art is fear

After the election, I invited three Trump voters to my home for dinner. I wanted to understand why they voted for a man who seemed to me so obviously abhorrent. I’d interacted with a few Trump supporters over social media during the campaign season. However, I don’t think even the best DC spin doctors could have found a way to characterize those exchanges as thoughtful or constructive. To gain deeper insight, I devoured analysis and opinions from experts and pundits on why they thought so many people voted for Trump. I read Hillbilly Elegy, Gilded Rage, and Strangers In Their Own Land searching for clues from across the country. I felt like I was getting filtered information, though, and I wanted to find out for myself what was really driving those votes. I wanted to meet the Trump voter face-to-face.

Living in DC where only 4% voted for Trump, I knew I would have to search beyond my usual networks to find his supporters. I posted this invitation on Facebook on November 16:

“I've hosted scores of small dinners over the years with people who represented a diversity of skin colors, sexual orientation, and economics. Sometimes there were misunderstandings and disagreements, but mostly we agreed on political ideology. Maybe it's time to invite this new layer of diversity to dinner.… I don't support or respect Trump. But I want to respect the Trump voter by learning more from him or her by talking face to face and not on social media. If you voted for Trump, please let me know if you are interested in talking over dinner at my house. I'm a pretty decent cook!”

I was inspired by artist Elia Alba, who has been organizing a project called The Supper Club, in which she makes dinner for artists of color to discuss difficult questions about the intersection of visual culture and race. I have also been a longtime fan of artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, who practices relational art. He creates installations that bring people together for a social experience, like inviting visitors to drink tea in a replica of his home. Treating what I imagined would be an uncomfortable dining experience as an art project made the experience more palatable.

No Trump voters accepted my offer, though many liberal friends asked if they could attend. None of the pro-Trump people who had previously commented on my political posts contacted me. Though Facebook lets you befriend thousands of people, not one of them felt friendly enough to take the bait. I had to rely on friends of friends. One liberal friend introduced me to a former co-worker who’d voted for Trump. She felt reticent at first, perhaps fearful that I was setting a trap for her, but she wanted to learn about other viewpoints. After I reassured her of my sincere intention to understand, she agreed and brought two additional conservatives to the table, one who hadn’t been able to stomach Trump and had voted for Johnson, and another who was a a true believer.

I had no expectations, only curiosity.

The conversation turned to politics from the first moments. We talked about personal details only as they related to politics. When we discussed immigration, one Trump voter told the story of her Syrian grandmother who had immigrated to America years ago. Another Trump voter cited a New York Times article that he said proved Hillary Clinton had used her position as Secretary of State to enrich the Clinton Foundation. I wanted to open my laptop and fact check on the spot. I resisted the impulse. This was a dinner party and a learning experience. I didn’t need to be right and I wasn’t trying to persuade them. I simply wanted to understand. I think I muttered, “C’mon you don’t really believe that” only twice during the two hours we spent together.

Afterward, a friend who writes for DCist saw a picture of the dinner party I’d posted on Facebook and wrote a short piece about it. A Trump voter read that article and contacted me through Twitter and asked if he could join the next dinner. After meeting him first in a public place to make sure he wouldn’t murder me and my friends in my home, I invited him and then started digging deep into my networks in search of two more Trump voters. I wasn’t about to invite family members who’d voted for Trump, or the one close friend I knew had voted for him, too. I was afraid of doing irreparable harm to those relationships.

I remembered a woman I’d worked with over 15 years ago and had not seen since. She’d made some comments on my Facebook page last year that led me to believe she’d voted for Trump. She asked if she could bring her boyfriend after disclosing that his political views made her seem liberal and, in fact, were so extreme that she’d unfriended him on Facebook. She promised he would behave. I also invited three liberal friends to balance out the evening.

I planned a menu of blue and red foods. I set out red salsa with blue corn chips, along with blue cheese and red grapes to start. For the first course, I served a blue cheese sauce over red tomato linguine. For the main course, I served roast beef (red meat!) with roasted Brussels sprouts. I’d wanted to serve blue potatoes but hadn’t been able to find them that day. And for dessert, my pièce de résistance, I served a blueberry and cherry crisp. Preparations included reading On Dialogue by David Bohm to strengthen my conversational skills, and writing down a list of questions I wanted to ask. Finally, I emailed everyone in advance and told them that I would enforce a strict prohibition on political discussion for the first half hour. We would first get to know each other.

My former co-worker brought a bottle of Trump wine. I laughed politely at her joke and placed the bottle of Viognier in the refrigerator, unable to bring myself to drink it. I feared the artificial tannins might trigger an allergic reaction.

After 30 minutes, I asked everyone to place their hands on a baguette and promise to engage in respectful discourse, and then we broke the bread and dipped the pieces into an eggplant dip (purple!). Maybe in the old days, bread was harder and actually broke, because that night we tore the bread apart with some difficulty. Some people got larger pieces, while others ended up with small morsels, so we redistributed the pieces to make sure everyone got enough. I restrained myself from stating the obvious analogy.

Then we sat down at the table and engaged in a lively, respectful discussion that ranged across a wide spectrum of topics. When the subjects veered into settled issues like Benghazi or into fake news topics, I wished I’d had that baguette to bludgeon my guests and steer the conversation elsewhere before the mood turned sour. When everyone was talking at the same time about Muslim registry and debating whether it would lead to internment, my liberal friend sitting across the table shot me the “it’s time to wrap it up before I lose my cool” eye roll. I tapped my glass with a fork and thanked everyone for coming and encouraged them to host their own dinners with people whose views differed from their own. Overall, the conversation had been eminently polite. But it was also eminently clear where everyone stood on the issues.

Someone had suggested we go around the table and say what we hoped would happen in the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency. I made two demands: Trump should rebuke Putin and Russian interference in our democratic process, and he should release his tax returns. I knew neither would ever happen and I regretted not offering something more constructive. The next day, I emailed everyone with a new wish for the first 100 days: I’d like to see President Trump follow through on his campaign promise to improve our country’s failing infrastructure.

I believe that the dinner party is an opportunity to speak to each other as human beings and not as avatars. Breaking bread builds relationships that can bridge the vast ideological gap that exists in our country if we are to make improvements that lift up all Americans. We need to cultivate and nurture those relationships in order to find ways to work together to heal the divide that threatens the now tenuous fabric of our democracy. Polarization serves politicians, not what’s best for American people.

