when the fixers are broken

be a needle

This is all over the place, but so is everything else, right? I started writing the first week of October and finished writing on the day after the election, so this is not what I wanted this piece to be, but it’s what it became. I love you.

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I was seventeen the first time my father told me no.

There was a field trip of some sort coming up, for the life of me I cannot remember where to, but I asked him for $50 to go to the unknown place and he flatly said, “No. I don’t have it.” I’d made it to my senior year of high school with very few unmet desires; most requests were nothing more than prompts for the unfolding of a wallet, the swiping of a card, the nodding of a head.

But now, “No.” Two teensy letters with the tonnage of a 737.

My parents had just separated, and the spirit of my mother was still palpable in that hulking house. Swift ghosts of vanilla — her favorite — glid through the clammy southern air and stilettos stood stiff as headstones in the corners of this room and that one.

I’m sure there had been others — other nos — no jumping on the bed, no video games before homework, no swimming after lunch — but something about this one felt unalike. Maybe it was the fact that I, spoiled and solipsistic, felt it at all.

So, instead of acting out, I just tilted my head, blinked. I just said, “okay.” I just trudged to my bedroom and closed the door, softly even. I just laid down, stared up at the nothing. And when a sob ripped from his throat and through the thick wood of the door, I just pretended not to hear it.

No: not a slap, or a wrath, but a reluctant denial, or a plea, from a man newly split in two.

This was not supposed to be about the election. I very intentionally did NOT want to speak on the election, regardless of the outcome, but that now feels impossible at best and irresponsible at worst.

My last post was published on September 29th. The post you’re now reading was started during the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, on October 9th(ish). I read an interview with a guy who had opened a (now completely annihilated) bar mere days before the storm hit, with hopes of providing a queer safe haven in an otherwise uninviting area. I read about an avid boater who desperately wanted to help neighbors escape the rising waters, but could not find gas for their boat. A few days later I read about the escalation in Jabalia. The floods in Valencia a few days after that. And then the suicides in Sudan. And then, and then, and then. The tragedies outpaced my pen and the next thing I knew, a full month had passed.

One of the first things I read this morning, the day the US presidential election results were released, was an outraged Instagram post from a stranger that I no longer follow: Can you believe that my therapist didn’t show up for our standing appointment, today of all days?

To expect your therapist, a person, a woman, to be able to show up and talk you through the exact same shock that she is currently living is unhinged, but the thinking tracks with the individualism that America perpetuates.

Traditionally, there are people that we look to to “fix” things, and we don’t often consider them beyond the realm of the service(s) they provide. Therapists cure depression. Dentists fill cavities. Mechanics change oil filters. Activists march. Fathers provide.

But what happens when the therapist suffers from depression, too? When the dentist needs a root canal? When the activists’ feet bleed and hands go raw from the desperate clutching of picket signs? When the father falls apart? What happens when the problems outweigh the solutions?

What happens when there are more broken things than there are fixers?

We are in the thick of the unraveling. That’s less of an opinion than it is a fact, but then again I’m not the authority on “the end.”

Pessimism leaves little room for disappointment and so oddly, I’ve taken a bit of comfort in the collapse. I find the unknown to be unbearable; a monster in full view is better than one lurking under the bed.

Waking up to the official results this morning, sick and alone and not in the US, two things happened:

First, I could not find a shred of optimism in my online bubble. There are always, always a handful of people who I now realize that I rely on to provide the “yes, and…” perspective during the bleak times. I tap tap tapped through the flurry of stories — all defeated, all angry, all hopeless, all desperate for a punchline, (and, to be clear, all justified).

Secondly, I was overcome by an inexplicable desire to make a mammoth pot of soup for my family and friends. Though I’m usually happier abroad, I wanted nothing more than to be sweating, stirring, standing over a stove in the country I despise, soothing the ones that I love the most.

I am told that my identities are some of the most unfortunate — Black, queer, woman. Even still, there are others who face more acute threats — my trans siblings, folks below the poverty line, abortion-seekers, immigrants. American is by no means a badge of honor and yet — even in the muck of whatever circle of hell we’re waist-deep in, even with my unlucky trifecta of identifiers — it grants me an (albeit, unearned) notable amount of privilege. At least for now.

Rightfully, certain groups are tired of living on the frontlines. They are hoarse from the yelling, necks stiff from being planted on the chopping block. They are exhausted, weary, broken, and in need of reprieve.

Historically, I have not been much of a helper or a fixer. I did not feel it fair or effective to fight for a place that deems me disposable. But in many ways, that thinking is misguided. A country is, whether we like it or not, a home of a sort. By opting out, I am abandoning everyone at my kitchen table. I am looking into the still-bright eyes of my nieces and nephews and telling them that they are not worth my effort. I am not sure that it will matter, but I feel a newly birthed responsibility to try.

The younger me, that spoiled child, shimmers to mind. Though the circumstances are obviously more dire — the nos potentially earth-shattering, life-threatening — I once again hear sobs. This time though, I want to rip the door open.

Don’t get me wrong, I am terrified. Over the next four years, and likely beyond, my marriage may very well be annulled, I’ll surely be called all types of slurs in the street, hell, maybe I’ll literally be burned at the stake. We are, without a doubt, at the precipice of an unprecedented time. The unnerving truth is that many fights up to this point have been in the name of progress and now, we must gear up to combat regression. There is no playbook for our imminent melee, and one privilege we can no longer sustain is that of finger pointing. We are all responsible. It actually doesn’t matter if the house is made of glass, wood, or brick. We’re not talking stones here, we’re talking flames, and no one — no one — is immune to the effects of CO2.

So, read a book. Grab a hammer. Bake a pie. Take a turn. Give a hug. Lend a hand. Listen. Offer Kleenex. Donate. Tell a joke. Write an essay. Make a sign. Fight. Offer your spare room. Do what you can. There’s no one way to repair.

The quilt of this country — and by unfortunate extension, much of the world — already faded and filthy and tattered, is being ripped apart stitch by stitch.

Be a thread when you must, and be a needle when you can.