Boxing Day 2016 – The Great Delay

Sorry for my delay. This annual missive has morphed from an update I luxuriated over – complete with a decadent creative process summoned only by inexpensive alone time and multiple nights of uninterrupted sleep – to an update I whip together whenever a window of opportunity opens. (Current status = blurred haze powered by Christmas cookies, coffee, and the urgency of impending chaos.) But tradition is tradition. And this year is year 12, so you better believe that even though my coffee is cold, my husband is not even feigning subtlety with his I-could-reeeeeeeally-use-your-help-over-here side-eyes, and my strong sense is that the leftover ham will be picked over before I can indulge in the year’s second-best sandwich, I will get this email out today. Or maybe tomorrow. Definitely Probably before 2017. I’m perfecting the art of picking my battles. 

If Boxing Day evokes a visceral response this year, it’s probably because 2016 punched us in the collective face. Don’t get me wrong, on a personal level, 2016 has been up there with the best of 'em. Theodore Asher joined the party in June (the day Muhammad Ali died #thanks2016) and while we loved the prospect of having an Oz and a Taz, this chilled-out, joy-filed, love-lump is most definitely a Theo. If Owen is a cat – particular, ritualistic, opinionated, observant, not above peeing on pillows to prove a point – Theo is a dog: happy, easy, happy, easy, hungry, happy. Luckily, Ozzie’s fierce loyalty manifests itself as a protective and nurturing big brother and, while I stand by my claim that parenthood feels like treading water and being thrown a baby, Theo’s addition has only added sunshine and margaritas to that analogy. 

I left my long-term relationship with an incredible company (the love's still there, but the passion had faded), and after a sexy consulting rebound, I settled down with startup Duolingo. Haven't heard of it yet? You will. Passion doesn’t begin to describe my day-to-day – providing opportunity in the form of free education to the world – and I can’t help but think that the personal boundary shift that comes from learning a foreign language, the empathy developed by botching conjugations and brandishing ridiculous accents, is more important than ever. What if in this moment of rising intolerance, nationalism, and xenophobia we could all put ourselves in another person’s tongue? Could we then see that the world looks completely different depending on where you stand and what you speak? Also, Duolingo HQ offers massages and infused water, sooooo… 

We capped off 2016 with a move to Seattle, a city I haven’t lived in since the year 2000, but a place we all feel home. We’re renting a beautiful house in the ‘burbs, and while we’re short on the exotic carrots we used to dangle like stunning beaches and 12th-century castles, we do have more space than our last five apartments combined and we love visitors. Plus, we have an anthropomorphic cat and dog whom you really should meet.

Okay, let’s do this. 

As I sat down on Boxing Day, conditions perfect for penning a fiery takedown, or a rousing rallying cry, or a comforting hope piece, I gathered my thoughts, took a deep breath, put my hands over my keyboard, and started crying. So I topped up on the aforementioned Christmas cookies and coffee, tried again, cried again, and so on and so forth until other humans in my house began crying and I had a valid excuse to stop and pretend I couldn't smell the dumpster fire’s smoke. Through some creative trial and error, I’ve learned in times like this that David Attenborough’s Planet Earth voiceover is a foolproof remedy. Thus, over the last few days, I've been reminded (in transcendently buttery British narration) that in the Namib desert, the darkling beetle ascents a massive sand dune, inverts into a headstand, and remains still until a thin fog condenses on its body. Then slowly, using grooves in its casing, the water rolls into its thirsty mouth. I meditatively repeated “this is how life is sustained on earth” until I was forced to acknowledge Netflix’s passive-aggressive banter (yes, I’m still watching, stop judging me Netflix) and by then, my personal equivalent to blowing into the Nintendo cartridge was complete. Needless to say, I’m back now and I’m ready to go. 

I felt Hillary’s loss like a death in the family. And as I look back, I realize that her ultimate defeat should not have come as a surprise. The sickness that caused it has been slowly, yet plainly, metastasizing for years. I had simply learned to readjust to the warning signs, just like I readjust as a lefty in a world of right-handed can openers and serrated knives, or I readjust as a woman attending an executive meeting or walking alone at night. These conditioned adjustments are so subtle that I don’t even notice making them, but every lefty knows precisely what I’m talking about. As does every woman. And we’ve done this as a collective whole; we’ve ignored warning signs, subtly readjusted, humored untruths, normalized chaos, all while the world watched horrified at the bizarre pageant of our nation pretending these two contenders were equivalent.

