A young woman’s coat has claimed the last free seat on the bus. Incredulous, you would later comment that it was rude of her not to move it. But, hanging on with both hands as the bus trundled along the too-tight turns, I only thought about how proud I was of you.
It’s an odd time to be on holiday. I have a dissertation to finish, a PhD programme to start, and a cloud of heavy headlines that threatens. I try my best to be here, to be present where I am, but truthfully I don’t really know how to manage. You ask me how much work I’ve got left to do before I can click submit like that’s an easy question to answer.
In the frozen north, Immigration and Customs Enforcement shot a nurse dead today because the American people have made an idol out of their homeland, and the gods demand sacrifice. And yes, we know: not all men Americans. Still, we’re all paying for it.
I wonder what I should be doing. There’s a drum beat in my head: more, more, more. I know. We should all be doing more. I think about the articles I should write. The family members I could tell off. The clever memes I could share. The politicians I could call—the representatives who care more about clinging to power than representing the people.
But in some small corner of my heart, I remember that change is possible, because I’ve seen you change.
It’s true, you were never dancing on the edge. This is never what you wanted. But you worry about what people think. You worry about belonging, and let’s face it: that’s what all the fuss is about. Who belongs? And when we’re all called on to prove it, we’re all a suspect.
Just ask Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez.
My raw beating OCD insecure anxious gay little heart wishes it were brave and leonine and that I didn’t cry when my husband told me that Javier Milei—desperate for Daddy Yankee’s approval; hands out, pathetic, clinging to his knees—is planning an Argentinian ICE to get rid of the Venezuelan fruit vendors and Bolivian factory workers and the Paraguayan wait staff from the Chinese restaurants.
Every little cowboy needs his Indians to kill. Every little cowboy wants to be a man.
You could be another snowbird, out of the cold in Florida. But here you are gambling with the fickle winter weather, navigating winding streets and bus schedules and learning languages as foreign to your ears as the recycling schedules you’re desperate to keep.
This world will never be what I want. And I know it’s not what you want, either. I don’t know if I can be OK with that. And I don’t know if I should try to be, either.
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