Kind Of Avoiding It

Posted by Jeff on October 11, 2018 at 9:45 am

It’s impossible but I’m trying.

Leaving the country twice this month to chase what it is I am after, and the weeks of preparation needed* to do so with maximize efficacy, has helped.

I simply can not rage nonstop.

I’ll be at the polls next month, fuck yeah I will, but regarding the noises rising up with the potent stench of dead rats from sewers on every American street corner, regarding all of that, I am kind of avoiding it. And now you might be outraged with me. Settle.

A good dad, a woke dad, alive in the late stages of a most foul year would (should?) be holding frank conversations with his daughters on the regular. I am, however, for the most part, not. Not those kinds of conversations. I am kind of avoiding it. I usually feel okay about avoiding it. I’m allowing myself to feel okay, and that in and of itself feels okay.

We still laugh. We’re lucky. That hasn’t been taken away.

A judge abruptly stepping down. His son. WTF. The questions not asked or answered. Obstruction. A new judge put forth, Dr. Blasey Ford, a twisted FBI arm, blatant hypocrisy, rule of law, bold faced lies, angry mobs, death threats, hijacked movements, fervent clapping; I see it all.

Consent. Assault. Rape.

I hear it all.

I read the headlines and some of the words below to the extent they can be stomached.

At the same time, within my house on the sofa and at the kitchen table, and on our What’s App group while I’m abroad, I’m kind of avoiding it. You could say that I’m foolishly hunkering down inside my privilege with a happy index finger on the retweet button. You wouldn’t necessarily be wrong.

I’m filled with hate and fire and rage, and I need to compartmentalize and to avoid it, kind of, simply to make it to the next day. In this regard, mentally, I am, I think (who can know for certain) doing what it best for me and for my family. At least that’s how I am rationalizing it today.

After the match, I returned to Stevenage Road with a sour expression at the scoreline but my sad sack face belied a joy derived from an intense focus on a single live event and its idyllic environs: a Care Bears blue sky blanketing west London and the glistening green pitch, fresh from a pre-match watering, a mere 4-5 feet from my youthful gaze. The pristine kits of the home club and the clapping of the early arriving supporters by the Serbian #9 as he rounded off his run to begin warming up had me as giddy as a schoolboy. I was 10 again. There was nothing wrong anywhere. There was only happiness.

I soaked in everything that was there. I avoided everything that wasn’t.

With 2-scoops of gelato in a chocolate dipped cone for an extra 50p in one hand, I stopped at each and every realtor’s storefront for a looksee. With my mind at 10,000 feet, I imagined leaving our mess for another.

Big pictures, a different exit, a new life, alternative problems.

*the use of ‘needed’ is a stretch here. the time spent planning, booking, re-booking, and in general giving head space to the two trips would, by any unbiased arbiter, be deemed a ‘want’.