Giving Up - December 7, 2016
It's not something I often say but when things get clear, it's time. So my listening tour has been short lived. After several lengthy, in depth conversations in which I learned a great deal about other perspectives, and the speakers seem to have felt heard, I've now come to a screeching halt. Contacts after showing initial enthusiasm for speaking with me have gone silent. It's a very strange feeling, reaching out, getting pleasant replies of affirmation and then silence. So I'm having to come to grips with that. I know it's not personal since they know nothing of me and the exchanges have been polite and friendly - except for one fellow who accused me of all manner of things based on friend posts on fb. But he's an outlier, the rest have been beyond civil - but not leading anywhere.
This disturbs me in knowing how hard it is to reach across the chasm that separates us and it is the thing that scares me more than Trump. Are we already in a modern day civil war, refusing even to talk to another who wants to listen?
Howard says it's too personal a topic for people to want to speak about to a stranger and maybe that's the case. I feel stuck and unspeakably sad. So plan B was to find volunteer work on a project that would bring me in contact with Trump voters where we are just working together. Harder to find than I thought, but I'll do that on Saturday. I've even considered attending an evangelical church, but that would interfere with Ecstatic dance where I am the alter girl, so phew, I have an out there.
I realize, as I retreat to studio and garden, that life is good and easy if I don't think about the big picture, which makes me feel even more that I am living a delusion.
This disturbs me in knowing how hard it is to reach across the chasm that separates us and it is the thing that scares me more than Trump. Are we already in a modern day civil war, refusing even to talk to another who wants to listen?
Howard says it's too personal a topic for people to want to speak about to a stranger and maybe that's the case. I feel stuck and unspeakably sad. So plan B was to find volunteer work on a project that would bring me in contact with Trump voters where we are just working together. Harder to find than I thought, but I'll do that on Saturday. I've even considered attending an evangelical church, but that would interfere with Ecstatic dance where I am the alter girl, so phew, I have an out there.
I realize, as I retreat to studio and garden, that life is good and easy if I don't think about the big picture, which makes me feel even more that I am living a delusion.
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