oznor
Emily Dickinson, one of my favourite poets, once wrote that “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”. Well, after the results of Tuesday’s U.S. election, I think there are many of us in the world who are feeling well and truly plucked, covered head-to-toe in goose flesh, with the cold November winds howling right up our nether regions.
Speaking of howling winds, I am reminded of a thing that happened earlier this autumn to a friend of mine. He was riding his bicycle through a mountain pass near Waterton National Park, when a sudden tremendous gust literally lifted him off his bike and tossed him several feet into the air and onto the shoulder of the road, where he narrowly avoided being hit by a passing camper van. Almost miraculously, he walked away from the incident with nothing worse than a few sore ribs and an impressive, colourful collection of bruises and abrasions.
It’s quite a story, and he tells it well. The thing that haunts me about it right now, though, is what he told me about the thought that flitted through his mind as he found himself momentarily suspended between the ground and the sky. In that split second in time, he said, he had been absolutely certain that this would be it for him, and that he was about to die. And, beyond that, there had been a profound feeling of “inevitability” to this realization. A sense that, “of course” it was always bound to end this way. As if everything else in his life had somehow led inexorably to this fatal moment in time.
Well, that sense of inevitability, of foregone conclusion, is just how I felt when I woke up on Wednesday morning. Truth be told, I had already been feeling it for weeks in advance, the feathers of my hope blowing about in drifts all around me. Of course the American people would choose to openly embrace fascism. Of course they would turn their backs on the possibility of progress.
After all, why should human beings in the United States be any different from the species as a whole? I find it quaintly, sadly naive when I hear about Americans who now want to emigrate to Canada, as though they can cross the border and leave that tsunami of fecal matter behind. As if it has not already been tracked all over the shag carpet of our Canadian home-sweet-home, by the likes of Danielle Smith, Doug Ford, and Pierre Pollievre, and the cowards, collaborators, and right-wing media who support them.
It has been tracked, in fact, across pretty much every corner of the globe. Throughout the world, cynical billionaires and demagogues have managed to tap into a deep, rich septic field of ignorance, anger, religious zealotry, blind fear, self-interest, apathy, and thuggish cruelty, and use it for their own purposes.
Years and years ago, a former partner of mine, exasperated by something I had done, or possibly failed to do, gave me an epically theatrical eye roll, and exclaimed, with resignation and profound sadness, “You never seem to amaze me”. I am sure that their pique against me was well deserved. I think what they meant to say, though, was that I had never ceased to amaze them. At least, I hope so. I mean, who wants to be that predictable? Who doesn’t want to be capable of generating, from time to time at least, a surprise or two? Perhaps even a bright flash of amazement.
So, I guess that feeling of surprise is what I’m desperately longing for, in this world that seems, right now, utterly featherless and cold. I want to be startled by compassion, bedazzled by logic, upended by wise choices and acts of beneficence that none of us saw coming. I want to be amazed by the soulful beauty of my fellow women and men, so we can grow some fine plumage, fly above the drowning sewage, and take to the skies once again. I want to be absolutely gobsmacked by the unprecedented way we prioritize fairness, equality, rationality, and love for our planet.
Here’s hoping.