One week ago, I invited Trump voters over for dinner at my house. After posting a picture on Facebook (followed by this piece), I received a couple messages that essentially said, Trump voters are despicable people and your dinners are normalizing them so please stop.

Some of my immigrant family members would have been killed in their country for holding the wrong political views so they escaped to America and experienced racism and took menial jobs to survive, and they voted for Trump. Is my family despicable and abnormal? My Bolivian friend told me that the socially conservative pastor at her Spanish speaking church instructed parishioners to vote for Trump because they should not vote for abortion rights. Are those working class Latinos despicable and abnormal? A young, white woman who sat at my dinner table was descended from Syrian immigrants, had earned an advanced degree, attends arts events, and she voted for Trump. Is she despicable and abnormal? A middle-aged white man who contacted me on Twitter after reading about the dinner owns a small business and told me his mother was held in prison by the Russian communists for ten years, and he voted for Trump. Is he despicable and abnormal?

I’m angry at them for electing a despicable and abnormal man who is a sexist, racist, narcissistic, thin-skinned demagogue. However, I do not believe they are despicable or abnormal. To be sure, extreme factions of hateful Trumpsters exist. I am not interested in them. But not all people who voted for Trump are hateful. Some based their choices on wrong facts and misinformation. Some prioritized money over people. Some adhered to their socially conservative beliefs. Some hated Hillary that much. Whatever the reasons, I want to understand all of it so I can be part of the solution for figuring out how we never elect a person like Trump ever again.

It’s only been 40 days since the election. I’m still reeling from confusion and shock. Hashing out our collective pain over and over with like minded friends has been therapeutic. I understand why dinner detractors aren’t ready (and may never be willing) to break bread with Trump voters.

I am ready to fight and to take action. I am going to do so by meeting our political opponents in the ring (or over the dinner table, as the case may be). I applaud my dinner guests for their willingness to join me. 

It would be so much easier to spend all my time complaining to people who already agree with my point of view. That tactic didn’t pan out so well, though. Inviting people to my home and having difficult, respectful conversations over a home-cooked meal is a tool of engagement that I am employing to combat racism, sexism, and inequality of all kinds. 

[ In today’s edition of near daily blogging with Splatospheric, I’m exploring ideas about discomfort and the things we gain when we are made uncomfortable or when we seek discomfort.]

At an art opening a few nights ago, I ran into an acquaintance who introduced me to her friend “Eric” (name changed to preserve his dignity). She explained to him that I was working on a creative placemaking project. He said, “I think I’m working on something similar,” which he then explained in extraordinary detail. He ended his soliloquy with, “What can you do for me?” He literally said that! I literally had just met the guy. Wincing a little, I offered some ideas on how I might approach his project, but he seemed distracted and uninterested in my solicited advice and interrupted with more information about how he planned to execute.

“Sound like you’ve got it all under control! Great meeting you! ” I smiled, then crossed the room to brainstorm with a friend about working together on creative placemaking projects. We bantered until the end of the event and then continued the conversation over drinks at a bar across the street.

At another party the next night, I asked an acquaintance, “What were you for Halloween?” She detailed the process of envisioning and assembling a costume that she believed was brilliant. After 10 or 15 minutes of uninterrupted, breathless stream of consciousness, I said, “Please excuse me but I’ve got to finish writing a post for every-other-day blogging with my friend Karen. She’ll kill me if I don’t get it done.” On the way out, a friend who was leaving at the same time invited me to join her at a nearby bar for one drink, which turned into several drinks fueling a conversation that meandered around love and life and our hopes for the future. I skipped blogging that night. Karen did not kill me.

The next morning, I woke up to this nasty comment on a political post I’d made the previous afternoon on Facebook: “That’s really fucked up and irresponsible. I kind of thought you had a brain.”

Usually when someone disagrees with me about politics on Facebook, I try reasoning with naive optimism and respect. (Plus, in today’s political climate, I genuinely want to understand an opposing viewpoint.) This time, I reflexively blocked the unknown interloper. I did not know the man in real life and he was not a Facebook friend so I did not feel any compunction about the swift eradication. Until two actual friends jumped into the fray to chastise him.

“What a terrible thing to say to someone, whatever their politics. Shame on you, Rob.”

“Agreed, no need for your vulgarity here. You seem to need to learn how to disagree respectfully.”

I wished I’d waited to block the hostile commenter so he could have seen their replies.

I recently experimented with a new strategy to break my social media habit, which I blamed for how little I had been writing lately. Until then, making my devices less accessible by hiding them in another room or turning them off altogether had not reduced my social media cravings. I’d also loaded an application on my laptop that blocked access to predetermined websites for specified periods of time. However, that app did not work on my cell phone so my access to social media was effectively undeterred. The only solution was to physically separate myself from all gadgets capable of connecting to the world wide web.

I could endure long stretches without looking at my cell phone if I was doing something that impeded my ability in some way, like hiking or paddle boarding. But I would always turn it back on at the first possible opportunity. During a recent hike up Old Rag Mountain, I did not have cell reception most of the time. I could feel my phone buzz to life, though, when we reached the top and a few bars of reception appeared. I quickly scanned all my social media before continuing down the backside of the mountain. My excuse for not leaving the phone in the car was that I did not have a camera so I needed it to take pictures of the beautiful scenery that I would, of course, later post on social media.

I wanted to spend sedentary time thinking and actually writing, so I decided to sit in a nearby park for one hour. I planned to attempt that level of separation from my devices one or two times each week until I worked my way up to daily one hour respites from the internet.

My usual excuse for never leaving home without my mobile device was that I did not wear a watch. I needed the phone to tell me the time. I solved this problem for the park excursion by bringing with me the battery-powered analog clock I kept on my nightstand.

After stopping at a coffee shop to pick up a latte, I settled into an unoccupied, shaded bench free of bird droppings. I scribbled a few thoughts in my journal about the beautiful weather and how great it was to be able to enjoy the real world without interference from the virtual world. Then I checked the clock. About ten minutes had passed. I could hear it ticking.

