Love in the Face of Hatred

On the sea change and moving backwards in time

I have not been able to write since the election.

I know that many of you are, like me, filled with sorrow and fear.

In many ways, I see this newsletter as a vehicle for being seen— both being seen as myself, as writer and person, but also as a place where you, my readers, can see yourselves in my writing. A place for connection on a fundamental level.

We have so much more in common than we have differences.

The Appearance of Tamara // Richard Duppa (1813)

I knew that he would win the election. I didn’t want him to win, but I knew he would. Maybe if I had stayed in Seattle I’d have thought otherwise, but there is no denying our country’s unrest while living in Florida. In a way, I am grateful I live here, because it’s outside of the relatively safe and enclosed bubble of liberal delusion, but I’ll admit it has worn away at my resolve rather than strengthened it.

Our strength ebbs and flows. We cannot be strong all the time. If you are feeling hopeless or exhausted or angry or confused, I accompany you through the cycle of these emotions.

Yet, beneath it all, I know there is love propagating in my soul, as always.

I learned that love can get me through anything.

I also know that hope can become delusion.

Two days before the election, I voted for Kamala at the local polling station. No one was protesting. Everyone was kind. Some of the people in that room voted for Donald Trump, yet they smiled at me.

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Here is what I know: most people are good, and want good things for themselves and others.

I learned this when I was homeless, hitch-hiking from Washington State at sixteen years-old. A lone figure on the shoulders of highways and freeways sticking out my thumb, banking on the kindness of others. Tens of people pulled over and let me into their cars, trucks, and semis. All of them but two were good to me. They bought me meals and told me about their families, their isolation, their troubles and fears and joys and secrets. They loaded me up with cigarettes and Snickers and wished me luck on my journey. Most of them were men— women rarely pulled over, though I was a young woman, alone. They were too scared. I understand.

But those men took care of me. Those men were republicans and democrats, old and young, gay and straight.

One man, late into the evening, picked me up at an on-ramp, promising to take me into San Francisco. Instead, he passed the exit ramp and kidnapped me for several days. But another man found me and saved me, driving me away and into the city.

One man took me to his house and introduced me to his wife. They fed me dinner. Then, he drove me to another destination and asked for sexual favors in exchange for his generosity. It was then that I learned to use my body as currency.

But the rest of them were kind.

I am telling you this because it is a truth of the world. There are people whose realities are distorted. People to whom power is the only true pleasure. Their souls were, at some point, crushed. So they crush others. I do not excuse their behavior.

But most people are good. Many of our souls have been crushed again and again, yet we somehow recover. We seek connection instead of power.

In his essay “Notes of a Native Son,” James Baldwin recounts his first and most formative experiences of racism and how they helped him better understand his father’s bitterness and hatred towards white people.

He writes:

“It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in the light of this idea, it goes without saying that injustice is a commonplace. But this did not mean that one could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power: that one must never, in one’s own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one’s strength. This fight begins, however, in the heart and it had now been laid to my own charge to keep my own heart free from hatred and despair.”

I have taken refuge in the above passage many times. It is an offering of agency and power and truth. The truth is that we have little to no control over others in the world. But we are capable of transforming our own hearts, and must be vigilant in keeping our hearts free from hatred and despair.

We can despair, but not forever.

We can hate, but not forever.

In this historical moment, I refuse to hate others because they chose to vote for someone who, to me, represents some of the most evil forces in the world.

Rhetoric is powerful, and fear clouds people’s vision.

It is possible to hold people responsible for their actions while also understanding their innate goodness, which, like love, is a seed in their hearts, longing for nourishment.

In Pema Chödrön’s book, When Things Fall Apart, she asks her reader to abandon hope, whose partner emotion is fear. They are two sides of the same coin, nestled together and apart simultaneously.

“Hope,” Pema says, “robs us of the present moment.”

Fear also takes us away from the present moment, away from reality.

What is here, in the present moment?

This is what I want to ask myself in every moment.

Because what is here is reality— our future projections and past ruminations are fantasy. There is no backwards or forward if we are not capable of existing in the present moment with ourselves as we are. Of accepting ourselves and others as we and they are.

With acceptance, we can transform. There is no superficial transformation. Rhetoric does not transform us— it only persuades us.

If one can be persuaded to hate, one can also be persuaded to love. But both are superficial unless they come from true presence with oneself and the world. If one cannot face reality.

Is it possible to love a hateful world?

I think so.

Love is a deep and abiding freedom that cannot be taken from us.

It is our ultimate power.

I love you, and I send you love.