I Keep Thinking About Dementors...
I keep thinking about dementors. If you haven't read Harry Potter (or at least watched the movies - although that's less "superfan" of you), then this blog entry might not resonate. In any case, I'll lay out a few details to start.
The dementors show up in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban. They're creepy, cloak-wearing phantoms that float around with no eyes sucking up all the intelligence, happiness and good memories of humans. They make their surroundings cold and dark with the effect intensifying depending on how many there are in one place. Rowling has said they grow like funghi in dark, moist places. She also notes that she created them while struggling with her own clinical depression. The worst effect of their power is called a "kiss," and involves them literally sucking the victim's soul out through his or her mouth. The victim is left with no memories or feelings in a vegetative condition. The only measure of defense is to summon a patronus, which is an image representing the caster's most positive feelings of joy and hope.
Okay, so that's a little background on what I've been thinking about. Let me see if I can get into why.
The outcome and resulting effects of this election feel like a giant horde of dementors. I am not saying the people involved are dementors. Some might make that assertion. I'm not. But I do feel surrounded by a chill that has nothing to do with the changing seasons, and a darkness that is not related to Daylight Savings Time. I wake up and feel like happiness is harder to locate. I think about what has happened and can't help but wonder if some giant phantom force didn't actually show up early last week and suck all the smarts out of a vast number of people across the country. I watch as our current President prepares to leave office and the idea that his presence will soon be a memory sucks the breath out of me. It makes me wonder what kind of memories we'll have four years from now, and I am hard-pressed to imagine they'll be good ones.
And the feeling isn't just external. I feel the cold and dark hit my center - my spirit. I think horrible thoughts and nearly wish terrible things in a desperate attempt to move us back to what was recognizable as "real." I start to slip into behaviors that I am simultaneously condemning in others. I begin to lose my footing so close to the line.
I feel like I am surrounded by dementors and I cannot for the blessed life of me remember what my patronus is or how to summon it. And I know if I don't pull my shit together soon, they'll turn me into a mushy pile of non-feeling broccoli.
But, to reference another brilliant literary/film source, at the very worst of times I am only "mostly dead." There's still hope and joy inside me. And around me. And around this country. And around this world.
There's the cold open from SNL last night of Kate McKinnon singing "Hallelujah" as Hillary Clinton.
There's the safety pin phenomenon.
There are images of teachers pressing forward in their classrooms with messages of love and safe haven.
There are people - especially women - standing together instead of tearing each other down, sharing stories and support in way that are public and profound.
There are movements rising up that know a fight is ahead but it doesn't involve becoming the ugliness against which we battle.
There are so many more examples and not enough space or time to list them all in this entry. And they are my patronuses...patroni? Anyway, they are my defense against the chilly cold and the deafening dark. And I intend to continue adding to my list as the days move forward.
I don't expect everyone will be where I am. For many people, the situation we are all in does not seem at all bleak. For others, my feelings only scratch the surface of the pain and powerlessness they are experiencing. At first glance it seems our country is suffering from an almost irreparable division.
But I saw a project someone did the other day with the election results. He did way more math and computing than I would ever willingly do outside a math class, but he analyzed what percent of red and blue each state voted and then mixed those shades together. The result was a fairly lavender-shaded country. I know it feels like we are in an "us v. them" situation. But that map provided some hope that maybe we're not as clearly divided as it seems. There's hope in the gray - or, in this case, purple - areas. Those are the places where change can best be created. Those are places of birth and growth. And a whole country filled with shades of purple means there are lots of places for hope.
So add that to my list of patronuses/patroni.
The dementors show up in the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban. They're creepy, cloak-wearing phantoms that float around with no eyes sucking up all the intelligence, happiness and good memories of humans. They make their surroundings cold and dark with the effect intensifying depending on how many there are in one place. Rowling has said they grow like funghi in dark, moist places. She also notes that she created them while struggling with her own clinical depression. The worst effect of their power is called a "kiss," and involves them literally sucking the victim's soul out through his or her mouth. The victim is left with no memories or feelings in a vegetative condition. The only measure of defense is to summon a patronus, which is an image representing the caster's most positive feelings of joy and hope.
Okay, so that's a little background on what I've been thinking about. Let me see if I can get into why.
The outcome and resulting effects of this election feel like a giant horde of dementors. I am not saying the people involved are dementors. Some might make that assertion. I'm not. But I do feel surrounded by a chill that has nothing to do with the changing seasons, and a darkness that is not related to Daylight Savings Time. I wake up and feel like happiness is harder to locate. I think about what has happened and can't help but wonder if some giant phantom force didn't actually show up early last week and suck all the smarts out of a vast number of people across the country. I watch as our current President prepares to leave office and the idea that his presence will soon be a memory sucks the breath out of me. It makes me wonder what kind of memories we'll have four years from now, and I am hard-pressed to imagine they'll be good ones.
And the feeling isn't just external. I feel the cold and dark hit my center - my spirit. I think horrible thoughts and nearly wish terrible things in a desperate attempt to move us back to what was recognizable as "real." I start to slip into behaviors that I am simultaneously condemning in others. I begin to lose my footing so close to the line.
I feel like I am surrounded by dementors and I cannot for the blessed life of me remember what my patronus is or how to summon it. And I know if I don't pull my shit together soon, they'll turn me into a mushy pile of non-feeling broccoli.
But, to reference another brilliant literary/film source, at the very worst of times I am only "mostly dead." There's still hope and joy inside me. And around me. And around this country. And around this world.
There's the cold open from SNL last night of Kate McKinnon singing "Hallelujah" as Hillary Clinton.
There's the safety pin phenomenon.
There are images of teachers pressing forward in their classrooms with messages of love and safe haven.
There are people - especially women - standing together instead of tearing each other down, sharing stories and support in way that are public and profound.
There are movements rising up that know a fight is ahead but it doesn't involve becoming the ugliness against which we battle.
There are so many more examples and not enough space or time to list them all in this entry. And they are my patronuses...patroni? Anyway, they are my defense against the chilly cold and the deafening dark. And I intend to continue adding to my list as the days move forward.
I don't expect everyone will be where I am. For many people, the situation we are all in does not seem at all bleak. For others, my feelings only scratch the surface of the pain and powerlessness they are experiencing. At first glance it seems our country is suffering from an almost irreparable division.
But I saw a project someone did the other day with the election results. He did way more math and computing than I would ever willingly do outside a math class, but he analyzed what percent of red and blue each state voted and then mixed those shades together. The result was a fairly lavender-shaded country. I know it feels like we are in an "us v. them" situation. But that map provided some hope that maybe we're not as clearly divided as it seems. There's hope in the gray - or, in this case, purple - areas. Those are the places where change can best be created. Those are places of birth and growth. And a whole country filled with shades of purple means there are lots of places for hope.
So add that to my list of patronuses/patroni.
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