I thumbed through a half-read book. I gazed off into space. I studied passersby. Women pushed strollers with one hand while gazing at their cell phones raised up in the other hand. A man who looked homeless slumped on a nearby bench. Joggers raced by. A young man strolled past wearing an untucked and half unbuttoned white collared shirt, a necktie dangled around his neck, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. His smile did not radiate shame, but his slouch signaled otherwise.

A teen-aged girl wearing a strapless, white, lacy gown, surrounded by a deep purple, frilly cloud of giggling friends paraded by. I guessed I was witnessing the documentation portion of a quinceañera. Teetering atop spiky heels, they gingerly walked on their toes across the grass until the photographer directed them to stop. He arranged them into various combinations while two older women snapped candid photos and recorded video on their cell phones. The girls awaiting their turn to be photographed took selfies of their heads squashed together, their lips puckered up with sexy, pouty attitudes. I wished I could have captured the scene for my own social media.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, my doctor instructed me to stop taking birth control pills. Studies have shown a link between high levels of estrogen and breast cancer. Birth control pills are basically little estrogen time bombs!

Not being able to take birth control was the least of my worries in the year that followed the diagnosis, which included two agonizing months of awaiting a double mastectomy, followed by two reconstructive surgeries, with each surgery requiring several weeks of recovery. A friend who had undergone the same procedures before me reminded me in a text message that there were three upshots:

Main thing to look forward to is not being dead, not wearing a bra, and saying fuck it to most everything - the rest blows but the top 3 are pretty good.

Those words kept me going through that first year until sadness descended on me again as the one year anniversary of diagnosis approached. Low level melancholy continued for two months until after the first anniversary of the mastectomy. The second year was a little better. Three years have just passed and the gloominess has diminished significantly. Though I frequently still feel pain and am self-conscious about my near constant nipple protrusions, I love being alive, I marvel at the continued perkiness of my breasts that don’t require a bra, and I am pretty close to saying "fuck it" to most things in my life.

I feel like I can concern myself again with the inconvenience of not taking birth control pills. Before the diagnosis, I barely menstruated and never suffered cramps, bloating, and tyrannical mood swings. Since the diagnosis, my period gushes and I can barely function two or three days each month. When I described my periods to my regular doctor, she said that everything sounded normal and I probably was not used to what a normal period felt like. At my six-month checkup appointments to ensure that cancer has not returned, my cancer surgeon continues to recommend against resuming birth control pills. Why take any chances? Despite the monthly aggravation, I probably would not take the pill again even if she said it was okay.

My gushing period belies the fact that I have probably passed the age of maternity. At the same time, my monthly cycle reminds me that motherhood was once, and may still be, conceivable. Taking the pill had become habit so I had given little thought to the possibility of pregnancy, even during my most fertile years. I married at 23-years-old under the unspoken and undiscussed assumption that we would follow a well-charted life path that would eventually include children. So when my husband and I finished graduate school and had established our careers, we progressed to the next step: discussions about having a child.

I was reluctant. I did not want to endure the physical toll of childbearing, so we looked into adoption. I even convinced myself that I wanted to provide a loving home for an unwanted child. The more I explored adoption, though, the more reasons I discovered for why I did not want to become a mother. I did not believe that I could be a good parent. However, my husband convinced me that I could be a better parent to my child than my parents were to me. I liked the freedom and flexibility of my life. My husband reminded me that we could afford extensive childcare. He also predicted that our genetic diversity would produce amazing children. I could not argue with that!

He had no rebuttal, however, for my near total void in maternal instinct. I simply could not muster up interest in child bearing and rearing. When friends tried to hand me their babies, I recoiled. Playing children’s games like Apples to Apples with my niece and nephew bored me (though I adore the heck out of those kids!). I recalled my short stint as a babysitter when I was 13-years-old. I talked on the phone and read the mom’s diary out loud to my friends the entire night while the children watched television and ate whatever they wanted out of the cupboards. The kids tattled on me and I never saw them again. I also recalled being a teenaged terror. The thought of parenting a teen who alternated between similar bouts of sullenness and anger did not appeal to me.

One of my best pals Karen and I had not been writing regularly on our blogs for various reasons this year. Whenever we have fallen out of the writing habit in the past, we reactivated by blogging every day for a month, which helped us redevelop a writing habit, which is half the battle of writing, at least for me. Karen is much more disciplined than I am when it comes to writing. Even she shows signs of cracking every once in a while, though. This time around, we decided that every day blogging would be too onerous given our schedules, so we decided to revive our writing habit by posting one per person on alternating days.

Karen’s posts usually get many more likes than mine on Facebook, which makes me a little jealous. I rationalize the disparity. Her writing quality is much more consistent. My writing quality has been uneven, which I attribute to the long lapses between my writing sprees. She is very funny. People prefer to read funny things over sad confessionals like mine. When I run into people who tell me they liked something I wrote, I want to shout, “Then why didn’t you like it on Facebook?!” But that would be a very uncool thing to say so I simply reply, “Thank you!”

Posting links to our blogs on Facebook every day gives us the illusion of accountability. Once I publicly announce my intention to write on a regular basis, I feel guilty when I do not meet the deadlines. There are no real world repercussions for not writing, though, aside from self-flagellation. No one seems to notice when I do not write and Karen does not give me a hard time when I slack off.

I know some people are paying close attention to my Facebook posts even if they do not publicly like or comment on things that I post. One person I know has sent me text messages within minutes of me posting a picture of something I have been doing that she had wanted to do. She entreats me to invite her to similar things in the future. I don't post my whereabouts as frequently anymore.

Other people have complained to me that I do not like enough of their things on Facebook. Maintaining Facebook friendships requires a delicate balance of quid pro quo. If we are friends in real life and doing a good job of nurturing those friendships outside of the digital world, though, I do not think we should be required to underscore those friendships with digital touches, too. On the other hand, I crave Facebook likes so I suppose I should be liking their things if I want them to like my things. One of my closest friends does not have a Facebook page. We tell each other in person how much we like each other!

I can think of two couples who “met” on Facebook. One person spotted his future girlfriend when she was tagged in a photo that a mutual friend posted. He liked the photo, made a clever comment, then digitally stalked her enough to discover mutual interests that he could use as pretense to engage her in conversation in private messaging. Referencing the mutual friend helped legitimize the connection. They dated for over two years.

