I’m sitting at my writing desk staring at the screen. I’ve been sitting here for a while. I was sitting here yesterday and the day before, too, wondering what to write.
I’d originally planned to write about pulling my puffy, down-filled winter coat out of the back of my closet for the first time since last spring. Usually, it’s a momentous and column-worthy occasion. But then I realized most of the publications I write for publish on Wednesday or Thursday, and by then, I doubt my winter coat will be of much interest to anyone.
So, instead, I am sitting here on Monday morning, staring at a still mostly blank computer screen, my deadline fast approaching.
If we are to believe the political ads that are inundating us right now, what happens in the voting booth Tuesday will be more impactful than at any other time in our lives. And whatever is going to happen will have happened by the time you read these words. What are you thinking, feeling, needing now, on the other side of Tuesday?
I grew up with a Republican Dad and a Democrat Grandpa. One of my earliest memories is of them fighting over politics — like, REALLY fighting. They would fight so loudly and angrily I thought my dad was going to throw my grandpa out, and we would never see my grandparents again.
My Grandpa was an immigrant from Italy. When he first arrived in America, he faced prejudice and discrimination. He found job security in the Detroit auto industry as a result of a strong labor union, and he had been able to raise his family on his salary.
My Dad, on the other hand, made more money than his father had, but it was a precarious situation. The industry he worked in (sales) didn’t have the job security or structured salary that my Grandpa had enjoyed, and my dad’s worries about the unpredictability of his job and income were a pillar of my childhood.
My dad believed in tithing regularly, but he wanted to be in control of when and how much. He also wasn’t keen on the government taking his money and “wasting it on pencil-pushing bureaucrats.”
By the time I made it to Perkins County, South Dakota, I thought I’d seen enough of the world to have my own opinions about government, who it was for and how it should work. But, before moving to South Dakota, I’d only ever lived in urban places. I learned very quickly, first working for Head Start (a federally-funded and regulated organization) and then our local school district, that laws, regulations and social constructs created for and by city people don’t work when they are overlaid onto rural folks. I began to question a lot of my implicit biases and assumptions.
Over the intervening years, my political views have continued to become more nuanced. I’m still left of center, but I also believe it’s neither helpful nor healthy to have one side of the political spectrum dominating policy. A multiplicity of viewpoints and voices creates better, stronger legislation. When we structure our government so that different people with different needs are seated around the negotiating table, we become greater than the sum of our parts.
My grandparents were eventually invited back to our house, but it wasn’t the end of the fighting, and I’m assuming the outcome of this election won’t be either. If we want a different world, we need to get to work imagining it.
So this is what I’m imagining now, staring at the flickering white light of my computer screen: My little child self hearing sharp, angry words that end in sighs instead of more shouts, my dad and my grandpa suddenly embracing because they’ve realized they both want the same thing: To create a world where my siblings and I are safe and thriving, where anger and fear are alchemized into love, where each of us is equally welcome and we don’t have to take sides against one another to belong.
