Wandering Eastward in the Eve of Wartime

The last two months have been a whirlwind, both in my life and US politics. I’ve had the privilege of a long spell on the road, working remotely as a digital nomad while visiting friends and loved ones all around the Northeast. All the meanwhile, I’d escape the dry, hot days of Tucson for a cooler, damp Spring. Oh how I missed gloomy days and rain. When I left though, the explosive leak of the court’s planned overruling Roe v Wade had just dropped, and now upon my return, I have the displeasure of composing this entry with the duress of it having recently become actualized. Abortion care in Arizona and nationwide has now been thrust into a “Land of Confusion”. Both the summer monsoons and a growing political one are at our doorstep.

I’ll return later to a full dressing down of the ill news of today, after I’ve chronicled my personal life over the last two months, which now seems a bit happy-go-lucky. With gainful employment and a call to head east for a wedding of friends JT & Emily in early May, I decided to just stretch the trip to bridge the gap between the early May nuptials and later June when uninterrupted sun at last relents. One cannot overstate that feeling of fullness from so much intimate and loving time shared with friends that had been at too far of a distance, too long. Most I visited in September between hikes, but a few special folk were with others last seen way back in the before times.

My trip on the east coast took me to see friends in New Jersey, Wash. DC, State College & Allentown in Pennsylvania and finally a long stop in NYC. I also dropped in Baltimore, where my company, Mindgrub, is based and offered an opportunity to check out the corporate headquarters of my employer. I would not have had the luxury of doing this travel as widely or as easily without having been hired by them a few months back. The company transitioned to remote work in the pandemic; its large office now is eerily quiet and still, though I did enjoy the opportunity to meet a few of my peers who were still local. Updating my locations on the company Slack and my forthrightness on the darkening political situation has made me into a bit of an enigma there as I’ve pulled off the digital nomad life, dropping in on every meeting with a new backdrop.

My time in New York did leave me homesick again. Go figure! Man, is it ever easy for me to slip into the flow of life there. It was really nice to see Manhattan quite vivid and active, Bryant Park Juggling was alive and well, and I even got a tri-borough tour this stay for my troubles. As James Murphy once put it lyrically, it’s “the furthest you can live from the government”. If I ever lose the thread here in Arizona, and it may be sooner rather than later, I think returning would be simplest and safest in my hurt heart.

Right before leaving, I got to share my angst over the repeal of abortion rights in Tucson at a protest in our downtown courthouse, and on this trip had the opportunity to participate in larger action at a “Bans Off Our Bodies” march in DC proper, that gave me the opportunity to look scornfully at the tainted Supreme Court building in person as the tens of thousands strong flow of bodies flowed against it like waves breaking upon rocks. It can feel pointless to rage only to then ebb away without immediate change, but I see it as a chance for cathartic release, getting the message out and a way to strengthen community bonds.

My itinerary almost included Maine. I found a cheap flight from Newark, and started putting together ideas. I could hostel in Portland, rent a car and drive deep into the wooded interior and revisit Mount Katahdin, the final boss of the Appalachian Trail, in Baxter State Park. The logistics were a bit wearying, but I had them mostly arranged until realizing that the flight was from JFK. Coming from Jersey, I just wasn’t in the mood for that, and scrapped the whole idea when I saw a cheap flight to visit San Francisco instead. I’d be able to see Marmot from the AZT again for a few days in Mountain View, and then I added in a hostel stay in the city of SF proper. The rewards of flexibility in travel!

I found the hosteling in the Green Tortoise to be a fine finale to my trip. I oft enjoy their lively atmospheres and had not been in a real, vivacious one since 2019. The hostel came with a spacious ballroom straight outta antiquity, where I kicked it during the workday and late evenings. The crowd was mostly foreigners in their 20’s, an adventurous and confident lot. I was able to get a lot of interesting political opinions off them, bantering over drinks and lamenting the fall of the USA. The things about America that inspire them are disparate, but they’re unified in horror about our gun epidemic and utterly dysfunctional health care system, and now we’ve lost abortion rights in half the country to further our visible decline.

I urban hiked my way around San Fran. It can be quite spectacular atop its cresting hills, with roads that turn into a 45 degree angle and become staircases with great views, usually surrounded by the residences of the incredibly wealthy. I walked through the nightlife districts, along the beach, and to the Golden Gate’s shadow to reach its climbing gyms. My hostel in Chinatown was right next to the Kerouac revering Beat Museum which was a cool little snippet of history and a low key inspo for the life I live. I also got to celebrate the night the Warriors won, with the city in a collective revel from gym to ramen shop, its streets a sea of blue and yellow jerseys flowing all in between.

After four nights in that whirlwind, amidst too much drinking with fast friends, the trip was over and I was on a flight back to Tucson. Shout out to SFO for superbly easy airport access. I ended my trip timed perfectly to the breaking of an assaulting heatwave and the first storms, earning a few plaudits from friends who weathered the worst of it as ‘bringing the rains’. I stepped out of the airport expecting to wilt under the sun’s glare, but it’s really not that bad right now. I may be starting to adapt. It’s a dry heat, after all.

After six weeks, it’s nice to finally have some days and nights on my own again. As much as I thrive with socializing and wandering, it is intense to sustain, with little time to myself to write my feelings out properly or edit photos (Website updates are right out). Of course, working full-time hasn’t helped with finding those peaceful solo productive moments, but that’s a privilege much more than it is a burden. I’m back to fitness and dieting again in earnest, and seeking to find the right paths to activism this summer. And what a summer it’s shaping up to be.

