The Pit of Despair

And a relentless refusal to descend into hopelessness

“To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.”

―Raymond Williams

Once again we find ourselves somewhere between cosmic trust and existential dread, and once again it has become increasingly more tempting to veer towards the latter end of that spectrum. We have been here before and we will be here again—we know, from extensive experience, how to honor collective grief, and we know, in spite of every opportunity to do otherwise, the utility of choosing hope in the face of seemingly hopeless circumstances.

We know that good things always come. That curses are sometimes blessings in disguise. That all empires will fall given enough time. That revolution is inevitable. That all power belongs to the people and when we fight, we win.

But this week has been heavy and hard and even as we know these things to be true, we need time to mourn. I am personally not allowing myself to feel a sense of urgency in contributing to the political discourse while my emotions are heightened and my bandwidth is low. Nor am I accepting the invitation to descend into the pit of despair.

Instead, I am cuddling my baby niece who, in the two months since I’ve seen her, has begun crawling and engaging in hysterical fits of laughter. I am smelling the top of her head that is now adorned with perfect dark brown curls and tickling the bottoms of her tiny feet. I am being present with her in these ephemeral moments of youth, painfully aware that the next time I see her she might be walking. The next time I see her I will have missed so much.

Instead, I am sleeping in until 9 and going for long, quiet walks in my old beloved neighborhood, giving my body what it asks for which, of course, is nourishment in whatever form makes itself accessible to me. I am going slow and drinking water but so too am I crying into the void and drinking wine.

I am leaning hard into community, asking for help when I need it, holding space where I can, honoring the fact that many of the people I love dearly don’t have the bandwidth for deep discussions and simply want to decompress and disassociate. I am here for anyone who wants to be heard or held and I am accepting all offers to be held and heard in return. I am finding solace in the safety of my writer’s group, and gratitude for the fact that I am visiting Los Angeles at present, where I am able to be in the physical and emotional embrace of my loved ones rather than mourning alone in the woods.

Instead, I am watching the livestream of Carl Sagan’s 90th birthday celebration and remembering, as he said, that we are star stuff; we are the children of these bright and burning stars. I am taking a break from the news cycle in order to preserve my mental health. I am opting out of exit polls and largely disengaging from social media. I am distancing myself from folks with a doom mentality, from anyone who is choosing despair because I cannot afford to be tempted towards it; I have known the abyss too intimately and I refuse to return to its depths.

The nation elected fascism, and I am electing to believe that we will prevail nonetheless—that there is no alternative but to cling to shreds of optimism, however small, that isn’t naïve to trust that we can beat this. Hope is a radical notion and I will choose it every time.