Healing the Divide

The flu came on me suddenly on election night.  By 3am I was exhausted and very sick. The next morning didn’t improve. It felt very much like September 11, 2001. My body ached and feelings of grief and despair permeated my day. Unlike 2001, I found no comfort in daily routines.  I could no longer mask my feelings from my children with the busyness of life with toddlers. There were no distractions, no stories and no playgrounds to visit.

Following the September 11 attacks the feeling of safety slipped away, and like many others, I found myself in a state of constant anxiety.  Though I didn’t vote for President Bush, I did look to him for reassurance and for a brief period I felt somewhat confident that we might eventually return to a state of normalcy.  But my fear was pernicious and I began to get physically ill. The hidden blessing was that I became more aware of my body and its intuition. I began to listen and trust the signals it sent.  Fifteen years later my election night flu came as no surprise.

To some drawing a parallel between September 11^th and election day 2016 may seem ridiculous.  After all a presidential election is not a terrorist attack. On election day we weren’t attacked by violent extremists who hated us and were driven to inculcate fear into our daily lives.  No, this time we were assaulted from within.  This time the fear and hatred was homegrown.

I know Hillary Clinton wasn’t perfect, heck I was with Bernie.  She is a part of the establishment, a politician with tons of baggage.  If she was running against Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio or Chris Christie( I can’t include Ted Cruz here) we could unpack all that and have a real discussion.  If she was simply running against a billionaire businessman who claimed a few bankruptcies, made a couple of shady real estate deals and was offering a voice to those who have been economically disenfranchised I’d say fair game. All these scenarios seem like a breath of fresh air compared to what we all experienced, because this was no ordinary election. Donald Trump was no ordinary candidate and by that I’m not implying he was extraordinary.  

The 2016 presidential election dismantled our commonality and fractured our moral core.  It feels less like a democratic process and more like a farcical Shakespearian comedy.  So how do we move beyond this? How do we, as a nation, heal?

Many people are saying…   Give him a chance, trust the process, this is how democracy works and get over it!  In other words let’s just pretend that this is normal.  Well, guess what?  It’s not normal and I think we all know this in our gut.

Dysfunction in a family system is protected by secrets and denial and a nation is no different.  Those that call out problem are often attacked and ostracized. The system will go to desperate lengths to protect itself. Lifting the covers and revealing the shame and vulnerability that lurks beneath is just too painful, but it is necessary to heal.

Being prejudiced and judgmental is a part of the human psyche. To a greater or lesser degree we all have prejudices and we all judge.  Our awareness of this dismantles its power over us.  Donald Trump has done a stellar job of bringing our hidden and darker sides into the light.  He’s our nation’s identified patient, our problem child.  

We can’t put our nation on the couch and we can’t send it to military school, but we can begin a conversation. I have a starter question… Why?  If you voted for Donald Trump how and why were you able to look past all the hate, fear, misogyny, racism and xenophobia to justify your vote?*  Honestly, I really want to know!  I really want to understand. In fact, I’m desperate to understand, because if I don’t I will fall apart inside and slowly drop out of your life. If our paths cross I will pretend everything is normal, but deep down I will feel fractured and broken, my faith in humanity shriveled. 

My hope is that such a conversation would shift our perspective and begin to draw us closer. If we were all blessed enough to see our small and fragile planet from afar we might begin to realize that deep down we have more in common than we realize. The astronaut, Edgar Mitchell offered the wisdom he gained from viewing our shared home from a distance with this quote:

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”

I’m not sure this view would shift the Donald’s perspective. He would probably wonder how he could stamp TRUMP, in big gold letters across the planet, just in case it was good for intergalactic business. For now let’s leave him and politics out of this. Let’s start a conversation that will help us to understand each other and heal.

~Christine Cameron DiLillo

*I don’t think it’s necessary for me to include an exhaustive list of all the disturbing things that Donald Trump has said. Unless you have been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard them all. If you haven’t, please find below some informative links.

For viewing:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSZFrRsuSyYFor reading:

For reading; http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-24/nyt-publishes-complete-list-donald-trumps-twitter-insults

For reading and viewing: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/03/movies/youve-been-trumped-an-unflattering-documentary.html

We Are All Philip Seymour Hoffman

We are all Philip Seymour Hoffman. Realizing this we, as a society, want to look away and accuse, blame or judge. But when we stand in judgment of him, we stand in judgment of ourselves. He embodied the American Dream of talent, success and money yet when we reflect on his end we look away.

Many blame the "disease" of addiction saying he should have been attending meetings, he should have been in recovery. What they fail to recognize is that, to one degree or another, we are all in recovery and there is just not enough room in the meeting halls for all of us. The denial of this runs rampant in a culture that sees things in black and white. One moment a hero the next moment a slob and a drunk. It is the age old story of the tragic hero.

I am not ashamed to admit that I can relate to his despair and I feel deep compassion for him as he stood over the abyss of his own old, deep, inner wounds. Perhaps because he soared so high he did not think it was possible to still feel broken and flawed.  I would imagine that this would make the shame deeper and the fall greater.

