of elevated risers positioned across from not a stage, but a sort of gallery space where representational portraits and posters hung in tiers either against a barely-visible wall, or suspended in space. This series of portraits was meant to represent capitalist and white supremacist world society. Along with a group of allies, I threw objects—stones, land-line telephone handsets, magic eightballs and real billiard balls, at the portraits to knock them down.

It took some time, but working together, we were able to break and knock down all the portraits, from bottom to top, and the process filled me with a sense of hope and exhilaration. The thing that strikes me about this dream is that on the one hand, the symbolism is particularly bald in a way that it rarely is in my dreams. There are usually many layers of subtext, and it’s common for me to feel that while my sleeping mind is trying its best to be direct, that the core meaning of my dream eludes me. This time, though, it was very clear: we have to keep applying pressure because we’re winning.

Look, I’m not deluded. Things are dark, and I’m afraid of what’s happening outside my window. The only time I’ve seen life in our country become this much uglier this quickly is right after 9/11. It often feels like we’re losing ground by the second, and people are literally dying over it both at home and abroad. I’m not sure that my dream was trying to comment on the present circumstance, but that swell of passion, that thrill of hope buoyed my spirits just the same, and it reminded me what we’re fighting for in the first place. That dream, taken with the other one of racing through the storm-tossed heavens, my clothes wet from punching through crowds as a storm battered the city beneath me, has given me what I needed to return to myself today—not entirely renewed, but more hopeful and more functional.

Those weren’t my only dreams last night, either. I had some others not really worth mentioning, except for the fact that, at least, at times, I was aware that I was asleep and dreaming. I haven’t specifically tried lucid dreaming since my brother and I worked at it during my childhood. Every now and then, I become aware that I’m asleep, that what’s happening around me isn’t conventionally real, but it doesn’t usually directly influence events. In these dreams, I was very aware, and it allowed me to shift my perspective, to be less worried when things became irritating or frightening. I’m still not sure what all that means, but one thing I do know is that I feel better.

Last week, I also got my hair cut at the barber shop for the first time since my injury. I’ve gone out without my brace or my walker and was able to get around on my own. I’ve started using a cane which is far more maneuverable than the walker, not to mention the wheelchair I used for a time. For quite a while during my recovery, I wondered whether I would ever walk without a limp again. I still don’t know for sure, but a complete recovery seems fully possible now.

A couple other things: this week, Kechi and I have quit added sugar. We tried that for the first time the first full week of the new year, but only for three days. Now, we’re going to stay on track until we head back to New Orleans for a quick visit at the end of the month. It turns out a burlesque troupe is producing a book-club show based on my novel, The Ballad of Perilous Graves. That’s something I’ve never seen before, and it’s an excellent reason to head back home for a couple days. We’re going to bite the bullet and drive there and back! So we’re still here and so are you. We’re living our lives, we’re doing our best, and all is not yet lost. I don’t know if we’re winning yet, but we can. I know we can.

Let’s keep fighting.