I’m not very good at Halloween. Maybe a small part of my apathy lies in deep-seeded frugality ingrained in me by my mother. Why would I spend money on clothing I would wear only once? (Like a prom dress.) I definitely do not like camouflage of any sort; I do not like to hide behind masks. Even for only one night. I want to see faces, eyes, expressions, and the truth.

Last year I wore a pink cowgirl hat I’d borrowed from a friend, plain jeans, cowboy boots pulled from my closet, and a paper sheriff’s star that I had cut from a template I found on the internet. I started the night at a party hosted by a hot guy I’d once had a crush on who was really into Halloween. He was decked out in full cowboy regalia that included full leather chaps, a shiny sheriff’s star, and a felt cowboy hat. I could not stop singing to myself, “They have everything for you men to enjoy, You can hang out with all the boys… It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. ….” He looked like an understudy for the Village People! I do not recall his girlfriend’s costume but I do recall some tense whispering between them soon after I arrived, which prompted me to depart for the next party after throwing back two beers in quick succession and shoving sushi down my gullet.

My ex-husband and I dressed in a couple’s costume once, S&M Gilligan and The Skipper. Obviously, I played the role of Sexy Skipper. I procured outfits for us inspired by the costumes I’d seen at the High Heel Races, which frequently featured innocuous even childlike characters, like Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, adorned with S&M accessories. Handcuffs. Whips. Spiked dog collars. Leashes. Our costumes belied the riff that was growing between us.

The next year, I dressed in some kind of outfit that involved handcuffs, which I had repurposed from the previous year’s three hour tour. My ex and I didn’t attend a party together, though. I went to a party with a single girlfriend without him, ended up being handcuffed to some random cute guy that had been hitting on me all night, and spent 20 minutes struggling to undo the wrist shackles when I misplaced the key at the end of the night.

As a little girl, I remember being a Princess more than once. I liked to pretend I would one day rule the world. My mom had bought me a long pink dress that could also be worn on other occasions. I fashioned a crown made of pink construction paper adorned with a constellation of tiny gold star stickers and a scepter made from a thin wooden dowel topped with a pink construction paper star, also adorned with gold sticker stars.

My best friend Shannon’s mom took her to a nearby neighborhood that was renowned for generous candy distributions. My immigrant mom did not understand Halloween so I was stuck in our stingier neighborhood. My brother and I did well though, filling our orange plastic jack-o-lantern buckets with teeth decaying goodies. I hoarded the Snickers, Butterfingers, and Peanut Butter Cups. I tried to force my little brother to take my SweetTarts in exchange for all his caramel and chocolate candies. A carful of teenagers roared passed my brother and me and threw a raw egg that hit me square on the hip. It hurt. I pretended not to notice and continued down the street with dozens of other children gleefully knocking on doors.

Many harbor the mistaken belief that I disdain hugs. Not true! I love hugs. Especially after I’ve had a few drinks. Then I’m all smiles and squeezes. I’ve noticed that I am more likely to hug an acquaintance than a close friend. When socializing at events, I will administer a side hug, or even a frontal hug if there is plenty of air left between our bodies. If someone leans in for a hug, I don’t bat them away. I’m not a monster!

In contrast, when I see a close friend, we shout greetings from across the room on arrival and then wave goodbye at departure. Sometimes there is an awkward moment at the end of an evening when the friend finishes hugging everyone in a protracted farewell, then looks at me with searching eyes. I respond with a smile as I open the door and push them out into the hallway. Mostly my good friends know to exit quietly and with little hugging fanfare.

I have a long and complicated relationship with the hug. I don’t come from a huggy culture. Though I know my family would walk over red hot coals for me, we don’t hug much. Public displays of affection were silently and strictly forbidden. Therefore, I did not acquire the hugging habit as a child, which may explain some other things about me but that is a discussion for another day.

Jokes about my hugging incompetence have dogged me my whole life. A friend from law school used to hold his arms straight and stiff by his sides like he was auditioning for Riverdance whenever a traditional hugging situation arose between us. 

I’ve softened my hardline stance against hugs as I’ve grown older, though. Sometimes I find myself spontaneously throwing my arms around someone. If a friend who knows my general inclination toward arms-length interactions is in the vicinity, they usually say something like, “She doesn’t like hugs.” And then the person being hugged is confused and feels like they have done something wrong. And then I feel like an idiot because I, in fact, had opened up my arms to this person who now feels like they may have accosted me without permission.

As a reluctant hugger, I can be critical and discerning when it comes to this activity. One acquaintance believes that his hugs are superior because he crushes you in his arms. I appreciate a firm, even tight, embrace that conveys affection without pretension. However, this guy’s hugs feel more like an assertion of power and dominance than a transference of love.

One night I tried to avoid hugging the forceful hugger when our group was parting after a long and late dinner during which he had dominated the conversation, obsessively criticized the light fixtures, offered unsolicited advice, and berated me when I told him I was not interested in a thing that he thought I should be interested in. I did not want to gratuitously hug this man. And I wasn’t trying to be funny.

Another person in the group attempted to defuse the rising tension by playfully reminding him, “Ha ha, she doesn’t like to be hugged, haha.” He continued to stand in the middle of the street with his arms stretched out in a Christ-like stance, beseeching me with his eyes. “C’mon, P,” he pleaded. It was a stand off that I lost and it made me feel less powerful, less in control of my body and my personal space, ashamed, humiliated.

“It was just a hug, you’re overreacting” I told myself as I dismissed my feelings of repulsion and self-loathing. But I wondered if he’d have demanded such a hug from a man. I wondered if he’d ever forced himself on other women in more egregious ways. I’d seen him aggressively hit on women at parties, especially when he’d been drinking. A part of me wanted to believe that he simply needed a hug that night.

I attended a symposium last week at the Center for Hellenic Studies to explore “Disconnectedness and the Integrating Leader.” One of the things we discussed was the critical importance of surrounding yourself with diversity. Racial. Socioeconomic. Ideological. As has become evident with this election, most of us exist within our own echo chambers and we infrequently, if ever, interact with anyone outside of our silo. We post on social media for people who already agree with us. We socialize with people who conceptually and actually look like us. This interpersonal isolationism has been a significant contributing factor to the current political fiasco.