I sincerely wish he knew that, no matter how much or how little money and success we have, we are all broken.  We all fall somewhere on the spectrum of addiction. We are all driven by a need to distract ourselves from our own pain and to look away from our own essential needs.  We are all to one degree or another addicts only the substance and the type of "high" differs.

How is it that a person walking down the street with their head in their smart phone running around busy, rushing, over scheduled, successful differs from the addict lying on the street?  How is one who uses food, alcohol, tobacco, power or greed, to stomp down their pain, unlike the addict. Perhaps it is only a matter of degrees, but if we shift our perception we would see that the of process addiction, that which distracts us from our suffering, takes many forms. The average person just looks prettier and more acceptable in their suffering. They can walk away holding their head high in disgust or in a flash of insight they may see the reflection of their own suffering...  and still they may look away.

~One Soul~

  Today, while I was walking my dog Maria, a man reached out to pet her.  As he petted her he said: "Hello Rufus, I miss you!" We smiled at each other and walked away. After a few steps I realized it was a reunion, and I turned around and said what he must have known: "All dogs have one soul."

Jerk. Not!

   A teacher recently said something cold and abrasive to one of my daughters. She came out of school that day saying she didn't want to continue with a particular activity. I asked her why? Tears tumbled down her cheeks, as she explained to me what happened. I comforted her and said the first thing that popped into my brain: "Just because you're an adult, doesn't mean you can't act like a jerk!"

   All I could think of was how could someone who is trained and paid to serve, nurture and educate children behave in such a manner without realizing it? How could this teacher turn away from her pain? In my mind I made the connection that in turning away from her pain, he was also turning away from his own. To be able to offer compassion to someone else, you must first be able to give it to yourself.

   There isn't much else to say after that, except... as I was writing the above paragraph this said teacher called me on the phone to speak to me about my daughter. Though his story differed from hers, his soft tone of concern communicated what he could not say, but I heard. His reaching out made all the difference. I suddenly felt relief from this nudge of synchronicity and the sense that something unseen was interconnecting us all. Then I thought, now I can tell my daughter: "Just because someone acts like a jerk, doesn't mean they can't say they're sorry! And there are many ways to 'say' you're sorry."

Talking Trees

I shamelessly crumbled the other day when my wandering, ethereal child reappeared. She had been missing to me for 10 minutes, lost in a sea of faces and out of range of my panicked calls. All I could think was that no matter how far she runs or how high she climbs, she, or the tree, always eventually answers when I call.

I thought my experiences with Emmaline had made me immune to panic. The world is simply not big enough for her plans and co-ordinations. She was born to push boundaries and she'll do it to the point of exhaustion, both mine and hers. I am eternally in her way and, according to her, always saying no. There is really nothing new about that line, except that sometimes she is so convincing... I wonder if she's right. So I try very hard to hear her and expand her boundaries, give her space and trust her, yet at the same time reminding her that she's still only nine.

Her intense drive and determination is foreign to me and often, when she's not pushing my buttons, I admire her. In a heartbeat she can pull together the coolest, and most unique outfit, and strut through her day owning her creation. She's a potion mixer, machine maker, party planner and adventure tourist coordinator all rolled into one. In the land of our backyards she is always trying to run the show, but thankfully the dynamics of that kid ruled world do not always allow it. I wish I knew what they knew.

Though her strong will and leadership traits can be trying, I know they can be gifts too. So many amazing and wonderful things have been created and achieved by those who pushed boundaries and thought outside of the box. But I also know that kids need "boxes" and rules to keep them feeling safe and secure. Each child has unique needs for feeling safe and secure, so no one box can be the same. How do you build a box for such a child? I wish I knew. In spite of all I read, think and do I still sometimes feel like I stumbling in the dark. That's usually when my heart kicks in.

When Emmaline finally reappeared, walking nonchalantly towards me, it was pure grace that love followed my relief and not anger. Besides holding her and crying all I could say was, "I was so scared, I thought you were gone. Do you see the fear in me? That's how much I love you." My threats and consequences have rarely contained her, but I hope my love can.

Quirkiness

On that first night at home with my infant son I couldn't seem to get the cradle close enough. The cradle had been passed on to me, an old and broken thing that had been refurbished by my father-in-law. Little John would never physically know his Grandfather so there was a sentimentality to his newly assigned sleeping space. Yet it just didn't feel right to put him in there, away from me.

I was struggling with my new role and also battling my instincts. I needed to see my baby and be close to him as he slept, but that wasn't how I was told to mother. Babies are safest in their own crib or cradle, everybody knows that... or at least that's what our society says. So why was I having such a hard time obeying the rules? I guess I was misbehaving like my Mother, who in the 1950's and 60's, was ridiculed and ostracized by the hospital nurses when she chose to breastfeed. Somewhere along the line intellect had overtaken instinct and the result was these insane rules, which came from experts and doctors, and determined how and where we birthed, fed and nurtured our babies.

