No Kings

It's been a while since I posted. Too many things going on all at once. For me, it's work, writing, finishing an MFA degree, plus all the regular demands of family and health. But in a larger sense, there's more going on all around us than I can remember for a long time, with corruption and vulgar insult propaganda on official government social media, masked agents disappearing people in ICE raids, and political pundits like Megyn Kelly arguing that sexual assault on children isn't so bad if they're fifteen. On top of that, the high prices of basic needs and growing economic crisis has a lot of us busy just trying to make ends meet. 

Like a lot of us, I want to do something about all this, but I barely have time or energy to maintain the life I had even a couple of years ago. When the No Kings protests happened back in June, I didn't participate, I guess because things were still just barely good enough then that I didn't feel so strongly convicted. But after I saw how powerful they were as a way of speaking up and showing up, I wished I had gone. 

When the organization planned another day of protest, I made sure I showed up. 

About a week before the October No Kings events, I told my wife I wanted to go, and she was already a few steps ahead of me. She jumped on board - "just pick a place" she said. We also took our girls with us, six and twelve. The prospect of bringing the kids made me nervous, because of all the images I've seen of police at BLM protests and of ICE at other gatherings of people. I almost told everyone to stay home and just go by myself, to check it out. But our faith prevailed and we decided to all go, just keep our head on a swivel, watch for exit strategies, and keep the kids close if we had to move quick.

But it wasn't like that at all. You've probably seen all the images and video - people in inflatables and costumes mocking the regime, musicians playing in the crowd, kids and families out like it's a block party. In a lot of ways, it was. That was certainly the vibe where I was, a celebration of freedom and a rejection of oppression and corruption. At the end, we were really glad we took the kids, because it gave us an opportunity to expose them to these issues and talk to them about why we care, why we're concerned about our neighbors and what's happening to them. An older man gave our youngest a little American flag for her to wave while everyone sang and chanted and honked their car horns around us.

And I understand that this vibe is part of the reason that some people are calling these No Kings and other events rallies instead of protests. They say that true protest is about putting your body and wealth in the path of injustice and taking risks to interrupt and oppose the system, not about dressing up like a frog and dancing in the streets. They say that a gathering that shouts and sings but doesn't break any unjust laws or disrupt the regime is just a party with a #justice theme. 

And they're right, absolutely right.

The last time I participated in protest was back in college. I started my undergrad in 1991, the year the LA unrest broke out, following the acquittal of Rodney King's attackers. It was a wild spring semester in Miami, particularly for this college freshman, and that's saying something, considering what we went through in the 80s. We had protests around the city and on campuses, some of which I attended, partly out of curiosity, partly solidarity, but also partly because I was already there. It didn't really require that much of me - a missed class maybe, some time out in the April and May sun. I didn't have anyone to take care of, nobody really to answer to except myself, and too broke to have anything to lose.

This time around, though, I'm older and more responsible. It's a vague word, responsible, because it can either mean you did something bad or you're supposed to do something good. I hear the critics who are saying that these events are just rallies, or maybe even just parties with a specific playlist and an odd fashion sense. I know there's more I can be doing, and I'm trying to find my way in all of it.

But I have to think about my kids. I'm scared about what can happen to them at an event where maybe the shouts aren't as funny. My wife is Black and my kids are mixed. I'm very aware that there are places we could go and trouble we can get into that would be a lot easier for me to navigate than for them. I have to think about the situations I put them into. I'm not that eighteen-year-old on the quad anymore, sucked into the energy of a crowd, sharing their anger and risking some good trouble to do something about it.

And yet, I'm also scared for what will happen to my kids if we don't stand up against all this violence, racism, and corruption. What kind of country will they live in, if they can even live here? 

One thing I know I can do is write. I can use my words to speak up, on this channel and through my stories and novels. I can create whole worlds, and use them to challenge the culture that's threatening my family and my neighbors. I can pray, and my faith shows me churches that haven't always been on the right side of history, but also churches that have fought against oppression and moved the culture towards justice. Recently, I read Pricelis Perreaux-Dominguez' book Being a Sanctuary. In the book, she writes about "suffering intimately" with the people around me. I can't ask my kids to lay down in traffic, but I can take them with me to carry food to a neighbor who's short this month because some power-grabbing people in the government are holding their SNAP benefits hostage to punish their political opponents and hide their unsavory connections and wickedness. I can call up the people in my own community who are worried about getting swept up in ICE raids, and let my kids come when I check to see what they need. I can explain to them why we don't go to Target or other stores they used to like.

So I may not be able to do everything, but I'm looking for the ways I can protest, using my art, faith, money, and love. And if there's another No Kings event near us, protest, rally, or whatever, I'll be there. I'll bring the kids so they can at least know where we stand as a family, and see the diversity of people in our community who stand on those same principles. I might even put on my Spider-Man suit and dance with the clowns and unicorns.

Time is Money

I had to fly to my father's funeral service a week ago. It was the end of a long journey with him, with a lot of years of distance between us because of his personality and choices, and then more years of distance because of his Alzheimer's disease. I wish I could say I learned a lot from him, but I can definitely say I learned something on the trip to his little hometown for the funeral. 

I learned that when they say that time is money, they preached a whole sermon.