Over the past months, I have attempted to understand viewpoints that are different from my own. I have tried reading books and articles that attempt to explain the Trump phenomena. I have tried reading and listening to commentators that Trump supporters follow. Mostly it makes me angry. But I feel empathy, too. I have understood throughout my life that feeling of disconnectedness, of being left out of the power that is inherent in certain elite circles. This struggle to understand others has been a powerful tool for understanding myself.

My first memory of feeling like an outsider was when I lived in a small town in the Alaskan interior when I was 7-years-old. I looked like a Native girl and Natives were treated as inferiors by the dominant white culture of the town. It didn’t matter if I corrected people and told them I was half-Asian, my physical features placed me in the “other” category that was the only option for people like me on surveys and standardized questionnaires. I never saw any children of any actual color in my school. Native peoples in Alaska lived apart from whites so I was treated as an interloper.

In the third grade, I began the process of stubborn assimilation into white culture when I moved from the Alaskan wilderness to a suburban neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia, also in which no children of color lived. A small contingent of black kids later enrolled at my high school, which was fed by a few slightly more diverse primary schools from around the area. Self-imposed segregation was in full effect though. The black students sat together at lunch and congregated on the back patio with the smokers during breaks between classes. I socialized with only white kids throughout those years, even avoiding the one other Asian girl in my class, who also avoided me. The first rule of assimilation: never associate with another Asian. Ever.

I continued to avoid having friends of color throughout college. I rejected the Student Asian Association though an acquaintance tried to recruit me. Instead I joined the Scandinavian Interest Club after accompanying my Finnish roommate to all the Nordic activities. My friends sunburned easily and ate bland foods. I eventually married almost the whitest guy I could find in our predominantly white southern school, which completed my assimilation.

[Splatospheric and I are blog dueling today about prom dresses. Today’s topic was prompted by Karen’s brother. I wish I could have found a picture of me at prom!]

What did you wear to prom? How did you get your outfit, and what happened to it?

The no-name brand dress I wore to Junior Prom was made of white polyester fabric speckled with tiny red dots. A wide ruffle stretched across the chest and around the shoulders. A thin, red satin ribbon circled the waist and tied in a bow at the back. I felt like everyone knew it had been purchased off the sale rack at the Miller & Rhoads department store. I had badly wanted a pink taffeta strapless dress, probably by Laura Ashley or Jessica McClintock, the preferred prom dress designers of the mid 1980s. A friend wore this coveted dress to prom. I pretended that I had considered that particular gown during my deliberations and had determined its pinkness was too girly for me.

My mother had initially refused to buy any dress at all that I would wear only once. She could not understand why wearing the right dress to prom was critical to success in American high school. She’d only ever owned two uniform dresses when she was in school, alternating between wearing one and washing the other.

She also reminded me that she had eaten only rice and dried fish for months while living in a tent camp after escaping the North Vietnamese communists when she was six-years-old. Even after our family had reestablished itself in Saigon, she and her sisters contributed to the family coffers by buying pineapples at the market, slicing them into spears, impaling them on bamboo skewers, and hawking the fruit on street corners. Her early childhood deprivations prevented her from making frivolous purchases. And buying something that would be worn only once was the height of frivolity. Her familiar refrain bored me and I pouted until she agreed to take me shopping. 

My prom date wore light gray tails and a white tie to the black tie event, finished off with a top hat and cane. Mortified by this ensemble, I attempted to avoid him all night. As soon as we arrived at the John Marshall Hotel, I excused myself to go to the bathroom and gossiped with friends. I emerged after an uncomfortably long time and scurried the opposite direction whenever I saw him. I managed to avoid dancing with him for most of the night. I shimmied in groups of girls to Madonna and Wham! and then fled the dance floor whenever the DJ played a slow song.

I keep meeting women who went to surf camp just before they got divorced, or quit a big job, or made some other kind of life altering decision. I’d done the same thing during the time I was pulling away from my husband after well over a decade of marriage. Long before embarking on my first surfing safari, I’d begun cultivating a life that didn’t include him. I was spending more and more time carousing with single friends at happy hours and late night parties that sometimes ended with me sleeping on someone’s couch because I was too inebriated to drive home. I’d become a late night regular at my favorite Adams Morgan bar where the bartenders wordlessly refilled my wine glass.

At the beginning of our marriage, I’d reveled in our domesticity. I prepared meals at home almost every night, paid our monthly bills, invested our money, registered our cars, planned our vacations, and managed every detail of our existence together. The first sign of marital deterioration was an empty refrigerator. We started eating out for almost every meal as I began to neglect the weekly grocery shopping. Maybe I was suffering from early onset mid-life crisis.

I’d casually mentioned my dream of learning to surf to a new girlfriend one evening over cocktails. Though my first serious boyfriend surfed, I’d never learned though I dressed the part, subscribed to Surfer magazine, and plastered my dorm room walls with posters of Tom Curren and other surfing stars of the late 80s. Within a week of introducing the idea, we found a surf camp in Costa Rica and booked our flights.

My husband and I had never vacationed apart. We traveled well together. Even when the end of the marriage was inevitable, we continued to plan trips together until the end, Berlin, Krakow, Vietnam. Our marriage was crashing on the rocks, though, by the time I announced my surfing plan. He did not try to dissuade me. I think he thought the trip would drive out the restlessness that had been stirring in me for a couple years. We’d finished graduate school and our careers were well established and upwardly mobile. We’d renovated two houses, hosted dinner parties, decorated a Christmas tree every year, and vacationed with other couples. I hadn’t done anything unpredictable in my adult life. Surf camp awakened me.

Surfing was much much harder than I thought it would be. I had imagined I’d be sliding down the face of waves higher than my head and shooting through barrels by the end of the week at surf camp. Instead, I spent most of those days popping up on baby waves that were mostly the whitewater leftovers from the real waves on the outside break. The physical challenge was addicting, though, and I vowed to conquer the sport. I returned to Costa Rica the following year to hone my skills and befriended surfers back home who guided me around the difficult east coast surf breaks. Learning to surf might have given me confidence to do even harder things, like leaving a long marriage.

