We Are in Crazytown

And I find it impossible to put myself back into the narrative pasture at the moment.

What do you all think? Not about last night’s event itself, please. Enough has been/is being said. No, my question is: what do you all think about escaping to a pastoral tale when it feels like the actual world is blowing up? Maybe that escape would be great? Or maybe it would be in horribly bad taste? I wrestled with this this morning, as I slowly realized that today, at least, it is impossible for me to put myself back in that rolling meadow to write about its small and incremental lessons.

I wondered how I’d feel if another chapter of this story landed in my inbox this morning. Ahh, blissful escape? Or, Hello, French sheep and cows: did you know they just almost killed the former President?

I know I want a channel to change to when I want it—I spent more than one chapter here singing the praises of warmed-over BBC “Cozy Mysteries” while fritzing out on personal havoc. But when what’s just shifted is the world axis and not my individual one, it doesn’t feel appropriate to muddle in just-me at this very moment.

Maybe I’m just limbically and narratively knocked out but the disconnect between a slow-food, very interior personal unfolding from another time and place with the news I woke up to this morning is too wide a chasm. I am sure this is temporary. But it’s real. And one thing I have concluded from the past few weeks is: don’t act as if everything is normal when you’re suddenly on Mars. You just get light-headed and weak in the knees.

Somebody tried to kill the person I despise more than any living soul last night. I know I just said that I don’t find the impulse to be introspective right now, but maybe just a little. It’s in moments like this one that you understand what hatred of a political figure really is. It’s very, very close to love. You fixate, you cathect, you can’t look away. Those people are meaning-giving, and you somehow reshape your psyche to their contours. They take up a huge amount of space.

We Americans are in a collectively very strange dimension right now. Our two old men have both taken nearly mortal wounds in the past two weeks—one metaphorical but maybe not, one very much literal. Not to get all Jungian on you, but archetypally, that’s a big deal. There’s something instinctual getting triggered here. I felt like this during Hurricane Katrina, when it was clear that there were no grownups in charge. This is weirder, and slower-motion, and I expect it will get worse.

Americans: watch how this plays out inside yourself, and let me know how it goes. Many of you reading this have been present for the illnesses or deaths of your actual fathers. I wonder how much of that residual angst is going to ring around in your souls, even quietly, as these events continue to unspool. On a not-too-distant mental plane, they’re not unrelated. I never considered 45 an adult in any room, but his people do. Not to get all Star Trek on you, but we are moving into another timeline right now.

I’ll see you guys next week, when we will move ahead with this quiet little saga.