This is not a think piece on the recent elections in the US.
The market is saturated. Many writers (and, to paraphrase Truman Capote, many typists) have attempted to lay blame, to justify, to expound, to exult, etc., ad nauseam, and I will not join in the cacophony.
The news, as it is designed to do, overwhelms.
I have, therefore, retreated to smaller circles of conversation.
There are two chats, for example, involving me and two other classmates from my alma mater, Williams College—friends I have now for nearly forty years.
One of the chats is for rainbow-dwellers like me, and most of the time, the three of us find ways to make the others laugh. My dearest friend, Peter, is particularly adept at finding memes and video clips that he knows Martin and I will appreciate.
The second chat involves a freshman entry-mate who lives nearby, Barak, and a woman I’d have to describe as an honorary entry-mate, Kathryn. (I lived in an all-male entry, and Kathryn dated one of Barak’s suitemates.) Each of them shares love from different directions. Barak’s is a steady glow of appreciation and a constant supply of memories that remind me just how cringe I was in freshman year. Kathryn’s love is fierce, protective, and abundant, and it reminds me, verbally, of how good her hugs were.
I’m building community online with other friends and writers anew on Bluesky.
Bluesky has a much kinder feel, and I welcome the chance to make more connections across the ether.
Friends are also reconnecting on Instagram, and despite the censorship Meta frequently imposes on queer creators, I can’t help but smile to see old friends, like Ben in Taipei, to pick just one example, happy and healthy.
I’ve had a little bit of time to design more t-shirts. I like how the simple angular pattern in this one, for example, results in an optical illusion of wavy movement.
More importantly, however? I’ve had time to connect with friends in real life. This weekend has been a great example. But it started with an odd impetus.
On Friday, this email arrived from Iron Horse Literary Review.
You want to share the joy when you get a rejection love letter like this. Closets, by the way, is the opening section of my memoir. (The five sections are named: Closets; Miss Garment Bag; Revolving Door Closets; Cracks; and A New Out.) And I told people. On the phone, on social media, and in text messages. I even made my husband read it from my computer screen.
On Saturday, I joined a panel discussion for newly returned participants in the Japan Exchange & Teaching Program (the same program that brought me to Japan in 1988). I shared ideas for different career paths that experience in Japan can offer you. Generally speaking, I prefer smaller conversations, but the few extrovert tendencies I have come to the fore when you put me on a dais with other talented experts.
The event was held at Seattle University, a Jesuit school in the heart of one of Seattle’s best neighborhoods, Capitol Hill. I brought my umbrella (owning and using umbrellas marks me out as a non-native, but I prefer to be dry) and explored a little after the event. I ended up in one of my favorite bookstores, Elliot Bay, and had coffee with an excellent writing friend, Paul Michael Winters. (His new book, The Haunting Between Us, is available for pre-order and is a wonderful, scary, queer romance.)
The rain grew colder, and as I drove home yesterday, I called Hiro and asked what he wanted for dinner. The weather was ideal for a big bowl of rāmen, and we drove to a new place, Isshin, in nearby Auburn. It really hit the spot.
This morning? Dim sum with a group of friends who dabble in my favorite kind of conversation: part nostalgia, part consideration, and many, many double entendres.
What’s the point of sharing all this?
I am the last thing you would think of when the phrase rugged individualist is uttered. There are so many personal nightmares on my horizon—a reduction or even an end to social security benefits, an end to federal benefits for same-sex marriage (like taxes and green cards), the worsening situations for women and trans friends, rising costs of living—that I have to pull back from the cruelty that is the point of all this turmoil and focus on what I can do.
I can cherish my husband. I can love my friends. I can expand on my experience. And I can write.
Small things like these might keep me sane.
How are you coping? What are your small things?