Nothing Human is Alien to Me

Wilder’s cries woke me at 5:25am. I had stayed awake until 2:20am so I already knew. But lying there, waiting and hoping he could sooth himself back to sleep, I was watching the AP ticker the moment the race was called.

Wilder couldn’t stop his tears. I went in and scooped him up.

As I held him in that moment I wanted to remember it, so we took this picture.

A few minutes later my daughter slipped in as well and cuddled into my arms. This is not how we normally start our days. My kids are good sleepers. But some days you just need to be held.

An hour later I was hollering at my daughter as she tried to rip Halloween candy out of my hand, and feeling horrible for hollering at her, and grieving the fact that whatever is in these millions of people voting for that man and all he stands for, well, it’s lurking inside me as well.

Writers have to make choices. Do I tell stories or make points? Do I lean into comfort and the pastoral or does this moment call for rallying and the prophetic? Should I offer analysis of what happened or point toward what to do next? What kind of affect is most appropriate? Do we need practices to move with and through emotions or practices to survive what’s coming?

Writers have to make choices, and so do we all. But being human means everything can be true all at once, in all the contradictions, unfolding and swirling and numbing and bewildering and raging and silent as the hours go on. “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.” “Nothing human is alien to me,” said the playwright Terrence. And there is nothing human that is not allowed for you right now. If you want to fight, fight. If you need to zone out, zone out. If you need to eat an entire cake, eat it. If you need to walk or run or lift weights, do it. If you want to talk, talk. Or if you need your space, take it. If you need to just scream into the ether, scream away. If you want to read all the things, read ‘em. Or if you just can’t right now, that’s fine. Either way probably going to feel like shit the next morning for a while anyways. Hell, I fell asleep at 7:30 last night, slept for eleven hours, and I still feel like shit.

I’ve spent the last four years focused less on “resistance” and mostly on surviving (pandemics, parenthood, settling into a new city, etc.) and building the good (kids, a family, a cooperative, my soul, fleshing out a vision for the world I want). The Biden administration was, comparatively, a lull in the action that seemed — rightly or wrongly — to provide space for those projects. They are still what I long to move toward. But the times are changing, or perhaps have already long since changed. It is not yet clear what will be required in the days ahead.

There is no escaping reality. And while numbness, cynicism, complacency, and complicity are not paths down which we can be fully human nor honor the humanity of others, there will be time enough for everything. Sooner than we want. I will turn to writing on other matters in time. But right now my simple message is not: “I’ll be doing this,” or “Here’s how you should interpret that,” and definitely not “You should be diving into XYZ right away.”

My message is simply that it’s ok to be human right now in whatever ways your particular human body, mind, and spirit is processing this in each unfolding moment. Try to be tender with yourself and with others in the midst of it all. And when we’re not, forgive and apologize. Because we’re going to need one another more than ever.

With love and solidarity,
Nathan