The uncluttered lifestyle of surfing also appealed to me. The tide dictated the timing of surf sessions. Otherwise, there was no schedule to follow. We wore bikinis every day. My closets full of clothes and shoes back home seemed excessive. Sometimes I’d slip on a pair of flip flops to walk up the dirt road for an ice cream. There were two choices of beer, Imperial Lager or Pilsen. Beans and rice accompanied every meal. We gravitated toward either the Blind Dog or the Guilded Iguana at night, depending on which featured live music, to recap the best rides of the day and show off our bruises.

Surfing embodied freedom. Surfers lived their lives according to the natural laws of shifting tides and winds and strict surfing etiquette. Don’t drop in on another surfer. The surfer closest to the peak has right-of-way. Paddling surfer yields to surfer riding wave. Don’t ditch your board. Don’t be a snake. Contrived societal rules did not apply. Most of the American residents who’d made their home in the tiny Costa Rican beach town seemed to have fled or escaped someone or something they wanted to forget. Nobody asked questions and no one judged your past. The only thing that mattered was who you were in that moment. And in that moment, you could reinvent yourself into whoever you wanted to be.

I vacationed in Greece for ten days last summer with five family members: mom, brother, and three teenagers. I arranged the hotels and all the transportation, including air, ferry, taxis, rental cars, and subway. I decided when and where we would eat every meal. I planned each day’s itinerary to accommodate the various interests of each member of our party. Their travel styles differed from mine, so I adapted. I usually like to walk everywhere and explore, while they prefer the convenience of motorized transportation. I enjoy lingering over meals and drinks, reading books, and staring off into the distance, while they fancy activity-filled days. Everyone agreed, though, that sunset watching was a daily requirement.

For the post-family, solo portion of my summer vacation, I landed in Paros. I’d found a tiny Airbnb apartment located on a quiet street in the old town of Parikia. The listing described the place as “old traditional Greek style,” which meant the bathroom occupied a separate room outside the apartment through the back door. The Airbnb host Steve mentioned that an author had been holed up in the room for three months and was checking out the day I would arrive. The room had been blessed with good karma!

I arrived at midday when the main market street was quiet while most tourists were basking in the sun at nearby beaches. People clogged the arteries in the evenings and late into the night. Most stores closed around midnight to maximize their income during the few months of the year when the islands filled with tourists from across Europe.

All the buildings were painted a brilliant white and the doors shades of blue. A dozen cats lolled outside my apartment in the evenings. Unsmiling, hunched women dressed in black dresses walked straight ahead while sunburned bikini clad women wearing colorful, filmy coverups veered around them.

The streets of the old city twisted in a labyrinth. Away from the main street, without distinguishing storefront signs and window displays, I looked for other distinctive characteristics that would help me find my way home. After guiding me from the port when I first arrived, Steve had shown me the library around the corner from the apartment to use as a landmark. If I had any trouble, he suggested I ask any local where to find the library which he claimed everyone knew.

After a late dinner that first night, I wandered the streets unable to find my way home. I asked shop owners for the library but nobody understood me. After 45 minutes, I spotted a “you are here” map along the main route, quickly pinpointed the library, and was opening my front door within three minutes.

The next day I paid 5 euros for a short boat ride to Antiparos, a tiny nearby island that felt like a chic outpost of France. I was surrounded by French speakers and several restaurants served baguette sandwiches. In one especially stylish shop, I tried on a Japanese designer top that cost 348 euros. Not your usual fringe-edged beach shirt emblazoned with “beach babe” in neon.

After a late lunch, I walked through town to a beach on the other side of the island where I found another French-owned, elegant bar and restaurant. Large globes of woven seagrass painted white swung from a leafy gazebo. The tables were set with woven mats, white dinner plates and white cloth napkins, surrounded by an array of glassware. I settled into a sofa that faced west, ordered an aperol spritz, and read a book while bathed in late afternoon light until the setting sun fired up the sky.

I watched the sunset from a different place each day. One evening I climbed a few steps to the Kastro art bar, next to a beautiful Byzantine whitewashed church, and sat alone on one of two benches on a small terrace facing the sea. Another night, I found the one waterfront bar with a view that was still serving drinks outside despite a strong wind that blew everything off the tables that evening. The temperature had dipped below 80 so the Greeks layered up with quilted vests and fuzzy wraps.

The sun set in a large orange and yellow ball every single night. I wondered how this meteorological consistency could be possible day after day. In the distance, I saw a church at the end of a point that curved around to protect the harbor. I considered renting a car for a day to explore that part of the island, but couldn’t muster the energy to fill out the paperwork.

I woke up before dawn one night to watch the Perseids meteor shower. I searched the waterfront for a dark spot from which to observe shooting stars, but bright streetlights polluted the night. Drunk people staggered along in bumbling groups, singing and shouting in their native tongues. Greek pop music blared from open air bars. I perched on a terrace above the street and stared at the heavens for a long time before I finally saw a star streak across the pale sky.

I sat in a different cafe each morning and wrote in my journal while drinking freshly squeezed orange juice. One morning at the Pirate Bar and Cafe, Theo who was the owner of the Apollon restaurant included me in his daily ritual of buying coffee for all the shop owners who socialized with one another between customers. When I hadn’t been able to find my way home again the second night, I’d followed the signs to the Apollon, a garden style restaurant nestled behind a wall down the street from the library.

I told Theo I was planning to catch the bus to Naoussa, a town on the other side of the island. “I am going there to buy cakes today,” he said. “I take you.” We circumnavigated the island before stopping for a seaside lunch of fried calamari, zucchini fritters, taramasalata and tzatziki dip, and fried fish.

One day I took a boat across the bay to Melis where I landed on a rocky beach packed with families sprawled on sun beds under neat rows of colorful umbrellas. I walked a rocky path along a barren ridge above the sea toward the church that I had gazed at during my daily sunset viewing ritual from town. I passed a tiny cove where a woman had laid out her beach gear for the day and was reading a book while her feet soaked in the clear water.

At the very tip of the point, I sat on a rock and gazed back at Parikia. A fine mist sprayed me as waves crashed below. I thought about all the people I’d left at the crowded beach and all the people that filled the bars each night and all the people who roamed the narrow streets, each occupying a separate and unique world, oblivious to me. I began to understand more deeply the meaning of a word I’d recently learned from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, sonder:

the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

After a few days on the island, I started running into my new friends around town. Theo rode by on his bike and waved. Steve introduced me to his ex pat friends, a Spanish jewelry maker who sold her wares from a tiny shop along Market Street and an Englishman whose pub-themed bar was popular with the backpackers. I began to discover the complexity of each of their epic lives.

