Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
No Pasaran
They’re counting on us to run out of gas.
They figure we’ll buckle under the endless hammering, get confused by the scattershot of insults, adapt to a new twisted normal. They think we’ll give up.
And we might.
But then again, we might not.
Maybe we’ll get smarter. Maybe we’ll learn how to conserve our fuel, hitch rides with each other. Walk.
They think we’ll do what is easiest. They think that if something doesn’t hurt us directly we won’t care. They think we each have little tiny seeds of hatred in us that if watered properly will sprout. They think we are more like them than we know.
We know different.
We won’t let the weak ones get separated from the herd.
We won’t go deaf to insults directed to others.
We won’t agree to fenced-in freedoms.
We won’t find a narrower lane.
We won’t turn the channel.
We won’t stall out on the side of the road.
We have plenty of gas.
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Photo: Gemma Evans
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The Daily Post: Marathon
5 Comments on “No Pasaran”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
I think about this ALL the time. I feel my actual will to live fading. And then I think, that’s what they do, that’s what they want–for us just to go away. Some days it makes me say well fuck YOU. Other days…thanks for the pep talk.
I get it. I know that I could be fine just shrinking up and age would entitle me to that in most people’s eyes. And then I think I’m one of the few people who have nothing to lose. I have wonderful progressive friends who have to walk a high wire to reconcile their personal politics with their professional reality. So I’m thinking I need to use that freedom for something other than indulging my laziness (which is epic). That’s where I am right now and hope I can stick with it.
Agreed – what a great piece of writing. c
Thank you! I’m so glad I discovered you this morning. 🙂
As long as we know different, we will be ok.