Besides a blip of optimism on Sonoran weather, elsewhere I am in a tailspin of despair. We’re watching democracy die here in slow motion, y’all. This supreme court, its illegitimacy and its cruelty in overturning Roe is of course on the forefront of everyone’s minds, but that court, which is unchecked now because of a weak executive and a broken congress, has also taken reverse action against guns after Uvalde & Buffalo, reduced separation of church and state and defanged the EPA on climate change action. I’m anxious, as before Roe died, pollsters were calling for a republican landslide, and I am worried that is still going to happen, with evidence in recent elections of Hispanic voters in Texas electing a Republican in a historically democratic area and retaining an indicted, anti abortion Democrat over a noble young progressive. Abortion has been de facto banned in Texas since September, so voters there have already been aware for months now and still went this way, a troubling omen atop Virginia and New Jersey’s state elections last fall.

Being pro choice is unambiguous to me and removing abortions as a care option will have long lasting ramifications for women’s health, freedom and sexuality. I personally know many women who have had abortions, who have had them for a variety of reasons, from not being ready to be a mother yet or it being medically contraindicated. A lot of the worst governed states in this country aren’t even allowing for rape exceptions, and putting arbitrary cutoffs complicate situations where getting an abortion early was not an option (domestic abuse, erratic periods, poverty) and are often earlier than fetal or life-threatening abnormalities can be detected. We have the technology to allow mothers to have children only when they’re wanted; the state should trust a woman and her doctor’s discretions if termination is warranted and leave it at that. Instead we’re kowtowing to religious zealots and banning what was a right and a norm from half the country and expecting the social fabric not to rip apart in the process.

A bold, united, and unapologetic congress could have stopped all this last year, but with a bare majority, our conservative senators, Manchin and Sinema, have opted to keep the antidemocratic filibuster in place. Without constitutional amendment, the republican’s schemes with the Supreme Court could have been undone by adding four members to it, and federal laws could have been instituted protecting voting rights and preventing the gerrymandering that has unwound enough seats on its own to flip the current House, and that has captured many states entirely. Not to mention, we actually had the power to make people lives better and safer with Build Back Better or smarter gun control. It makes me sick to think of this lost opportunity, and that voters not as informed as I am, who only see gas prices and inflation and can’t process that they are global forces, are just gonna punish the paralyzed Dems for it. There’s a litany of fuckups I could document that got us to this place and none of our leaders in Congress are inspiring but the villains du jour are Sinema and Manchin and they’ve earned my eternal animus for not rising to the moment.

And what’s most maddening to me about it, even more than people supporting Trump in 2016 and 2020 despite his fundamental lack of any decency, is that Republicans under his banner attempted a coup within this election cycle, are openly plotting a second stab in 2024 (he will run again), and the response is apathy! People need to WAKE THE FUCK UP that the open support and perpetuation of Trump’s lies about the election these last 18 months are abhorrent and should be utterly disqualifying not only for those candidates but their peers who have refused to denounce them. There should be no equivocation on this. It’s apparent now that we’re already in a cold civil war, just watch what happens with another electoral college victory against the popular vote, this time by overruling a critical state or two’s electors. The supreme court next term will be reviewing a case around those powers, in case you think I’m being hyperbolic. I want out before that scenario occurs, because I promise that’s when all hell breaks loose.

If I self analyze while living under this shadow, I can see that I play a part in this polarized America; I’ve grown to truly loathe conservatives now. I have excised the ones I’ve known from my adventures out of my life. I refuse to break bread with any further except under formal or forced circumstances. It wasn’t always this way, but that they continue to win despite their odious views in antidemocratic ways, and force these objectionable social views and most vilely, Trump & this court on us, it’s just enraging. I’ve lost it, and I’m tired of trying to understand or bargain with them. Part of my origin story is in escaping religious, conservative indoctrination, so it’s especially salient for me.

I wish cooler heads could prevail, because I know for how much conviction I have that I am right, there are people on the other side that feel justified in their opposition. I’d probably find we have more things in common that we could work towards together on improving everyday life, but I just can’t let it go, fomenting racial hatred, for sidelining my femme and queer friends and in general making life here more miserable for all. Want an objective measurement of that misery? Look at all the brainwashed, vax-hesitant American deaths from Covid last year, all to score political points with their base. You can easily track excess deaths to voting for Trump on a county basis. It makes me so sad thinking of how much wasted productivity goes into this domestic blood feud, while the planet is ever heating and people remain mired in poverty. I would rather be holding sane politicians accountable to better our lives, instead of imagining an apocalyptic hellscape run by insane theocrats who have no interest in reason.

So what can we really do here in the face of those who hate us? Our options, besides throwing the whole obsolete system out, are few. I have some ideas though: Donate to important political races and abortion funds, get out and protest, convince your apathetic or moderate friends to vote in states and districts that matter. Speak up when you can, openly, loudly and aggressively, and call out bad behavior. Don’t spend money in red states (cancel that Florida vacay!) and as little as possible on companies that are playing both sides with financing Republican antics. Email me with any further ideas, if you want to work together on something or just talk in these trying times.

What’s next for me? This summer I’ll be out on the streets protesting more than hiking, but otherwise it’s likely I’ll remain heads down in work. I otherwise intend to live simply here for summer, and then make another digital nomad trip in early Autumn back to the East for more nuptials that get me away from the latter dry season. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll finally get on visiting Mexico.