Life in the Gray: After Sandy Hook

Posted by Tele on December 17, 2012 in Culture, Hooked Favorites | 14 comments

I’m writ­ing to you from a ferry. Seated alone on a mid­day cross­ing, star­ing into a muted seascape. Ocean the green of beach glass, clouds shush­ing the sky; land’s faintest skele­ton peeks through sheets of rain. White­caps the only bright spots in this world. “Lots of sheep out here today,” one of our fleet elders would say about the tur­bu­lent sea.

This relent­less gray depresses some, but I embrace it, a reas­sur­ing com­pan­ion for my eter­nal ambiva­lence. It’s here in the gray that I strug­gle to bal­ance a pre­car­i­ous tower of contradiction.

Con­tra­dic­tions like my rela­tion­ship with guns. On auto-answer, I would’ve told you I don’t have one. You know who I am, sweet­ies – tree hug­ging, tofu eat­ing, fem­i­nist fish­er­man and all that. I don’t like guns. I don’t want to shoot shit. I don’t need one to feel safe; they invoke the oppo­site in me. I don’t want any part of guns or gun culture.

But that’s too black and white for some­one liv­ing in the gray. Of course I have a rela­tion­ship with guns. Born and largely raised in a state where over 60% of house­holds have them, how could I not?

Early child­hood in Wasilla. My par­ents – like most Alaskans – hunted. One of our fam­ily sto­ries recalled leg cramps hob­bling my dad on a cari­bou trip. My mom packed him, all their gear, and the meat back out.

Being a deck­hand. Until recently, most of the boats I crewed on had guns aboard. My mom. Sin­gle men. Fam­ily boats. Folks who reg­u­larly served veni­son and wouldn’t go to the beach with­out a gun as bear pro­tec­tion. The sin­gle time I’ve fired a gun was on one of those boats, urged to join my ship­mates in tar­get shoot­ing a can tossed in the water. Wish I could tell you we retrieved the can afterward.

The August night that my teenaged self pad­dled to a Sitka Sound island with a hand­ful of other deck­hands. We started drink­ing on the way out, pass­ing the fifth of Jäger between kayaks, wasted by dusk. We told fire­side sto­ries of the kush­taka, Tlin­git lore’s shape-shifting otter-man. Spooked by a shad­owy tree, one of the boys pulled a hand­gun from his back­pack. Began wav­ing it around. The rest of us sud­denly sober, another grabbed the gun and put it away.

Still a teenager. Mid­night cruis­ing the back roads of Wash­ing­ton farm­lands. When head­lights appeared in the rearview, the jit­tery dri­ver reached for the glove box. A hand­gun inside. His para­noia, cer­tain that the car behind was “after us.” Mak­ing it home, shaken by what could have been. A year later, learn­ing that boy killed a man.

The land job I had, where shot­guns leaned against the truck shop walls, casu­ally propped along­side broom­sticks. When the boss’s tem­per snapped, he’d grab the clos­est one, stalk out­side, and blast star­lings off the power lines.

The con­trast of peo­ple in my heart. I’m on this ferry trav­el­ing to a win­ter reunion with fish­ing friends. Almost every­one there will be a hunter – includ­ing the petite young woman who recently shot her first deer, a four-point — except for Joel and me. I don’t eat meat other than fish because I choose not to eat what I can’t take respon­si­bil­ity for putting on my plate. I don’t like killing fish, but I do it as humanely as pos­si­ble, with grat­i­tude and respect. Most of these hunters share those val­ues. They talk of “bad kills” – shots where the deer suf­fered unduly – with dis­ap­proval and con­demn waste. I respect their con­nec­tion to the food on their tables. I’ll be happy to see each of them, while avoid­ing the fixed marble-eyed gaze of bucks long since passed through our hosts’ freezer, Santa hats perched jaun­tily on ears for­ever cocked.

But this isn’t just about guns.

