As a child on Thanksgiving, one of the things I most looked forward to–after the turkey, the stuffing, and the apple pie–was “The Argument.”

It was kind of like a sport. On one side would be my grandfather and Aunt Rita. On the other side would be just about everyone else: my parents, our close family friends: Bill & Jo, and–to the extent we could participate–my brothers and me.

Though the details of the news cycle changed over the late 60s and early 70s, the overlying arguments were always the same. Should we be in Vietnam? And did nuclear proliferation make any sense at all?

If I already have enough bombs to destroy the world a million times, I remember my mother arguing. There’s no reason I need enough bombs to destroy the world two million times–no matter what Russia does.

At this point my grandpa or Aunt Rita would launch in about the evils of Communism: Russia, Red China, world take-overs.

No one was ever declared the winner or loser in these yearly arguments. It was just something we did before getting out the poker chips–where there would be winners and losers, but only for chips so it didn’t matter. And I don’t remember any real antipathy expressed against those who held a different opinion. No cutting remarks about “owning the liberals,” or accusations of racism, ignorance, or “wokeness.”

My grandfather was one of the kindest, most generous people I knew. So was Aunt Rita, a devout Catholic and an active member of the Republican Party for decades. She sent us all so many cards with checks in them, my father joked that she was running a foundation. And on a Thanksgiving Day several years later when my brother ratted me out for sleeping with my college boyfriend after I confronted him about stealing the cash in my jewelry box and everyone else reacted with stony shocked silence, it was Aunt Rita who took me aside, pressed a twenty-dollar bill in my hand, and told me that whatever people did in loving relationships was just fine.

So, of course, I’m thinking about all of this as we head into this year’s Thanksgiving. I’ve already had moments of drama and trauma with some extended family that have left me feeling far less generous and forgiving than Aunt Rita–or any of us–were during those long-ago arguments. And I’m personally not in a place to take the Pollyanna route and conclude with some cliché about how we need to love everyone, regardless of their ideology. No matter how well-meaning and caring some people might be in their personal lives, I can’t get past their enabling a leader who has built his whole campaign on hatred of others.

Yet, this doesn’t excuse those of us on “the blue team” from dismissing their concerns, or deriding them as human beings, no matter how “wrong” we might think they are. So this gets at the conundrum: how do we keep ourselves, those we love, and those groups of people whom we may not know but still care about, safe from the augmented rhetoric that has been fomented to target them.

I don’t know the answer, but I do know that as a fiction writer I’ve had to infiltrate the minds of some characters who are about as different from me as possible. And I’ve had to make them fully developed, with fears, aspirations, prejudices, dreams, secret fantasies. A standard concept in character development is that the reader only sees the part of the iceberg above the water, but in order to make the character and their motivations authentic, the writer has to know and fully understand everything underneath.

So, maybe part of the problem, regardless of which “side” one might be on, is that people aren’t seeing anything more than the tip of the iceberg.

What would it be like to treat the uncle who drives you crazy as an exercise in character development. There are many great lists of questions you can ask yourself about your character in order to understand him better, and hopefully gain some compassion so that if you were to write him in a scene, whether people liked him or not, there’d be something about him that would make your readers care.

And a braver step, if you happen to be sharing a Thanksgiving table, what would it be like to ask your uncle to do the same exercise for someone from a targeted group–a trans teenager, or a woman from Central America whose husband has just been killed by gangs and is now fleeing for her life.

As Arlo says, if just 50 people a day….maybe it’s a movement…

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Thanksgiving staple–my cranberry upside down cake. Photo by Shel Horowitz

It’s Friday evening and I haven’t written a blog post all week. I can give a typical round of “a very busy ‘to-do’ list,” or “dog-ate-my-homework” excuses, but the real reason is that I haven’t been motivated. Usually, once an idea starts tickling me, it’s no problem to sit down and write, but that didn’t happen this week.

And despite my lack of creative zing, I had to write a poem every day, or, at least, a few lines dressed up as a poem for 30 Poems in November. That was about all I could corral my writer mind into doing.

In fact, earlier today when I suddenly made a rare decision that it was time to tackle the mound of homeless papers that hadn’t found their way to my file cabinet–a task that would involve emptying the file cabinet of papers that no longer needed to be there–I completely forgot that I was about to blow my streak of blogging 34 weeks in a row.

So now I’m writing against a deadline, plodding along even though my heart isn’t in it.  Sometimes, when The Muse is AWOL, plodding is where it’s at. Every novel or long CNF work I’ve written would have never been completed if I hadn’t sucked in my breath and resolved to plod my way through, even on days I had no motivation.

I know my lack of motivation right now comes from being shell-shocked by the election results and the shock-and-awe tactics of bad and worse news coming down the pipeline quicker than I can respond to it. Likely I’m not the only one who’s overwhelmed by the onslaught of news stories, emails, and newsletter posts urging me to take some sort of action: calls to listen to, more articles to read, phone calls to make–all of which feel crucial and important.

But there are far more actions than I could possibly do.

So I plod along, careful to prioritize the things I’ve already committed to, like working with my immigration justice group to help build a wider coalition in our community, and writing calls-to-action for Rogan’s List, a very useful way of keeping on top of the news and plugging in where you can.

