Hamilton Challenge

“It’s 5 o’clock in the morning”

I sang this song to myself as I clipped the leash on the dogs, grabbed a flashlight and let them outside pre dawn to do their business. 

It’s a song I sing often, substituting with 3 o’clock, seven o’clock, etc based on the time their bladders demand relief. 

Back inside, I grabbed a water and pit stop myself, turning to Instagram for a quick scroll before heading back to bed, intending to read a few messages and be back to slumber soon. 

And then my heart was broken by the announcement of John Lewis’ passing, posted by a friend. 

Now it’s 5:30 in the morning and I can’t sleep. 

The sadness comes in waves and I’m reminded of the essay on grief that helped me through losses before.

it’s hard to accept that this strong, capable, brave black man who fought for his civil rights, marched with Doctor King, served in Congress most of my lifetime and lived to see Barack Obama serve in office is gone. 

He’s gone at a time when our nation is, once again, grappling with racial inequality. As he fought for equal voting rights, Lewis would have likely commented that inequality never went away, it was just ignored.

He’ll never see Trump leave office and hope restored. 

He will never see the fullness of his work realized and enjoyed by those he fought for.

While he was only 80 years old, his life was not one of ease. This is a man who was arrested for daring to use a “whites only” toilet and who was beaten on more than one occasion. It’s been shown that the body catalogs the stress and pain from traumatic events. And how do we expect octogenarians to keep working grueling schedules when they have earned their rest?

In times like now, I really miss my stuff. The boxes and furniture all got stuffed into a POD and shipped to Kansas and sits 100 miles away, waiting for the POD franchisee to decide if they’ll deliver it to my home, as promised. 

In one of those boxes, packed tightly among the others, are three books written on the life of John Lewis and illustrated as a graphic novel. 

I first heard of March from The Rachel Maddow Show and when I read them I finally understood the hype. I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried reading about his life, from preaching to the chickens on the family farm to being arrested, watching his friends be assassinated, to standing at the capital and watching the first black president take the oath of office. 

In a country so bitterly divided, it’s hard to imagine our politicians as heroes. John Lewis earned his stripes on the streets and I can only imagine the young black men and women who will follow in his footsteps. 

It is a day of great loss for America. For those who are mourning at the news and even those who don’t give a damn. Because that’s the thing about activists: they fight for your equality and freedom whether you stand for or against them. 

I got “shot.”

Yesterday I was on a lonely country road on my way to the store for some groceries when a shot rang out in my truck. My first thought, obviously, what that a sniper had taken aim to kill me from a hidden perch along the road. True crime stories of random shootings came to mind as I looked for the cause and simultaneously realized I was not injured and there was no blood or broken glass.

Turns out, the bottle of water from the freezer that I brought along was sitting in the console and apparently melted enough to expand and eject the cap. The bottle cap hit the sunroof and landed in the passenger seat. Water sprayed up, hitting the inside of the windshield (and me) accompanied by a loud pop!

You never really know how you’re going to handle an emergency but god knows I plan for them often enough. Earlier this month I towed a trailer 2,000+ miles and at least 10% of that journey I thought about what I’d do when the hitch disengaged. When the tire blew out. When the trailer flipped, taking my truck with it into a ditch.

Not if, when. 

Some people call this “rehearsing disaster” and it’s one way that anxiety shows up for me. I imagine terrible things and then try to plan a solution around them. Thanks to a lifetime of watching Unsolved Mysteries, Forensic Files and Dateline, my imagination is ripe with horrific scenarios to ponder! 

So when the blast of water went off in the truck, I was really rather proud that I didn’t swerve, slam on the breaks or go into hysterics. I figured out what happened, cursed the treacherous water for betraying me and kept driving to the store.

We don’t know how we’ll react until the moment of disaster

If you’d asked me a year ago how I would handle wearing a mask every time I left my house, or moving during a pandemic, or using hand sanitizer from a distillery that smells like vodka every day… I would have assumed the worst.

Rising to this occasion doesn’t take heroic measures, it doesn’t require Avenger level training or a bioengineering degree. All it takes to stem the tide of such a tremendous danger is a care for the life and health of others above my own personal comfort.

Watching videos of other Americans protesting mask ordinances, arguing about personal freedoms and insisting that “it’s all a hoax” makes me so sad. In our moment of need so many have responded with selfish disregard for others. It’s telling that I have seen so many young people and teenagers take in stride the cancellation of school, prom, sports programs, dance, graduation, birthdays and summer camp with grace and dignity. At the same time many adults in their 40s and beyond are the ones screaming about their “right” to go to Disneyworld, go to the beach, and get drunk at a bar for their birthday.

What’s worse, some of these selfish, ignorant, idiotic adults are raising children.

I suppose my brain prefers to rehearse the disaster of a tree falling on my new house, my dog getting sick or a tornado appearing out of clear blue skies because the actual disaster is too hard to fathom. 

You cannot argue about masks with someone who does not care about others. 

You cannot discuss public health with a person who isn’t convinced science is real. 

You cannot convince someone to take precautions who believes everything they don’t like is a lie. 

Perhaps that’s my real fear, because it’s not about getting randomly shot driving in my car (anymore). The real fear is that truth and judgment have taken the back seat to fear and feelings. It’s almost funny when I consider the likelihood of getting hit by lightening in an electrical storm because the odds are so small. It’s not funny to witness so many people who have the benefit of truth and facts in front of them willingly ignore it all in favor of a feel good lie. 

When a disaster strikes, I hope I can respond appropriately. 

When a global disaster strikes, I fear for our collective response.