From Tears to Five Steps Back Motherfuckers
Back to fighting with everything we have. Enough of looking away America.
I’ve been MIA. I just couldn’t take anymore. Who was with me? Actually, I’ve been MIA for a few months.
I’ve come to realize, my heart is easily broken. But I had coping mechanisms. But this last year? It was too many things too often. I reached my limit.
I cried watching the movie CODA when she sang Both Sides Now with her deaf parents sitting in the balcony. She started signing the song so they could “hear” her. I cried from someplace deeper than my eyes, where the tears carry pieces of you with them out into the world.
I cried when I was twenty-something and my sister told me about being at Hermès buying a Christmas gift. A man came in wearing a tattered coat, and no one wanted to help him. And finally she said to the woman behind the counter who asked her what she needed, “He was here first.”
He pulled out a bunch of fives and tens and ones and said his daughter was in Cleveland and he wanted to send her something beautiful because he couldn’t afford to go for Christmas. My sister helped him. I cried all those years ago at Christmas dinner when when she told me the story, and I’ve cried every Christmas since. It reminds me to be grateful. That lovely man, who was treated so badly, saved up to buy his daughter something pretty. And he went where he was uncomfortable because he loved her so much.
Last year, I stood behind a man at the pharmacy who couldn’t pay for his heart prescription, so me and the person behind me paid for it. He was ashamed, and tired and old. And wearing a baseball hat from the armed forces. But it was our country who should be ashamed. And we told him that. But all I could think about was who’s going to pay for it next time? I cried in the car on the way home.
I used to take those moments one by one. One man in Hermès, one man at the pharmacy, one song in a movie where parents couldn’t hear their daughter sing. I could carry them one at a time. I could make room for one heartbreak, one act of cruelty, one reminder that there is still beauty in the middle of pain. A tear or two.
But now the sheer number of evil deeds this administration has enacted has enveloped us more quickly than I thought possible, and it has felled me. I knew it would be bad, but this? No. I don’t have the tools for this.
That one man in Hermès is now thousands, no millions, of men and women who can’t buy what their children need, who are living without heat or medicine or shelter. That one man at the pharmacy is now entire blocks of people rationing pills, deciding between insulin and groceries, between dignity and survival. Hundreds of people are in cages in what we politely don’t call concentration camps but we should, and there are children who can’t find their parents and parents who can’t find their children, and I cannot, no matter how hard I try, make my brain adjust to the sheer numbers. I don’t know how to cry in multiples. I haven’t learned how to do that.
And weighing that against the same images of billionaires on their yachts and their $300 million weddings and their private islands, watching them float above it all without a single thought for the cost the rest of humanity is paying, is more than I can bear. And so many around me seem able to go about their lives not noticing any of it. And I can’t unsee it.
Sometimes I remind myself that I get to decide what my mind thinks about. That I don’t have to think about all these things if I want to. And why would I want to?
But I also hope I never look away. I don’t want to look back and realize I looked away.
I used to go to music to find comfort and solace. I would put on the songs that knew me better than I knew myself, and they would hold me when nothing else could. But now it makes it worse. The sad songs, the ones I used to let wash over me, don’t soothe me anymore. They cut deeper instead, and sometimes when the wrong song comes on it’s like being slapped across the face with a wave of pain that I didn’t know existed without the accompaniment of a knife. They remind me of everything I’ve lost, everything we’re losing, everything we will still lose if this continues.
I am grief-stricken. I feel like I’ve lost my beloved country. Or at least what I thought she was. I see now she was never what I thought she was. The real her was hiding behind the propaganda that worked so well on me. God, I loved believing it. Believing the entire world thought we were amazing. Simply the best. Right out of Tina Turner.
And some of the people I’ve been close to, I don’t feel so close to now, because they seem to be just fine. Going about their daily business. Talking about their day animatedly. “I don’t want to talk about it.” The truth is, maybe they cope differently than I do. Maybe they think it won’t affect them. Maybe they see something different than I see. I don’t know.
