Solstice

Darkness is still light.
A palpable frequency
binds all things, pulsing.

 YeahWrite.me #397 Fiction|Poetry 

Signs

I’m worried about my neighbors. I don’t know them personally, or even their names, but I’m worried nonetheless. Every day, I drive by the same few houses with lawn signs supporting Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election.

The regularity with which I drive by these homes lends them a familiarity. Sometimes, in the evening, I can see inside while driving by and spy a lighted dining room or a television screen. From my short glimpses into their homes, everything appears to be completely casual.

There’s an elderly man I’ve seen edging his lawn, shirtless, in ninety-degree heat. He has signs for Trump and every other state and local Republican candidate running this year. Taken for their aesthetic value alone, their bright colors against his stunningly manicured green lawn is a joyful sight. If you didn’t read them as you drove by, you might think, “Well, there is a fun household!” Instead, I see them and contemplate the gravity of our state’s senate race this year and the potential ramifications on balance between the two parties during the next presidential term, and wonder if he is worrying about the same thing for his team.

One of the roads I travel to work is populated with large, moderately luxurious homes on about two acres each, overlooking a majestic state wetland. Two houses, about a quarter mile apart, have Trump signs right at the front of their lawns. In this age where people don’t typically talk to their neighbors much, I wonder if they know each other and if their children play together. Do they cook out together on Sunday afternoons and talk about cutting from education and healthcare to fund Trump’s absurd wall?

And what about the neighbors who live in between the Trump-supporting houses? Are they Democrats whose votes will negate their neighbors’ votes for Trump? Do they have brown skin,  same-sex partners, or observe a non-Christian faith? Do they feel threatened or unsafe living among Trump supporters? Do they even care how their neighbors plan to vote? Perhaps they don’t see or choose not to see, and then I worry for them, too.

But those lawn signs have me bemused; the consternation nags at me. They don’t fit with the landscape of this community as I understand it — everyone I know, even casually, seems nice enough. It’s as if a surrealist plopped these lawn signs into the idyllic scene to jar the audience out of their lull — to wake us up from our champagne and canapés to the bleak, perverted reality that there is fear and hate in our midst.

My default is always to look for and uphold the good in people. When it comes to my neighbors and Donald Trump, however, concern takes over. I question the inherent goodness of the people who live in those houses and, while many would be derisive and dismissive to anyone who so overtly supports a bigoted megalomaniac, my response is to try to understand what motivates them.

There is an important distinction between being a Republican or not liking one of the other candidates and being a Trump supporter. Putting up a Trump sign on one’s lawn is tantamount to raising a Confederate flag — it’s a way of saying, “I publicly support and endorse an institution that exists for the advancement of whiteness, white privilege, and patriarchal values. I am unashamed to announce to my community that I believe the majority of you are less valuable to society than I am, and if I could, I would eradicate you because your existence threatens my conception of how the world is supposed to be.” This is the bare, brutal truth of the status quo. This is what the old guard would uphold.

Whenever I see a Trump sign in my community, I wonder what that person is afraid of. Not the overt fear of “brown people” or “the gay agenda” or “taxes,” but the deeper fears that inform their personal moral code — the “why” of it all. I have not yet been able to put my finger on that particular pulse, but I am convinced that that kind of hatred and intolerance has roots beyond narrow-mindedness passed down from grandma and grandpa.

While I don’t tolerate it or abide it, I recognize that life experiences have the power to form bias and bigotry in a person. And I just want to sit my neighbors down and take their hands, look into their eyes, and get them to talk. I want to really listen to them. Not to the rhetoric they parrot like a skipped record, but to the stories behind it. I want them to witness me see them as whole people.

I want to go with them back to the time they were scared, victimized, disenfranchised, or invisible and soothe those wounds. Tell them that everything is actually already all right. Help them understand that they don’t have to fear or hate anyone in order to be unapologetically alive and thriving.

It really sounds like “I’d like to buy the world a Coke,” I know. But my desire to understand is rooted in the hope that I can someday reach those people and help them realize a more loving and tolerant perspective. The power for healing is beyond our comprehension. I’ve seen it happen, I’ve been part of it, and hope that it keeps happening.

Scholars suggest that the only way we can systematically overcome bigotry in our society is through direct conversation, and confronting it every time we see it. While I don’t have much  influence over strangers and am not likely to start knocking on the doors of my neighbors, I do have your attention here, now. Is there a Trump sign on your lawn or in your neighborhood? What are you afraid of? Sit with me and let’s talk about it.

***

The above is a personal essay that that was submitted to the Yeah Write Super Challenge essay contest in August 2016; the prompt for this essay was to include the word "bemused." Please visit Vote411.org and take advantage of their tools for learning more about the voting process and the candidates running for election in your city, county, state, and country. You can also check out the League of Women Voters and join efforts with other people in your community to make your voices count on the issues that matter to you. Their non-partisan membership is open to all people 18 and older.

Freedom

It requires a brief contortion of the arms, a motion that exists solely for this purpose and no other function except perhaps a rare itch to scratch somewhere near the sixth to tenth thoracic vertebrae.

