Hope: It's all we have, and I need more feathers

Weeks ago, my friends invited me to dance a gig, and I love my fellow dancers and the venue, so there was no hesitation. True, it was for the 4th of July, and I'm really not into the whole flag-waving thing at all, but this gig is different. It's in the heart of San Jose, CA, a mini-center of cultural richness and joy that makes me feel like I am celebrating humanity itself. So I said yeah, I'll join, happy to dance.

But as the day grew nearer, I realized that I didn't feel like I wanted to celebrate this country. I used to be better at compartmentalizing my own political feelings from what's happening on the nation's landscape.  It's my country too, I used to say, and I'm going to participate in a way that pushes us closer to the nation in my imagination. The one where everyone really is equal, and where there is justice and truth. I told myself that I would put that good energy out there, and it would make a difference.

This morning, getting ready for the gig, I heard about the mass shooting at the 4th of July parade in Highland Park. This nation can't even avoid a mass shooting on its own birthday. 

This got my mind spinning. Three days ago, another unarmed black man died in a hail of sixty police bullets. What had been his plans for the 4th of July? 

The US has one mass shooting every 1.7 days. I tried to tell myself that this wasn't a new phenomenon, but it wasn't helping the pit in my stomach. I was struggling between honoring the commitment I'd made to my friends and dancing in celebration of a nation that doesn't care if its citizens live or die.

I recalled something that Charlie Jane Anders echoed in her afterword to Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness: patriotism isn't about love, it's about fear. These astute words, bold with no tone of sheepishness or apology, chilled me when I read them. I could see how fear starts an inevitable cycle of begetting violence, and violence in turn creates more fear. Radicalism is the only thing that can disrupt it, and in this nation founded on freedom of expression, radicalism is a wild weapon that few in it know how to wield.

I am afraid of patriots. I am afraid of my flag. I am afraid of the people who blindly wave it and use it to shield themselves from the injustice wrought by the country they say they love. I am afraid of a nation with PTSD who imbibes denial as its drug of choice.

This year, I have watched as this country's police continue to murder its citizens, having learned absolutely nothing from years past. 

This year, I became a second class citizen on the basis of my gender.

And this year, I have seriously questioned my capacity to keep considering this country my home.

I have friends who scold me when I talk about leaving. They say that I can't give up, that my voice and my power are needed now more than ever. It would be selfish for me, a white woman of privilege, past childbearing age and with the financial means to make housing choices, to bail on the country just when it needs me. And my heart admits grudgingly that they are right. 

So I boarded the train to the 4th of July gig, all dressed up in colors that I could barely relate to. 

On the platform was a white man dressed in all camo. He was muttering, occasionally ranting incomprehensibly, and making erratic hand movements. "Get out!" he shouted to no one and everyone. I thought of Highland Park and how I would soon learn more terrible details about it, and I moved away to a bench as far from him as I could. As I scrutinized his shape to ascertain whether he had a weapon, I noticed other people on the platform taking real care to avoid looking at him, as though he was nothing more than a skipping six-year-old. 

A pilot stood in the platform in his uniform, waiting for the shuttle to the airport. Suddenly, a tall white man in black and red sports gear came onto the platform. He was noticeable because his movements were aggressive, like a fighter who has been beaten and is sizing up his next opponent to save face. He loudly scoffed at a woman in his way, then swung his body directly into the pilot's space, crowding him. When he stumbled over the pilot's bag, it was he who exploded into shouts and threats to the pilot. "Don't touch me, mother-fing f-got, I'll f-ing kill you!"  Again, others willfully averted their eyes, and I started to wonder if I had stumbled into a staged performance, or if I was just the only person who could see and feel what was happening.

This was the second hostile white male I'd encountered in as many minutes, and my pulse was pounding in my ears as I struggled to breathe through my mask. All I could think of was, I'm dressed up like a frigging Christmas tree, total target for anyone's instability, and what if someone pulls out a gun? I wanted to go over to the pilot and ask if he was OK, but I couldn't see a way to do it without attracting attention from the two aggressive men I'd just seen, so I sought refuge behind a gate stanchion.

The train arrived, and we boarded. I sat in the lesser-occupied bike car, back to the window and keeping watch on the  door to the next car. I was thinking hard about Highland Park, how people must have thought they were just going to have a joyful celebration, and how everything can turn in an instant. I started wondering what I would do if someone entered the car with a gun. Was there an alarm in the car? An emergency brake? I didn't see one, but would that help anyway? I had my phone: should I bring up 911 on it now, just in case? My breath was coming in short bursts, and my stomach was doing loops. I fought to draw in calming breaths, telling myself that I was going to be ok if I could only get to the gig, to my friends, to the place where I could dance.

I saw the man in camo get off a few stops later, still muttering and gesticulating. I never saw the man who had threatened the pilot. By the time I exited the train an hour later, I was drenched in sweat and dizzy with anxiety.

Trying not to imagine a Highland Park scenario at the very similar event to which I was headed, I forced myself to focus on just getting to my friends and dancing. And dance I did. I danced to purge the fear that had welled up so deeply in me, to reach the hearts of the audience so that I would not feel so alone, so terrified, so sad, so angry, so devastated. I danced to transport myself to a sanctuary of art and community. I danced to fight off the madness of living in a mad country. I danced to find the last shred of resistance and to counter my dispair with hope that felt entirely out of reach.

Fuck this country, it's my country, too!

I am so afraid, I refuse to be controlled by fear!

This country is beyond saving, I have to fight to save it!

I don't belong here, this is my home!

I can't live here anymore, I can't leave!

Americans deserve the governance they vote for, they deserve better!

Violence is our culture, I reject a culture of violence!

Fear and hate protects us, radical love is our only solution!

I have no more hope left, hope is all I have!

Hope is all I have.