Either way, it’s a lonely road. No one seems happy.
And then, after feeling sorry for myself these last months, suddenly this past week, I got angry. No. Enraged. At everyone. And then at myself. How dare I give up?
I took a an online course in managing anger. She started it with a five minute meditation. I was out of there after two. I refuse to bury my anger in conversing with my toes and breath. Enough said.
So then? Well, I did what we all do when there is nothing left to be done. I sat up and made plans.
Five steps back, motherfucker.
Now there’s a song I could sing. Five Steps Back Motherfucker. In fact, maybe Taylor Swift could write it for us. She’s good at those songs that cut people to shreds who have hurt her. I don’t need sad, comforting songs. I need angry, get your shit together songs. Put your boots to the ground songs.
And you know what? I have a feeling there are a lot of people who are just like me out there who are putting themselves back together again just like I am. People who spent the last few months grieving. Exhausted from it all. People who got knocked flat. People who wondered if they had the strength for what comes next.
I did. But I’m done sitting Shiva. My period of mourning is over. This was my eulogy.
I had a diversion during the month of May. It’s June. I’m back. This is nowhere near over. This is my country. See you on the road back to making America the place I used to call home.
First up: 60 Minutes Cannot Go Lightly Into the Abyss
Action Item: Tell the advertisers you will not buy their products until they reinstate the show that was decimated. (see information below)
Do yourself a favor. Watch Lulu Garcia-Navarro’s interview with Scott Pelley, who you will remember was fired last week after standing up to CBS management in a meeting (in house) challenging the firings of the 60 Minutes staff. It’s time to start standing up to - and for - the journalists who are cow-tailing and - standing up to - this administration’s outrageous demands to lie to the public about the news. It begins with educating ourselves. And, check the facts after you watch. I did. Journalists are starting to stand up. Let’s help them. Reward them. -CM
Lulu Garcia-Navarro writes: It’s hard to overstate the impact of “60 Minutes” on journalism. It’s the most-watched television-news program in America. Since its debut on CBS in 1968, it’s been the home of some of the most-storied broadcast journalists, from Mike Wallace and Ed Bradley to Lesley Stahl, Anderson Cooper and, until this past week, Scott Pelley.
Pelley, who was at the network for 37 years, including as White House correspondent, anchor of the “CBS Evening News” and “60 Minutes” correspondent, was fired after an explosive series of events and much turmoil over the past few years at CBS. These events include a controversial financial settlement with President Trump over a “60 Minutes” segment; the sale of the network to David Ellison; and the appointment of Bari Weiss, a former New York Times Opinion staffer and founder of The Free Press with no television-news experience, to lead CBS News.
Pelley’s firing came after Weiss dismissed several of his colleagues and hired a new “60 Minutes” boss, Nick Bilton, whom Pelley then clashed with in a staff meeting. Pelley, along with a number of other “60 Minutes” correspondents who were fired, have now accused Weiss of editorial interference and bias, charges that CBS News and Weiss deny.
In his first sit-down interview since he was fired, Pelley told me about the specific incident he viewed as interference, about his experiences at CBS News over the past weeks and months, and about what he hopes will come of this very tumultuous time at the network where he spent most of his career.
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Here are the advertisers for your attention: CM
CBS does not publish a standing advertiser list, and it changes week to week. However, because 60 Minutes attracts one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most educated audiences on television, the advertising mix is remarkably consistent. Healthcare and pharmaceutical companies are among the largest categories.
Typical 60 Minutes advertisers include:
What’s more interesting is what this list tells you. 60 Minutes isn’t selling eyeballs; it’s selling affluent, older decision-makers. If you’re watching the commercials, the audience CBS believes is sitting on the couch is:
Age 55+
Homeowners
Investors
Retirees or near-retirees
High household income
Frequent healthcare consumers
Luxury buyers
In other words, the advertising often tells you as much about the audience as the program itself. These are the voters Trump needs to continue to keep in his camp.
Welcome back….