Can You Show Me a Better Way?
I moved to the USA Halloween 2020 with my family and 8 suitcases. It was the first time living in the USA full time in my adult life. What a time to arrive. There is something peaceful about distance. But peaceful isn’t quite the right word for it: maybe emptiness works better? There is a void that fits weirdly when you live somewhere most of the time, but came from somewhere else that you keep returning to. “Home” isn’t the right word. Many travelers use “Passport country” instead.
Until someone finds another word that is better, for me, politics in the USA was a kind of empty void. I knew better than to think I could keep up and understand all that was happening from 5,000 miles away. To try to do so would have been unhealthy for me. News of the USA outside of the USA is different. It just is. I keep hearing from my red neighbors that 2016-2020 was really great. I don’t really remember it being any better or worse than other times. From my distance, there wasn’t anything remarkable about it. In my memory, it is just “pre-pandemic” to me. I give the same answer to my blue neighbors, who tell me 2016-2020 is something we must do everything we can to never return to. I often wonder at our objective ability to look back in time.
I wasn’t here in the USA for those years, but I have lived here the past four years. Some of those years have been better for us than others. Overall, we are blessed and grateful. And I’ve watched my red neighbors tell me how horrible it has been. My blue neighbors haven’t liked it much better, but have different reasons why. I live in a red state where I interact with more red neighbors than blue on a regular basis. It hasn’t been that I’ve moved toward my blue neighbors in opinions- it’s more of that I’ve tried to move away from the yucky parts of what I hear my red neighbors say. (My friends who live in blue states with mostly blue neighbors tell me it is about the same with them, leaning away from the yucky parts of what the blue neighbors say.)
I came “Home” in 2020 to something that felt very different from what I’d effectively left in 2004. It soon became clear that a couple of things really dear to my heart were against red talking points, and some of my red neighbors quickly pointed out that I wasn’t red enough, or red like them- and so I wasn’t one of them at all. I was personally called a “Liberal baby-killer” which feels so foreign to who I know I am that it hurt, but couldn’t stick. I was pushed away: I leaned away. The barrage of name calling and general meanness that I saw and felt radiated from many of my red neighbors was painful. My thoughts turned to my blue neighbors: can you show me a better way?
Honestly, I didn’t find anything much better. There was no place to put my feet. I would feel welcome and at home for a minute, and then a “joke” would come, one that felt so familiar. Change the recipient and a couple of terms, and there it was- the same name calling and meanness. Both sides telling me how awful the other side was- both sides thinking I agreed with them. Both sides telling me how the world as we know it is ending-both sides thinking I wanted to save it.
I did find one friend who showed me something else: “beautiful humans” they call it. Determined to hold on to humanity and find the beauty, in all of my red and blue neighbors. I liked that. That called to my heart.
It has been four years that I’ve been here now. I still feel some of that distance that I did in 2020. Some of that void is still with me. I am watching all my red and blue neighbors react to a new election. “Thank God there isn’t the hysterics of 2016!” My red neighbors say. “Thank God there isn’t the hysterics of 2020!” My blue neighbors say. Since I was here for the last transition, I sigh relief and tip my hat to Kamala and her brave call and concession speech. That was the minimum expected of presidents of the past- but it is not something I take for granted now. I have learned some things.
I will live here the next four years with my blue and red neighbors. Somewhere in my heart I cannot bury the question I keep asking them both: can you show me a better way?” But I guess the point isn’t to wait for that way to be shown to me, but rather show the way myself. Be and live a beautiful human life.
In 2021, I read a wise article (that of course I forgot where and by who) explaining that the distain of one side for the other creates and reinforces the opposite side. It was written to the current “winners,” the blue side at that time, as a warning that their obliviousness, their refusal to hear what the other side was saying was creating more hard-core red neighbors, and reinforcing the story running in their red minds of “The blues hate us and think we are dumb, evil reds.” That taking the easy way of rejecting them as friends, family, and fellow humans instead of the hard way of listening and doing the difficult, challenging thing of examining their own motives and policies- and calling out what is wrong about blue (because all of us beautiful humans have got a lot of it wrong), would lead to more division and more pain and a worse off country.
It has been sad to see that many of my blue neighbors did not take that advice. Four years later we are given another bend in the road. And I’d like to say those same words to my red neighbors:
The distain of one side for the other creates and reinforces the opposite side. Your obliviousness, your refusal to hear what the other side is saying will create more hard-core blue neighbors, and reinforce the story running in their blue minds of “The reds hate us and think we are dumb, evil blues.” Taking the easy way of rejecting them as friends, family, and fellow humans instead of the hard way of listening and doing the difficult, challenging thing of examining your own motives and policies- and calling out what is wrong about red (because all of us beautiful humans have got a lot of it wrong), will lead to more division and more pain and a worse off country. I will work to continue to ask, “Can you show me a better way, as I work to live a better way?”
Just in case we need it, here are a couple of things I’ve told my kids before (I don’t own this! Thanks to teachers for putting it together!). Before you say “That is for games, not for the end of the world/saving democracy,” I must ask you to please refrain from apocalyptic rhetoric. It isn’t healthy (ask any of us 90s kids who thought everyone got raptured at least once in our lives). Learning to respect other people as beautiful humans despite disagreement (even really really big disagreement) is part of being a beautiful human. Please resist thinking and declaring that another person is evil, and so no longer worth their human dignity. Please summon up the courage to show me a better way.