But even these things feel like very small steps to address the morass–like trying to fend off a big wave with a small flick of my hand.

How not to drown?

The only way I know is to make sure I take time for the self-care I need and keep on plodding. One action, one poem, one blog post at a time.

And to remember the story of The Hare and The Tortoise. How the tortoise won.

Another Believer, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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Today (Election Day) is going to be a hard day for many of us. And it’s likely we won’t know the outcome tonight–or what the aftermath will bring if the election is contested and violence erupts. It’s pretty f-ing scary.

Some people say they’re feeling optimistically nauseous. Others just report feeling nauseous. And again–likely thanks to climate change–it’s going to be unseasonably warm in New England. One of the three maple trees that shares my property is still quite glorious.

Photo: D. Dina Friedman

I will lean into the beauty of that tree as a way of reaching toward hope.

According to Rabbi Shai Held from the Hadar Institute, Hope is not the same thing as optimism. Optimism belies the gravity of the moment by painting it over with rosy-ness. Hope, according to philosopher Paul Ricoeur, is “a passion for the possible.” Philosopher Terry Eagleton in his book, Hope Without Optimism defines hope as, “a movement toward the good, not simply a craving for it.”

In other words, Rabbi Held argues, “hope involves commitment.”

I’ve already voted, so today I will continue to research phone numbers for voters in Pennsylvania who need to cure faulty ballots. And I’ll also write my daily poem for 30 Poems in November, because art matters. Here is the poem I wrote for 30 Poems in November on Election Day 2020. I think it’s still relevant. Hopefully it will be reassuring. Or inspirational.

ELECTION DAY 2020
D. Dina Friedman

Remember, a strong rain is what we need.
Plant the tulips, the daffodils,
before the ground hardens, and remember
the miracle of mud on your baby fingers,
your great-grandmother, who crossed chopping seas
to avoid the mobs with the knives. Remember,
as you stand outside today holding your sign,
or entering to make your mark in the oval,
you are one of a chain of humans
whose most grievous sin was trying
to make the world better. Remember
the small creatures taking refuge
under the lawn, and the children ripped
from their parents’ arms at the border.
Reach for them. Remember waves
are part of the ocean and you are water.
Swim. Let it hold you from the outside and in.
Drink a river of water today. Hold the flow
in your trembling belly and remember the moon
and your magic. How you were born
to hold the world like a large water-filled bowl.
Ask a loved one to touch your cheek
just above where the mask ends, and tell you
the morning sun will rise out of the desert,
the wind will blow away the dust.

And here’s another poem that burrowed deep into my heart: Accepting Heaven at Great Basin by Nathalie Handel. I’ve found it so helpful in getting through the past few days. Hopefully you will, too.

I may also go to the garden center and buy some bulbs to plant. And knowing that my candidate smiles more than the other one, I’m wearing this shirt today for luck. And trying, myself, to keep smiling.

Photo: D. Dina Friedman

Despite the occasional seduction of signs advertising $5 palm readings, I’ve always been afraid of fortune tellers.

Gunnshots (Don), CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

If there’s going to be bad news, I don’t want to hear it. Just as I don’t want to read disturbing news stories with clickbait headlines. Heck, I don’t even want to watch my teams lose at sporting events. Last week, I walked away from the Mets/Phillies game when the Phillies threatened the Mets’ slim lead in the 9th inning. If it was going to be bad, I didn’t want to watch.

So, I totally understand my father when he says he doesn’t want more medical testing to explore what might be causing his occasional bouts of delirium and physical instability.

Because he’d rather spend what remains of his life in ignorant bliss. He’s 93. He’s had a good life. He doesn’t want his remaining time to be consumed with thinking there may be something wrong with him.

And for the moment, the delirium has subsided. He’s feeling ok, happy to do his puzzles and watch the Mets and Yankees in the playoffs.

As I’ve continued my fledgling practice of mindfulness meditation, I’ve seen a lot of my stress ebb away as long as I can eschew the nagging of my to-do list and keep myself in the present moment. There are some definite perks in stepping off the worry treadmill and refraining from obsessing over the great unknown. Even if there’s an aspect of “flying by the seat of my pants,” when situations encroach that demand my attention, I’m convinced I make my best decisions in the reality of the present rather than to adapt to a foggy future.

And–at least for me–I feel the same way about trying to plot the trajectory of a novel (or even a short-story). I could probably save myself a lot of time if I had a better idea of where I was going when I sit down in front of the blank page or the blank screen, but the reality is I have no idea what my characters are going to do until they’re faced with the situation. Sometimes they make the “wrong” decisions and the story goes nowhere. And–unlike most of life–I get to backtrack and revise. But if I try to gauge the ending of a story before paying close and careful attention to the beginning and the middle, I end up with flat and predictable characters and outcomes, instead of carefully nuanced and surprising twists.

This is not to diss outlines for those people who find them useful.  But I would caution people not to be too attached to their initial ideas. Give your characters free agency and they will surprise you. As John Lennon said,  “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.” Tomorrow never knows.

Tony Barnard, Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

So, I’ll keep trying to cherish the present–and savor the discrete precious moments of the last few days in New York watching baseball games with my parents, even as they might nod off into dreamland, and even if–unlike me–they’re resilient enough to watch when their teams are losing.