Some can do it faster than others, and ambidextrous folk can do it with either hand. Those with
amputations have special tools to help them do it. Some undress to do it, and others can maneuver the whole thing with their clothes still on.

The best time of the day varies on the clock, but it is always marked by a singular event for those
of us with breasts — the removal of the bra.

Myself, I just get my right hand back between my shoulder blades, pinch, slide the hooks out and
I’m free. As I unhook this contraption of wires, straps, and elastic, I hear the holler-back between
The Queen of Soul and her backup singers in my mind; the bridge from Aretha Franklin’s 1968 hit single and feminist anthem “Think.” The horns shriek their modulating crescendo.“Freedom [Freedom], Freedom [Freedom], ohhhhh Freedom, yeah Freedom!” Oh, freedom, indeed.

Perhaps you don’t have breasts and are wondering if the removal of the bra is truly the best time of the day. The internet says that, for those without breasts, the experience is similar to taking off one’s socks and shoes at the end of a long day, and I’m not one to dispute that, having worn more than one pair of high heels in my day. As a person without breasts, who may very likely enjoy the breasts of others, please consider how much is happening behind the scenes to make breasts so appealing to you.

Bras are constrictive and rarely, if ever, comfortable. Their intended function is to lift and constrain the breasts into a shape and position deemed appealing, a shape and position that changes with the trends and the decades. Remember bullet bras? They were literally bras with conical cups that made your sweater puppies look like torpedo tits. We’ve come a long way from binding the breasts (ancient Greece) and metal, armor-like contraptions (a patent awarded in 1859 to an obviously misguided fellow) to maximum cleavage achieved through the Wonderbra, the Miracle Bra (marketing seems to suggest that breasts are not awe-inspiring without assistance), and even the Water Bra, made hilariously infamous in the 1999 episode of Will & Grace, “Das Boob.” With all this technology needed to lift, separate, shape, hide nipples, enhance décolletage, and achieve “invisibility” under certain fabrics, something is bound to go wrong.

Even the best fitting bra can pull down on the clavicles, leaving indentations and causing neck and shoulder pain. The elastic band that encircles the ribcage to prevent shifting is wonderful—except when it starts chafing partway through the day. Makers have only stopped sewing itchy, pesky tags into the bands in the last few years, a consideration decades overdue. And let’s not forget the monstrosity of boning and underwires designed to keep breasts in place with no concern for comfort, fit, or appearance. These little buggers are just yearning to break out and poke, scrape, and stab the delicate flesh around the bust and ribs.

The latest trend in bra design, known as “bralettes,” eschews all the aforementioned structure and instead works with scratchy, stretchy lace which bunches up under the bust line within minutes of donning. Little about the design and construction of bras has the wearer’s comfort in mind. In fact, if ever there was a garment that symbolized the patriarchy and its designs on women, it is for sure the brassiere and its cousins the corset and the bustier.

There are certainly times of the day when my experience of my breasts is superlative, thanks in part to general physiology but also to the modern technology and design of bras, which absolutely enhances the appearance of my breasts. The feeling of composure and confidence I get while dressing at the beginning of the day is underscored by the way my undergarments and clothes work together to help me look my best.

But that fleeting moment of satisfaction I feel with the cleavage that comes from having to manually adjust and settle my breasts into the molded foam cups can never compare to the profound sense of liberation that comes more than 12 hours later, when I am sweaty, red, chafed, and aching.

Surely you can imagine why we who have breasts would be eager to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of elastic and mesh, and how significant this moment would be in our day. And for those
who appreciate breasts and anticipate spending time with them in their natural state, the removal
of the bra is likely to be the time of the day you look forward to most, too.

Google offers over 11 million results on how to remove a bra, with the entire first page of results
targeted to heterosexual men who might want to seem suave and seductive while disrobing their
lover. This matter of liberating the breasts from the confines of the bra clearly has significant
implications, because one site introduces their how-to by saying “Removing a bra is important
for girls to learn at a young age, but even more important for guys to learn.” Just let that marinate
for a minute.

It’s been said that taking off the bra at the end of the day is like punching a time clock: It signifies that you are done for the day. The physical relief that comes with removing the bra at the end of the day is symbolic of the existential relief so many are striving for. Liberating yourself of your burdens, responsibilities, the things that bind you and hold you back…that is real freedom. Even if you don’t have breasts, you probably love and care for someone who does. Believe me, this is the best time of their day and potentially yours, too.

***

The above is a persuasive essay prompted by the question "What's the best time of day?" This essay was submitted to the Yeah Write Super Challenge essay contest in July 2016. Please read more about how donating your underpinnings can help other women.

Missing

I was home sick from school the day she went missing.

I was faking it, really, just a little sick. A police officer came to our house around supper time with serious questions about where I had been that day and if I had been with her. My mother confirmed that I had been home sick, never left, that we had not seen her, and I nodded along. I was terrified that the police had come because they somehow knew I had faked being sick so I could stay home from school, and woo boy, was I in trouble.