Con­tra­dic­tions like the sud­den urgency with which we talk about men­tal health­care after a tragedy like Sandy Hook, and the real­ity of how we respond to those strug­gling among us. The con­ver­sa­tions that inevitably fol­low, where we talk about men­tal ill­ness the way some folks talk about Africa – like it’s one uni­form place, rather than a con­ti­nent of many coun­tries, eth­nic­i­ties, lan­guages, reli­gions, cul­tures. Men­tal ill­ness is that con­ti­nent, inclu­sive of mil­lions of us and a broad spec­trum of diag­noses, behav­iors, chal­lenges, and tri­umphs. Con­tra­dic­tions like my hope that this will be the tragedy to reframe our nation’s pri­or­i­ties, that we’ll veer towards valu­ing and invest­ing in oth­ers’ well­ness, squared off against antipa­thy for a dis­cus­sion that stig­ma­tizes all peo­ple in need as the next poten­tial assailant.

Con­tra­dic­tions like friends’ posts on Face­book, where we com­mu­nally grieve, rage, and process.

“It is one’s choice to act in a man­ner that will bring pain and suf­fer­ing upon another,” wrote one. “Sadly, there isn’t any­thing we, as indi­vid­u­als and as a nation, will ever be able to do about the actions another chooses.”

Another said, “We live in a cul­ture that is more ori­ented to com­pe­ti­tion than coöper­a­tion, to power than vul­ner­a­bil­ity; to mate­ri­al­ism rather than sus­tain­abil­ity; to defense rather than inquiry; to self-interest and indi­vid­ual rights rather than con­cern for the whole.”

I didn’t have the strength to weigh in. What could I say that hasn’t already been said about Sandy Hook… and Ore­gon… Tulare County… Min­neapo­lis… New York… Wis­con­sin… Col­orado… Seat­tle… Florida… Ari­zona… Ohio… Geor­gia… and Texas, in 2012 alone? Words are such worth­less frag­ments, too small and brit­tle for this size of grief. What would they even matter?

Blog­ger Jim Wright’s read­ers were anx­ious to hear what the fiercely spo­ken Alaskan — a gun own­ing, mil­i­tary con­sult­ing, Navy vet­eran — would say about New­town, but he wasn’t hav­ing it. “I may have some­thing to say later, but at the moment, I’m not going to waste my time – and it’s exactly that, a com­plete and utter waste of my time because absolutely NOTHING has changed since the last bloody slaugh­ter, since the last time a bunch of kids were mowed down by the insan­ity that is Amer­ica and its bizarre obses­sion with guns and vio­lence and blood. Noth­ing has changed. Not one god­damned thing. Exactly as I said five months ago. We can’t even have the con­ver­sa­tion. Both sides were already rehash­ing the same old argu­ments before the blood was dry.”

I have two friends who didn’t rehash old argu­ments. They embraced action. “The only response is to orga­nize,” the one in Seat­tle wrote. “I’ll be host­ing a con­ver­sa­tion today at 3 pm about pos­si­ble next steps for those of us who want to ‘do some­thing’ about gun vio­lence. You don’t have to be any kind of expert – I’m not.”

The result­ing group has sched­uled bi-weekly meet­ings, open to any­one who wants to be involved. If you’d like to be, visit the Dens­more Work­ing Group.

The friend in Sitka didn’t waste any time, either: “I am sure that many of you are as furi­ous, out­raged, dev­as­tated, and so, so sad about the Con­necti­cut shoot­ing as I am,” she wrote. “I feel so strongly that SOMETHING needs to change in our nation, our states, and our com­mu­ni­ties. My per­sonal step towards a solu­tion is to invite peo­ple to a letter-writing cam­paign this Wednes­day, Decem­ber 19, at 6:30 pm at the Lark­spur to send let­ters to our state sen­a­tors, rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and pres­i­dent. The goal here is to do SOMETHING proac­tive to reduce these vio­lent incidents.”

If you’re in Sitka, drop by the Lark­spur Café, 6:30 to 8:30 pm, to par­tic­i­pate. Those out­side of Sitka can join in, too. I’ll be writ­ing my let­ters in sol­i­dar­ity from Bellingham.

There aren’t a lot of easy answers here in the gray, but one sun­beam voice breaks through. My friend Laura posted this resource from Mr. Rogers, advis­ing par­ents how to talk to chil­dren about trau­matic events. “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find peo­ple who are help­ing.’ To this day, espe­cially in times of ‘dis­as­ter,’ I remem­ber my mother’s words and I am always com­forted by real­iz­ing that there are still so many helpers – so many car­ing peo­ple in this world.”

Good advice for all. May we look for the helpers… May we be the helpers. I’m thank­ful to have friends set­ting the example.