On the morning of my scheduled departure from Paros, Steve met me for a farewell coffee. We sat on yet another terrace and stared at the sea while I savored one final Greek yogurt smothered with honey and fresh plums, melons, apples, and bananas. We hustled to the port to find throngs of travelers clogging the ticket offices that surrounded the ferry terminal.

He squeezed past the crush of frenzied travelers to speak with his friend, a harried woman sitting behind the desk of one of the tourist agencies. She told him my ferry had been cancelled due to dangerously high winds and all the people were rebooking their tickets.

She hadn’t seemed especially happy to see him so I was leery and embarrassed when he asked her to find a space for me on the next ferry at 10:45 AM, which she’d already said was sold out. There were plenty of seats available on the 1:40 PM slow ferry that would take 10 hours to arrive in Athens. All the other afternoon ferries had been cancelled. Steve offered his apartment for another night, but I was scheduled to fly out of Athens early the next morning to my next destination.

Suddenly, the agent shouted, “I can sell you an economy class ticket, no seat, on the 10:45 but you must go now.” It was 10:51 AM.

“I’ll take it!”

While the agent was processing my ticket, a traveler who was pressed into me asked, “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. I hadn’t asked whether I’d arrive at Piraeus, which was an easy 20 minute metro ride into the Athens city center, or Rafina, which would entail a less frequent hour long public bus ride to my hotel in town.

Onboard the ship, people filled every seat in the cabins, every seat in the dining rooms, and every deck chair. People were spread out on the sticky floors in sleeping bags. A couple guys had strung up hammocks. As the large ferry boat backed away from the pier and turned toward Athens, I wondered how we would fare in the open seas. If so many ferries had cancelled their routes that day, why was this one still going, I wondered?

[I’m writing every other day with Splatospheric in an attempt to juice my writing mojo. I’m off to a slow start. Basically, I’m trying to explore ideas around discomfort and what I have gained from finding myself in uncomfortable situations. My goal is to write 500 words each time no matter how shitty the words are in the hope that I’ll regain the writing rhythm I once had when I wrote more regularly. Hope this gets better soon!] 

I’m not very good at being alone. I recently planned a weekend of solitude that comprised writing and introspection. I woke up that Saturday morning compelled to scrub away the dark mold encrusting the seat cushions on my outdoor furniture. Just as I finished spraying off the last suds with the high-powered spray gun that I had just purchased for this purpose, my mom texted to invite me to lunch with her and my brother and niece. I could not say no to my mother. No matter how old I am, Asian daughter guilt is a primary organizing principle in my life.

I met them at a Vietnamese restaurant in a Northern Virginia strip mall. All the best Vietnamese restaurants are located in suburban strip malls.

Once home, I decided to take a walk alone to clear my mind and gather my thoughts before I started writing. Fifteen minutes into the walk, I ran into one of my best friends, someone I have been friends with since I was 14-years-old. He’d texted me earlier in the week to let me know he’d be in town. I had been vague about meeting up with him because I could not fully commit to the weekend of solitude.

Once I saw him in person, though, I figured I couldn’t avoid him so I agreed to have a drink with him at his hotel. Which led to two drinks. Then three drinks. By the time we were done, I had to rush back home to get ready for a concert with Fella. I had thought the concert would be my reward for a day spent writing.

At the end of the night, Fella and I had a little fight because I told him I was going home instead of staying over at his house. I wanted to salvage some of the weekend for the productive solitude that I had envisioned.

I had scheduled two work meetings that Sunday morning after which I planned to spend the rest of the day alone and writing. After the second meeting, I made myself a lunch, then puttered around straightening things out around my condo until a good friend texted to ask if I had time to talk. She sounded distraught so I suggested we take a walk while we worked out whatever it was that was bothering her. After a long walk, she was so grateful that she insisted on cooking dinner for me. I tried to dissuade her but weakened when she described the meal she would prepare. By the time she left my place, it was nearly time for bed.

When I spent nine weeks alone in Italy last year, I had no friends or family nearby. I could waste time puttering around the farmhouse where I lived and still have plenty of time left over to write.

One weekend when the loneliness had started to wear me down, an acquaintance messaged me on Facebook to say she was also in Italy teaching an art class in Florence for a few weeks and asked if I wanted to visit. I drove there the next weekend to see her.

I am suffering from Election Stress Disorder. I obsessively read news about the election, which is the primary cause of my stress. Before one news cycle can play itself out, a new and more horrific one begins. The constant barrage of uncivilized words and actions has had a cumulative effect on my stress levels over this election cycle.

Because I live in DC, I never meet anyone who disagrees with my point of view, as far as I know. Conversations about politics usually provide an opportunity to vent my frustrations and even relieve a little stress about the candidacy of a petty, crooked, lying, selfish, racist, sexist, xenophobic, narcissistic, fear and hate mongering, gaslighting ignoramus who thinks violence and bullying are the ways to resolve disagreements with him. Unfortunately, those conversations often escalate into rants that actually generate more stress.

I rarely leave the liberal DC bubble, though, so I feel safe most of the time expressing my opinions. When I drove west toward the Virginia mountains earlier this week to spend the day hiking, however, I saw many signs emblazoned with “Trump Pence Make America Great Again.” The signs reminded me that a huge swath of America holds a much darker and grimmer perspective of the world than I. Once we finished hiking, we headed straight back to DC. I didn’t want to take any chances of enduring a racist affront while pumping gas at the Wawa, or overhearing a conversation about politics at the local diner that might incite violent feelings in me.

I have been trying to understand why people want to vote for Trump. Some articles explain how millions of people in this country feel they have been left behind by the political process and have lost faith in our government to protect them. A recent New Yorker article said that many West Virginia supporters of the Republican nominee felt like outsiders in their own country. When they left their state, people would ask them if they had married their cousin, or whether they lived in a trailer, or when was the last time they’d visited a dentist.