With John I compromised with my civilized mind by putting him in a co-sleeper. Now I could see his precious little face and safely watch his chest rise and fall. Yet each time I awoke in the middle of the night with him nestled into my breast I had a pang of guilt... how powerful was the conditioning. This sacred and secret world of nurturing was considered unacceptable, even irresponsible, in most of the magazines, books and pediatricians' offices. Yet it felt so right to both my husband and I, and this sense of rightness was nurturing to us all.

So I dumped the cradle and ignored the crib and with each child I let the conditioning deteriorate and crumble. What I have discovered beneath that fallen facade sometimes frightens me, because it is so alien to the world around me. I have become one who questions almost constantly, not through a desire to be different, but because of the need to know and own my answers.

Out of my questioning a realization has grown. Something mysterious had been born in me when I birthed my son and daughters. And in the years that followed... as I spent my days swaddled and spaced in breastfeeding and nurturing, as I embraced, savored and sobbed through the joys and pains of pregnancy and labor, as I confronted the utter frustration of dealing with irrational, opinionated little beings who were too much like me to bear... I was becoming born as a Mother. But I was not just a Mother, I had become part of a stream of interconnection which penetrates humanity. If we just stop long enough to block out the noise and inane, constant and mundane communication and busyness, we can begin to hear the whispering wisdom.

Now mind you, during daily mothering whispers are infrequently heard. I don't walk through my life with my children, high on their presence, and constantly entranced by their magic. I often find myself in the super market with my children, grumbling under my breath about the need for a self serve wine bar as opposed to a coffee bar. By 8:30pm I'm wiped out by the whirlwind of chaos and complaints and I find myself yelling and quoting my mother: "Children are not cute after 8:00!!!" Not long after they are finally in bed, I have been known to berate myself for being a lousy mother... on long and lonely days that has led me to tears. Yet through all of this nuttiness I have found moments of insight, humor and joy, and through all the inner pain I have created from perfectionism, I have found compassion. I root into these flashes of equanimity and connection when I sit in stillness.

The world is so fast and it appears that few care about moments of silence, stillness and inner calm and knowing, after all nothing is physically accomplished or gained. Our civilized world so values its competitive edge and constant movement that even those that mother and nurture often jump right back on track and drag their kids in too. I just can't help but stop to wonder why... and lately that's all I seem to do.

Today I no longer fight my inner nature and I try less to filter myself for the world, because my connection to this deep stream of wisdom and oneness is essential to my being. It nurtures me, keeps me sane and it has led me to love my quirkiness. Sometimes I feel lonely and strange, but I can't be any other way, because I abandoned the safety and security of following the rules when I began to listen from within... and a little wine at the end of the night has helped too.

September 12th Sunrise

The sound of him shuffling up the stairs was surreal. I didn't know when, and for a few hours, if he was coming home. Such a long and horrific day had passed between us. He stumbled up the stairs much like I had stumbled numbly through my day with our two small children. And yet there he stood. His eyes were blood red, and his body slumped and drained, but he was home.

John wasn't supposed to be home. His orders were to remain in quarters until morning relief. He had uncharacteristically disregarded orders because he needed to be home, if only for an hour. There were no rules for a while after that day, chaos calls for that.

So he sat on the couch after we hugged and cried and told me his story. My "simple kind of man" that night was a poet. He cited all the names of his buddies that died with such reverence and honor. I sat next to him and watched in awe, because to me that day he was almost a ghost.

As always, and September 11th was no exception, John called. The first call came with a flush of relief. I was not a widow. The calls that followed were sometimes just strangers saying, "You're husband is okay, he asked me to call." Angels with cell phones. Later in the day he called, from an undisclosed location, which generously offered free "soft drinks" to all firemen, cops and survivors.

I've often wondered how different John might be had he not come home that night. What horrors might he have held inside? What walls might he have put up? It was all so raw... I needed to see him and he needed to see me... nothing else mattered, nothing else should.

About an hour after John got home we received a call from his officer. He had to report back to the firehouse that night. I was beyond furious. It felt as if we were at the center of a bulls eye and I couldn't bear being alone.

Over the weeks that followed I began to hate the fire department, the city, the country and I just wanted to get out. I didn't need anyone to tell me to prepare a go bag. I had a plan, a bag, our necessary documents and an intense desire to leave Brooklyn for the mainland within days after September 11th. I was a cynical, life long New Yorker, and I sincerely believed we could simply be written off. If anything else should happen, the bridges would be closed and we would be on our own. Two years later I hardly looked back, when we crossed the Hudson River with our three children bound for our new home in the Hudson Valley.

Before John came home that night, while light was still in the sky, I had read to our children before bed. I recall that being of great comfort to me. The mundane was a safe and comfortable place in a shifting and scary world. During the night there was a thunderstorm... it seemed fitting, and somehow cleansing.

To me the sunrise of September 12th was a miracle. The day before everything had fallen apart, the seams had ripped, the veils had torn... and yet the sun, the blessed Sun still rose. That morning I had a visceral understanding of why people worshipped the Sun... and in my heart I felt hope.