I suspect that I am not alone in feeling this.
It’s Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and thank Goddess it’s green again, and the days have been just lovely and the birds, as few as there are these days, are out and about and building the nests and making the babies … and it seems like all is just about right with the world.
So why am I feeling so very stuck and … not exactly rooted, more like obelisked in place? Like there’s six feet of stone under me keeping me from moving out into the world?
In fact, I know I’m not alone. Numerous people that I come in contact with have expressed this very thing. It doesn’t seem natural. Spring is the celebrating time, we made it through the winter, and another cycle of birth is happening, why aren’t we all rushing out into the Spring to luxuriate in the warmth and light and life all around us?
Maybe I am becoming a bit anti-social as I careen toward my so-called Golden Years. I am great with one-on-one stuff, or even two-on-one, spending time with a friend, spending time with clients – no problem, any of that. But being in groups tends to creep me out now, unless it’s a purposeful situation and I know I can trust people to be respectful and smart (i.e.: they have been vaccinated to the nth degree and take good care when in public, and aren’t fraidy-cat little assholes who can’t go anywhere without their security guns).
Covid broke us a little bit. And mass shootings have made us … cautious. Which is understandable. Dying for a cause is all well and good, but dying because you went to a grocery store or got lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood … well, that is tragically preventable and horrifying and never ought to be able to happen.
I guess I’m becoming afraid of their fear.
I’m not afraid of much. I refuse to live my life in fear. I refuse to bow down to the purveyors of paranoia and the shrinkers of worlds. I refuse to “other” people just because they don’t look like I do – although I do tend to “other” people who prioritize guns over kids and want to erase every person who doesn’t rigidly conform to their tiny idea of normal. Who want all the Black people locked up in jail and who think Hunter Biden’s laptop has anything to do with anything.
But being around armed and largely untrained people who have very low emotional intelligence and poor impulse control scares the shit out of me, because … well, as a genderqueer lib’rul Pagan shaman, I’m pretty much an ideal target. I pass as a harmless little old gray haired lady, but I sure as fuck don’t dress like one, or act like one. But when I’m around them I keep my head down. And I hate having to feel like that is necessary – but seriously, who the fuck knows what sets these morons off? And guns may not kill people but the guy who has one strapped to his side like a security blanket is 100% more likely to kill someone over some ridiculously unreal threat, than little old me, who has never even owned a gun.
And I hate this. I hate this so much. This whole situation is beyond toxic, and it is causing incredible, invisible harm to our children. Who can learn in an environment where there is a very real threat of someone showing up with a gun, waltzing into the school, and lettin’ ‘er rip? Many if not most of the kids who have lived through that will never be okay.
I want to stride purposefully and powerfully into a rainbow world filled with magic, delight, diversity, inclusivity, love in every form and flavor, and people free to be their most joyful and authentic selves. But right now, so many of us are just passing. Just keep your head down and pretend you’re not a target. Don’t rock the Jesus boat.
Do you ever have one of those days when you just want to get a pentacle tattooed to your forehead, smear woad all over your face, rat your hair up, wear ragged nature-stained clothes, and embody the weird old soothsayer and shout mad prophecies at people in the street? No? Just me? Okay then. Well, somedays I feel like I am a mad soothsayer. Probably best to stay home on those days. But my point is … what was my point??? Oh, right. Somedays I want to scare every horse and break every rule and dare them to do anything about me. I’m sure I’d wind up hospitalized for awhile, but it might be totally worth it.
Because we just can’t keep letting them keep us from living our lives.
Our elected servants are either powerless or utterly unwilling to do anything about guns. And there are so many things that urgently require immediate intervention if this version of humanity is going to survive. But if we could stop killing each other out of ignorance and unfounded terror, that would be a start. Anybody who feels like they have to take an AR-15 to the Jack and Jill because libs lurk in the produce section and may be poised, poised I tell you, to indoctrinate their kids into wokeness if they turn their backs for five seconds, is probably not the mythical “good guy with a gun.” We need to vehemently and with prejudice make this behavior not okay.
I don’t know how to do it; maybe we just band together and gently and with infinite patience and care talk these idiots in off their emotional ledges. That sounds like a hell of a lot of work to me, but that’s probably what it’s going to take. We have to stop being afraid of them and start seeing the very real pain and the very real fear that they live in. And carefully and slowly and without condescension we have to start figuring out a way to explain to them that they’re safe.
I don’t want your guns. I don’t want to steal your children from you – although I will be an ally to your children if they need my help to be protected from you. I don’t even want to imprison all the men in Montana for retraining. I want you to have the same rights I have. And I want my Black neighbors and my immigrant neighbors and my LGBTQ neighbors to have all of those same rights as well. Nobody wants to take any rights or liberties or freedoms away from you, except maybe the one about being able to carry a gun with you everywhere you go. That is just ridiculous and dangerous.