Shine and shadow
On the beauty and disturbance of the present moment and the possibility of other worlds
Dear Enchantable readers,
How are you all doing out there, in these beautiful and disturbing times?
I am back in the US for a wedding and a funeral (my grandma’s, who passed away in June). Circle of Life Tour 2024, celebrating love and life at both ends of the spectrum. The wedding was last night, and it was exquisitely beautiful to bask in the love of the couple and their people.
But backing up a bit…
Within an hour of being back in the US, I was mask-shamed (for wearing one) by a border patrol employee and heard a blatantly racist anti-immigration presidential campaign ad. In the food court, there were two TVs on (side note: why are there TVs playing everywhere here?): one was playing the Chiefs game, talking about Superbowl champions and the Star-spangled Banner (this one had the sound on), while the other TV was showing the news about the latest school mass shooting.
America1, you are not OK.
We are not OK. I am not outside of this. But at the same time, I am living in Costa Rica, and it does provide a literal distance that makes it very jarring to return to, perhaps especially during this season of the presidential election. While I am of course following the election, it is an entirely different experience being in it, surrounded by it, being pummeled by these messages in every public space you are in. Being back in a place where mass shootings take place in schools (and other public places) regularly.
What disturbs me the most is the normalization. Friday morning I awoke to headlines about politicians saying these shootings are an unfortunate fact of existence. Let’s be clear: THEY ARE NOT. There is nowhere else on earth where this is happening. There are many things that can be done to prevent them. There are actions that can be taken now.
This is not OK.
Other worlds are possible.
They are, however, a tragic result of a culture of violence, of a violent history that has never been accounted for, resulting in a violent present, where we’d rather regulate uteruses than guns.
As I sat in the airport awaiting our connecting flight, jarred in my cognitive dissonance, I thought about how I have lived outside of the US for about half of my adult life. This past stretch has been two years, and while we are back often, it shifts my perspective. It shapes my relationship to this place. I am feeling all of this a little more intensely than I would if I were in it all the time. When you are in it, there is a degree you have to get used to it. Build up callouses.
It makes me think of this shedding process I have been going through in my dengue recovery on the soles of my feet, making everything more sensitive. Returning to the US this time, I am literally returning with this fresh skin. I am also returning with an increased sensitivity to what is happening here. I have shed the layer that protects you from the news and the election and the shootings, and I haven’t built up the hard layer yet. The callous. I am soft, inside and out, and it prickles. Not quite painful, but abrasive. More nerve endings exposed than usual.
On this trip, I am dwelling in the discomfort of this exposed skin, in the interbeing of enchantment and disturbance. It is so beautiful and fun to be back, and be in a beautiful place surrounded by friends and friends-of-friends (isn’t it lovely how easy it is to connect with the loved ones of people you love?), celebrating love and life. At the same time, I am rattled by the reality of being here: the political situation, the violence, the public discourse, the palpable violence just under the surface. I am sitting with and in it all.
In her book Hospicing Modernity2, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira talks about “modernity’s shine”: the shiny parts of modernity that make it alluring, comfortable, enjoyable, hard to let go of. The shiny parts exist through and are enabled by systemic violence (its shadow). The shiny parts are the comfort, the availability of so many things, like Daisy the farting goat yoga doll. The shine makes us want to deny our complicity in it. The shine is the football cheers drowning out the school shooting news. The shine is thinking we’re outside any of it. The shine is thinking this is the only way.
I don’t live here now, but I am sure I will live here again, and I find myself asking the question again: How do you want to live?
Earlier this week, I gave my foundations class session to all students on campus, and I had them do an exercise on imagining the future. I do believe one of the antidotes to all of this is to not accept it as fate, to not accept it as normal, to acknowledge things as they are and our complicity in them, hospice and learn from them, and to imagine and work towards the other worlds that are possible.
A world where many worlds fit.
A world where kids can go to school safely.
A world free from genocide and war.
A world where everyone has what they need to survive and thrive.
A world where love and care are the foundation of our systems and our ways of being together.
Tomorrow we will be visiting a school that was part of my dissertation research, a school that practices vitality-centered education. Then we head to Pittsburgh for the memorial. More questions and reflections from the journey to follow. Thanks for being with me along the way.
Be safe out there. Take care of each other.
With love and care,
Steph
I am using this word with full awareness that it also refers to all of the Americas - north, south, central. Here I am just referring to the US.
Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira (2021)