I’ve been plagued by some sort of creeping malaise for the last few weeks, or maybe it’s been months, hard to tell. It’s no way to begin a post, I know, but I don’t want to come across as vague or scatterbrained. I’m just under what, for me, is an unusual amount of stress.
Things will be more settled in about a month or so, after I relocate and move on to greener pastures. The general milieu here-the riff raff-is prepping for another warm season and summer full of partying that I’d rather not be around for. It’s been a mild winter and, only nearing January’s end, there are still late night antics that could erupt into full-blown screaming matches (again).
The 21 year old girl who moved in with her father next door about five months into my “tenure” here has apparently taken to sleeping in her car after a late night of partying. Definitely weird, no matter how you slice it. I saw her this morning when I let Sophie out for her nightly visit to the DWP. It’s also the time I typically step outside-in my underGucci’s- for some fresh air, a look at the stars and to watch Sophie’s back while she’s in the bushes attending to other things. I often hear coyotes howling nearby and the neighbors tell me a very brazen mountain lion has taken to wandering our streets. But, in my undershorts I realized the lion wasn’t what was afoot. I don’t know if I was seen out there but I figure if someone’s going to take up temporary residence in their car, especially around here, they should expect to at least see an amputee in his underwear staring up at the sky with half a mind to whip it out and join his dog, who’s happily peeing in the middle of the road. Around here, that’s not as weird as it sounds, for I’ve seen much worse.
At around seven, when the father leaves for whatever place he’s left at seven o’clock every day for the past year, she turns off her car, slithers into the trailer, then lets out the whiny dog to piss on my tire, and that’s that. The weird father/daughter dynamic has -and likely will- blow up again anytime. Thank god they’ve taken to avoiding each other.
Still, I’ve had a ringside seat to all the screaming, crying, doors slamming, the whole bit. Then the next time I happen to see my neighbor, who I now refer to as the Father of the Year, he has a hang-dog look on his face and a smug comment for me, as if I was the asshole making all the noise the night before. So I’ve understandably taken to avoiding them both, for Sophie and I are great neighbors. Here, genuine friendliness is taken as a sign of weakness, and therefore an easy target for others’ crap. But Sophie and I don’t deserve that, which is why I’ve been making plans for us to leave here. Clearly everyone is too close for comfort here and, all things considered, the community probably does very well for itself.
But fist fights have broken out here a few times and it’s not a stretch to imagine some of my neighbors packing heat. Add some liquor into the mix and you’ve got yourself a good ol’ fashioned, down-home Lynyrd Skynyrd song, complete with booze, gunshots, lifeless bodies and self-inflicted gunshot wounds or life sentences in prison or high-speed pursuit car chases followed, of course by fatal gunshot wounds or being imprisoned for life. And to think I used to like that music. Ah, the naïveté of my youth.
Anyway, it’s a fact that I’ve felt dizzy and been stumbling more often lately and, as an upper limb amputee that says a lot. Sometimes I swear that dizziness and clumsiness define me more than anything else. It doesn’t help that I spend much of my time either sitting down to eat, lying down to over-eat, or standing up to cook. No wonder I’m so goddamned overweight and under-exercised. And poor Sophie’s stuck with my sloth-like existence. If only I’d bought a smaller RV Sophie and I would spend a hell of a lot more time outside exercising and less time snoozing. It’d go a long way toward getting me through a dark energy I’ve perceived since the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Ever since, I’ve perceived something far more insidious working on me, deep down inside. Call it a profound sense of injustice that someone who so closely resembles my childhood antagonist and the man I’ve struggled so hard at times to not become for lack of knowing any other way to behave was somehow elevated to the status of Most Powerful Man in the World. What the?
Though I thought I’d survived all that, suddenly the sneering visage of my old man is everywhere. It’s a generic expression, one my father used to refer to as “shit eating” and, unsurprisingly, the same expression engraved in my mind as my father’s own.
Anyway, this overall brain fog I sometimes feel afflicted with has affected my cognitive skills, to a point where I’ve had some good thoughts worth putting down in writing but haven’t bothered out of concern for the emotional cost it could bring. What would be the point? No matter how well I might express myself, Donald Trump would still be president when I finish and I’d feel like I was back to Square One again.