She sat next to me in school. We shared the same first name and our last names started with the same letter; for the first few days some people misunderstood or misheard and thought it was I who had gone missing. Seating arrangements followed a traditional format in Mrs. McGregor’s classroom, although later in the year she went wild and rearranged our desks from neat rows into pods of four and five. I wonder if that was the only way she could cope with the desk that sat empty next to mine for weeks.

Most of us kids were too young to understand what was going on beyond the notion that someone took her away, but things changed regardless of our ability to comprehend. Our parents were immediately sucked into a shared hell and our teachers joined them there. The innocence of our idyllic community was taken with her. We weren’t safe anymore.

“Stranger danger” became a regular topic of conversation which we endured with the same enthusiasm we’d have for a lecture from our parents. Police officers spoke in every class room. Teachers, guidance counselors, administrators, and school nurses were all on constant alert. They had to because we all continued to be the chaotic bundles of self-centered energy that children are supposed to be.

Day-to-day life looked the same but you could feel a tightness. Parents spoke in hushed tones and cried when they thought the kids were out of earshot. With terror straining their vocal chords, they shrieked and hollered at us kids when we dawdled on the walk home from school. Neighborhood moms started taking turns driving us to school in the mornings, much to our delight. We didn’t know it was because they were grasping at anything they could control. We didn’t know we got those rides because it was on the way to school when she had gone missing.

The older kids were far more in tune with the chaos that followed. A girl in my neighborhood lied and said she had information when she didn’t, which got her whole lot of attention she didn’t plan for. Her grab for attention initiated a whole new round of visits from the police explaining to living rooms full of neighborhood kids why it was so dangerous to give false accounts. That girl’s parents, in their fear and embarrassment, whooped her something fierce.

A mysterious, dark blue van was allegedly seen around town the morning she disappeared. And just like that vans became the enemy and a powerful symbol of danger. Neighborhood kids made childish threats and taunts about The Blue Van like they would the Bogey Man, when it was really just the the only thing our community could point to and call “monster” in the aftermath. Everyone tried to sell their vans. Pickup trucks became the vehicle in demand for tradesmen. Owning a van labeled you a pedophile, made you a suspect, cost you work.

Investigations were carried out, but no evidence was ever found that pointed to her location or what might have happened to her. Intellectually, I know she is presumed dead, but the child within me that struggled through multiplication tables next to her in school just can’t abide the thought that she will never, ever come back.

In my mind, I can only call up two images of her. One is of her sitting to my left at our desks, head down, concentrating on what she was writing. The other is her school portrait on the thousands of MISSING CHILD posters that were hung all over town and beyond. Decades later, that same wide smile shines out from a curtain of pin-straight brown hair and surprises me sometimes in the post office or town hall. People talked about it less and less over time. Many who live here now don’t know that girl in the posters or the significance of her name.

Not long ago, I dreamed I was wandering lost in my elementary school. There were entire wings I didn’t recognize or remember, and I was the only person roaming the halls. I could see classes in session and hear the teachers giving their lessons but the doors were all locked. I didn’t want to disrupt anyone so I just kept looking for an open room. I came across Mrs. McGregor’s classroom and it was empty. There was no indication of where her class had gone.

My developing psyche had no language for the trauma of my classmate being kidnapped. It was just a thing that happened and lived in my memory. The lives of the families in our community eventually found a new equilibrium and my friends and I grew up into good, morally upright citizens - the best I think our parents and our teachers could have ever hoped for.

But a gnawing feeling persists, ever reminding me that children are taken. Our society is heaving with tragedy and I can survive it because the worst happened and we carried on. I learned how to turn off my heart and keep showing up when something horrific and inexplicable happens, because it never stops happening and no answers ever come. My life is always watching for The Blue Van, afraid to walk anywhere alone, never trusting strangers, forever wondering what danger may lurk.

***

The above is a personal account of actual events surrounding the kidnapping of Tammy Belanger in 1984 and was submitted to the Yeah Write Super Challenge essay contest in July 2016. Please support the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

An open letter to my Amygdala

Hello! How are you? I am doing well tonight, thank you. Thank you also for taking the night off this fine Tuesday. I wanted to tell you that you and I, we are okay! I have confirmed with reputable sources that we are in fact NOT being chased by a bear! Isn't that terrific?! I know I am certainly relieved.

Thank you for all the hard work you do keeping things real. The ability to operate on pure lizard instinct is thrilling! I am glad that when we work together I can survive all kinds of exciting and dangerous events, such as Going To The Movies, Avoiding An Animal In The Road, Speaking In Public, Turning Left At The Supermarket Traffic Light, and more!

However, at this time, we are cool as cucumbers. We are slicker than shit through a goose. Bob Marley himself would encourage you and say not to worry about a thing! Please enjoy a nice rest from protecting me from catastrophe while we coast through a series of uneventful day-to-day life events. I will for sure call you when I think your services would be helpful; I've got your number on speed dial. I may need you again soon for important survival moments, such as Am I Allergic To That, I Slept Through My Alarm, and I Can't Find My Phone.

You work so hard. You've earned a break! Go take care of YOU, pal.

Fondly,
TuRBO