Barbara Kingsolver was right when she said “Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier.” and only now am I unpacking how we arrived in this post-accountable world. As much as I want to shame Trump supporters for providing, if not explicit, at minimum, tacit support to his ceaseless vulgarities, the truth is that I too am complicit in supporting exploitative and damaging systems when they don’t directly affect me. (How many of you are reading this on an iPhone?) Ultimately, all of our shit stinks, and getting beyond that is going to take incredible work. What this does not mean is that it is okay, or that we should accept this as the new normal and readjust. Yes, I acknowledge that Donald Trump will be the President. I understand, intellectually, that he won the election. But I reject the notion that we must ingest this victory for smallness, for xenophobia, for misogyny, for racism, for wall-building and humanity-banning, for this particular brew of American ugliness that tops off the hatred-swirled slop pile he serves up on 140-character platters.

I am raising two sons in a country where I do not want them emulating our President-Elect. Let the gravity of that sit for a moment. And when the opportunity comes for me to talk with them about this, I will not shy away. I will not excuse how or why those who voted for him ignored his vileness, because while I am self-aware enough to understand that I too am guilty of complicity, this does not make it okay. 

Instead, I will tell my boys that our President-Elect is everything they should abhor, and fear, in a role model. I will explain how humans are inherently tribal and why actively fighting that tendency is so important. I will teach them to be kind to those they disagree with and to show dignity in the face of undignified behavior. I will show them my victory pantsuit and not trivialize the fact that inexperienced men get promoted ahead of qualified women every day. I will explain that patriotism is not the only way to love a nation. I will teach them to care for the full breadth of America’s diversity, not just the smallest sliver of it. I will reinforce that America is great and that openness, diversity, humility, progress, grace, and science make it better – not worse.

Most importantly, I will demonstrate accountability. I will admit that Mom and Dad and our entire generation royally screwed this up. But reinforce that after a devastating loss, the solution isn’t to quit and move away, or to hole up waiting for things to change, or worse still, to subtly readjust and go on like nothing happened. The solution is to acknowledge this reality, then reject it. To find a way to fight it, to overcome it, to defeat it. Yes, sometimes I will need a break to have a buttery Attenborough detox, but then I will come back refreshed and will do literally anything but accept this as our fate.

If 2016 was a punch to the face, my initial numbness came in waves of overwhelming powerless and insignificance. How can an ordinary person stop intolerance, ISIS, lunatics driving trucks into crowds, fake news, Tucker Carlson... But as the numb wears off, I realize that I can be extremely powerful in living accountably, by offering the small generosities of listening, by standing up against the casual utterance of prejudice, by letting daughters know they are no less than sons. And also by exiting the insulation of my bubble and experiencing a wider world. 

When Planet Earth ends after an hour (or 10), I think the strangest thing: This world is so much bigger and more powerful than any small moment in time (or small hands it may temporarily find itself in). We will be okay. Well, maybe not the darkling beetle. When it descends the sand dune, plump and hydrated, sometimes there is a Namaqua chameleon waiting, who casually flicks its tongue and eats the beetle for breakfast. No matter, the beetle has to reach the top of the dune, it has to drink water, it has to take its chances, it has to make that journey to survival. Like us, you see, it is a hopeful beast.

Thanks 2016, it’s been weird. And thank you to all of you, who continue to hold me accountable and make me hopeful each and every day. Bring it on, 2017. 


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Incredible writing came out of 2016, and I would be remiss not to mention the inspiration I took from so much of it. These are my most impactful and influential sources:

End This Misogynistic Horror Show. Put Hillary Clinton In The White House
(Barbara Kingsolver, The Guardian)

Revenge Of The Forgotten Class
(Alec MacGillis, ProPublica)

Sweet '16, Notes On The US Election
(Benjamin Kunkel, Salvage)

My President Was Black
(Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic)

Hillary Clinton vs. Herself
(Rebecca Traister, New York Magazine)

A Letter To America From Leslie Knope, Regarding Donald Trump
(Leslie Knope [aka Parks and Recreation Staff Writer], Vox)

The Trouble With The Liberal Arguments Against Third-Party Voters And What To Do About It
(Josie Duffy Rice, Daily Kos)

Choosing A School For My Daughter In A Segregated City
(Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times Magazine)

Jon Stewart Finally Went Long About The Election And Donald Trump
(Todd Van Luling, Huffington Post)

Trump Changed Everything, Now Everything Counts
(Barbara Kingsolver, The Guardian)