It’s like a black cloud, always hovering over my every deed and much of my thinking. In keeping with the old saw to “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer” I’ve found it best to fully immerse myself in Trump’s daily activities. And for good reason; turn your back and he just might getcha. It’s happened many times before, decades ago, and has never ended well for me.
On top of that, I’ve experienced an uptick in neuro aberrations, mostly as absence seizures and headaches. My sleep schedule is way off kilter and all these are linked, I’m sure. Trump’s presence in my life is a key part of this.
To many, Trump’s antics and buffoonery, his what-will-he-do-next novelty has become an unprecedented satire of American politics.
To others it’s a shining example of materialism interjected by hook and by crook into the system “gone rogue” and “run amok.” It’s even laughable at times.
To others still, Trump is no joke. I am among them and, in this I’m in good company. I/we don’t like to talk about this feeling and I/we certainly don’t want to be confronted with it every day.
So deep and so private are our feelings that they’re not readily found on message boards and online special interest groups. None of us want to talk about it any more than necessary; it’s all around us as it is.
Many Americans and world citizens too, have become somewhat inured to Trump’s antics. But for me and for many who share my perspective the shock value is never lost. In our experience, nothing is sacred and anything is possible.
One thing is clear: Turning my back on the Trump phenomenon isn’t an option any more than it would be to turn my back on traffic approaching behind me as I ride my bicycle. It’s an alert and, for me, a particularly uneasy feeling.
We all sometimes feel this and have developed effective yet simple means of dealing with it. In this case, the only way I know how to ease it is by keeping an eye on that rear view mirror.
The sight of Trump’s snarling face and the gravelly, demanding tone of Trump’s voice inspires something in me that’s primal and visceral. I can sometimes feel it there, clamoring for my attention.
Long before Trump’s election into office I saw him for what he is: A shameless liar with an innate ability to smile as if everything’s fine when in fact things are only “fine” when they are good for him. Anything less brings out the eyes bulging, neck veins popping tyrant that is always lurking just beneath the surface. But like the Wizard of Oz, all that bluster serves as mere cover for the cowardly and frightened little man he truly is.
The world at large never sees this however. Allowing it would only open up the possibility to future losses, an unthinkable idea. So it comes out behind closed doors. Sadly, for those among us who remember how such a cowardly tyrant once ruled our lives his voice once again rings in our ears. A “trigger,” therapists call it, one that must be “processed” and then “mastered” so that, when the time comes it’s something that can be “handled.”
But Trump’s is a voice that won’t be ignored, one that I can’t bear to hear yet one I don’t dare turn my back on. Ironically, prior to his visible entry in the 2015 primaries Trump didn’t even exist for me.
But as his chances of receiving his party’s nomination unexpectedly increased, his presence in my life became more real, too.
“America,” I remember thinking “is too progressive to elect another rich white guy president now.” After electing our first black president in ‘08 the first female president must come next. But the rich guy somehow eked out the win.
Suddenly, something I thought I’d left behind decades ago re-emerged as if it had never left. Memories of terrible emotional pain once again stirred in my soul, despite my belief I’d left it in the past. I’d barely survived it the first time; I didn’t know if I survive it again.
It was heartbreaking for me to realize how quickly and deftly I re-adopted the survival mode of my youth. But the reason for it seems obvious now: for better or worse we simply cannot unlearn those things that allowed us to cope, even survive, long ago.
Now, writing is exhausting and I’ve got to stop here.
(Several days later)
Since I warned you at the beginning of this post that my message may be somewhat convoluted I’ll not apologize for it here. It’s enough to say that this last segment (above) is the true subject I meant to express. Anything else was either a warmup or a mental distraction I’d built in to this post so as to minimize the fatigue of writing on what is, to me, an incredibly deep subject. Yet, despite my strategy to maintain my energy level the exhaustion ultimately prevailed, and I took a few days off.
I hope this message is clear but, if not, that’s okay. Anybody who knows me or who knows the main subject I’ve addressed here will get it. If you don’t, you may count yourself among the fortunate, for your problems lie elsewhere. Though I’d never wish to trade places with you, i.e. trade the known for the unknown, I’d hope your travails not involve fear and violence as mine have. And I sincerely wish you the best of luck in summoning the courage and the effort to overcome them. We might one day even become neighbors and I’ll need you to be stable and composed just as you’ll need me to be, too. Then we may all sleep in peace.
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