I could relate to feeling like an outsider. I’ve been asked, “Where did you learn English? You speak without an accent!” I’ve been called “chink” and I’ve been mistaken for other Asian women who look nothing like me. And, of course, the ever popular, “Where are you from? No, I mean where are you really from??” These kinds of questions from a young age left deep wounds on my psyche and have made me feel like an interloper in my homeland.

I felt a modicum of empathy for the Trump supporter even though the man has emboldened people to act in the very racist ways that have scarred me. I understood the power of alienation to impair reason and judgment. That is, until the horrific “hot mic” Access Hollywood conversation and Trump’s subsequent non-apology. That is, until his supporters excused his behavior as “locker room talk” and have clung tenaciously to their support for a man who bragged about assaulting women.

As Michelle Obama said, “It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted.”

Maybe because a man grabbed my pussy when I was 10-years-old at a party in my own home. Or because another man pinched my budding nipples when puberty hit and said my new breasts looked like mosquito bites. Or because a college teaching assistant offered to give me an A in his class if I had sex with him. Or because a man offered me money for sex when I worked as a waitress in a bar.

Tomorrow is my birthday. Conspicuousness has defined the celebrations for the past decade. Roller skating party, bonfire and skinny dipping at the beach, warehouse rave. This year, though, I’ll be acknowledging my birthday with mini low-key festivities throughout the week.

Yesterday, I kicked off with hiking Old Rag accompanied by two longtime friends. Physical exertion requiring a moderately high level of fitness felt like a good way to celebrate a not small number of years of my trips around the sun. The National Park Service recommends seven to eight hours for the nearly 9-mile strenuous hike. We crushed it in five hours, which included stopping a few times along the way to savor the scenery! Across the valley of green fields and forests bathed in sunlight, we marveled at dots of fiery red trees that signaled autumn’s imminent arrival.

Fella had planned a “surprise birthday activity” last night, as well. I didn’t ask any questions beyond what to wear. “Casual/cool not fancy,” he said.

After dashing up a small mountain, I was relieved that heels would not be required for the evening. I had once bragged, though, in an online dating profile that I had gone from hiking boots to heels for my birthday four years ago, thereby making me the perfect life mate according to numerous men who requested such a woman in the online dating world.

The surprise birthday activity was an English Beat concert at the 9:30 Club. I recognized every one of the old songs and, even nearly three decades years later, I remembered some of the words to the more popular tunes. I had stopped following that band in the early 90s, though, so I had no idea they’d made new music in the intervening time.

Fella thought seeing a band I had once loved would make me feel affection for my youth. Instead, when I looked around the sold-out venue, all I could see was receding hairlines, little indentations between the eyebrows that made everyone look perpetually angry, and middle-aged paunches spilling over the tops of dad jeans. Clad in carefully ripped-at-the-knees skinny jeans and a boho-inspired top, I pretended I wasn’t one of them. I gave myself away, though, by screaming with reflexive nostalgia every time the old-timers on stage played a song I really liked.

Last Saturday, I attended the All Things Go outdoor festival and danced outside with thousands of 20 and early 30 somethings in a steady drizzle. By the end of the night, mud caked my shoes and had splattered my clothes. I wondered if the millennials who filled the outdoor venue were casting aspersions at this old person nodding her head awkwardly and occasionally jabbing her arms in the air. I’d disguised myself with a different pair of carefully torn jeans, conscientiously and fashionably rolled twice at the cuff, topped with a form fitting hoodie. Younger concert goers certainly must have detected my fraudulent veneer.

[Karen and I embark today on our version of National Blog Posting Month. Rather than both of us blogging every day, we will take turns blogging every other day. I kick it off with some thoughts about how uncomfortable it was for me to take a friend to the hospital recently. I was more than happy to help her in her time of need. But I hadn’t anticipated how much anxiety a visit to the hospital for a procedure that wasn’t even being performed on me could cause me.] 

I took a friend to Sibley Hospital last week for a procedure to remove precancerous cells from her cervix. When she first told me about it, I asked who would accompany her. She replied, “I was planning to take the bus.” 

I ignored the absurd wisecrack and insisted on driving her. I am pretty sure she would have at least uber’d to the hospital if I had not offered. I am certain she would have never asked for my help despite having been one of the first to volunteer assistance three years ago when I told her I would be undergoing a double mastectomy.

When I picked her up at 5:15 AM that morning, she said, “I’m too sleepy to be scared.”

“I’m too sleepy to be comforting,” I responded.

When we arrived, numerous parking spaces were available in the large parking deck. A well-marked, short walkway led to the hospital building. Two story floor to ceiling windows lined the main lobby softly illuminated with pre-dawn sunlight and diffused warm light from overhead. Cell phone charging stations sat next to rows of ergonomic lounge chairs. Relaxing music drifted across the vast expanse from a grand player piano at the end of the hallway. A gurgling water feature flowed down the wall next to the staircase that led to the reception area for the surgery center. Every employee we passed greeted us with a smile and “Good morning!” I’d almost convinced myself we were going in for a spa treatment until I saw a sign for the Oncology department.

After checking in, we waited a few minutes before a nurse called my friend to the back. Once she had changed into the obligatory white cotton gown and was comfortably situated on a hospital bed under a couple blankets, they invited me to sit with her in the curtained pre-op space until it was time to operate.

The nurse finished poking her and then left us alone to wait. I asked my friend to show me a picture of the OkCupid guy she’d been corresponding with and had made plans to meet the following weekend. He was cute!

“You’re not going to be able to have sex with him anytime soon,” I reminded her. 

We muffled our cackles when the next nurse arrived to explain what she and the anesthesiologist would be doing during the operation. I sat on the edge of my seat taking mental notes in case my friend missed anything. The information about breathing tubes and nausea medicine nauseated me.

I masked growing anxiety at the memory of me laying on a similar gurney three years ago awaiting the removal of my breasts while a blur of people stopped by to explain their role in the excision. Each asked the same questions. “what’s your birthdate? Do you know why you’re here today?” I pretended bravery despite the panic welling up inside me. A deep fear of hospitals and doctors had been immutably implanted in me by early exposure to Christian Science, a religion that condemned medical care under any circumstances.  

Soon they were rolling my friend to the operating room. “Bye, see you in an hour!” I cried out with forced nonchalance as we parted ways.