I had a flight booked that would get me from South Florida to the nearest major airport to Dad's little hometown, with an hour layover somewhere out of the way, and then a rental car to drive the two hours into the middle of nowhere and the only hotel in city limits. Two hours of TSA, eight traveling, two driving, leaving right after work and getting in near midnight local time, just to wake up for the funeral, get a little sibling and niece and nephew time, then do the whole thing in reverse the next day. To say that I was not looking forward to it would be like saying Joan of Arc wished they'd turned down the heat a bit.

But out of the blue, my fancy cousins came to my rescue.

See, while I grew up pretty poor, I do have some cousins who have become decidedly fancy. Like, company jet fancy. When my cousin found out that my brother and I were flying out commercial, just the two of us instead of our combined family of twelve, he immediately offered us a ride on the company jet. Straight service from South Florida to Nowhere, Kansas. Obviously, I jumped at the chance. The novelty alone made it impossible to refuse - knowing G4 pilots on a first name basis. It's Mel, by the way.

It was glorious, no TSA, carry whatever we need, including my protein shakes and kombucha, practically as much space as my living room to relax. But it occurred to me that this is how rich people hack the system.

I stepped onto the plane at 2:30 and stepped off three hours later at my destination, where a car service dropped off a vehicle to take us to our (much nicer) hotel about twenty minutes away from Nowhere. At 5:00 local time I was already where I needed to be, with the whole evening ahead of me to hit the gym, get some writing done, relax, and even eat proper food before getting to bed at a reasonable hour so I don't snap at my family the next day.

I still snapped a little, but the unbothered sleep was fantastic. Forgive me. I'm weak.

That's literally seven hours of my life spared by that one simple change. Seven hours to be productive, to create art, to answer emails, to take care of myself, to connect with family. Seven hours that came a high cost to my fancy cousin, but a window into what that life must be like.

We like to say all the time that everyone has the same twenty-four hours in a day, no matter who you are. It's intended to spur us on, like a motivational poster, but just like the cat hanging from the tree branch, it's a lie. That cat is going to fall, and money literally buys you more hours in the day.

An average day for me starts at six, getting up and making sure the kids get ready for school. Then driving to work, through traffic that depends largely on the weather and how soon we leave the house. I teach six classes now, so I have less time at work to grade assignments, plan lessons, make calls, and respond to email. After work, I usually tutor for a bit, then head to the gym. Wifey meets me at the gym to take the girls, and when I'm done, I head home, but before I can sit down, I cook, eat with the family, then do some work for my MFA classes, get ready for workshop on the weekend, and, if there's still time after all that and even a little gas left in my intellectual tank, I'll try to write about 500 words. Cap the day with an hour of alone time with wifey, if her own workday hasn't knocked her out already, and try to wind down to get enough sleep to start over the next day.

But imagine if I had that rich people kind of money, the kind of people everyone says have the same hours in the day I do. I could wake up at six and get my workout in right away, because not only would someone else be making lunches for me and the kids, but the state of the art gym would be down the hall from my bedroom, not a fifteen minute drive away. I'd get in the car with the kids alert and pumped for the day, but instead of driving and stressing about the idiots drifting into my lane with a phone glued to their face, I'd be getting lessons and notes ready for the day, or - God forbid - having a meaningful conversation with the kids. Then once I got to work, instead of grading, planning, calling, or emailing, I'd be doing only the tasks I really love, because my assistant would be doing all that clerical work. Part of my day would be delegating to them, but the actual amount of work I'd have to do would be pretty minimal - streamlined and purposeful, not a drudge in the day. Heck, I could spend part of my nine to five hours on the MFA work, and take a long lunch break to knock out a coupe thousand words on my work in progress. Tell my assistant I'm not to be bothered until two, thank you very much. Dinner's on the table when I get home, the tutor has already helped the kids with their homework, and wifey and I are settling down for some Netflix and whatever with plenty of evening left in the day.

This is what we really mean when we say that time is money. This is what I mean when I say we don't all have the same hours in a day. In the first scenario, I've got a tight twenty-four, and every hour I use for productivity is an hour stolen from my family or my sleep routine. In the second, when you combine all the productive hours I delegate to my helpers with all the productive and relaxing hours I use myself, that day can have thirty-six or more hours in it. In fact, if I'm the kind of jerk who doesn't care about the work/life balance of my employees, I can Miranda Priestly another few hours into my day by having my assistants work well after I'm asleep, probably in my hyperbaric chamber that ensures I'll live to 150 years old with perfect knees. 

On the private flight back to South Florida, I big-picture edited the last twenty chapters of a novel I've been trying to revise for three months now. I might have been able to do this on the commercial flight, but the discomfort, noise, and airport traffic would have severely diminished my productivity.

Time really is money, and money can buy you as much time as you're willing to shell out for. There's a reason why so many successful artists either come from wealthy families or have wealthy patrons who got them past those lean years. Virginia Woolf said that an artist needs a room of her own. I have a chair in a corner when the kids leave me alone to be able to sit in it. But while those of us who create art without wealth might be handicapped without the extra time that wealth affords, we do have our own struggles and experiences and ingenuities to write about. We really are the heroes in our stories, the boys fighting giants with slingshots or women taking down the Capitol with a bow and arrows. What we lack in time and money, we make up for in hustle and flow, and our art resonates with the people more because of it.