Love and a very short fuse

Pardon the inconsistent timeline; I wrote this last Thursday and just got to post it today.

Since that foot fiasco over the summer I've only really been running since the beginning of October. Monday was the first day it felt natural again. Today's run was short - just one loop of the park - but it reminded me how much I love it and how it clears ye olde noggin like nothing else.

During the run I got Leonard Cohen's "Anthem" stuck in my head ("There is a crack, a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in") and realized that what the world needs is another blog post quoting that song, so here is that post. 

Last Tuesday night - but well before the election results began looking ominous - I posted on Facebook that for some reason I felt the need to tell friends and family I love them. Since then that's how I've felt toward all of New York, which mostly translates into paying people compliments instead of silently walking past. People have been smiling at one another on the subway (in a "we're all screwed but we're screwed together" kind of way) and I've overheard and been part of more conversations about race and privilege in the last nine days than ever.

See, pretty.

I've also felt a lot more anger and frustration with circumstances around me than normal. Everyone living here has reason to feel stabby, whether perpetually or just on occasion, but this feels like a precursor to something that will go on for a long time. For example, I saw a guy in a T-shirt with Kim Kardashian's naked ass on it, and after he saw me looking at it he started catcalling me so I told him his shirt was stupid and offensive. I kinda foresee my tolerance for street harassment going off a cliff, which may or may not end well, but at least it'll be cathartic. 

There's a lot more to this, of course. I acknowledge the privileges I have based on race, education, sexual orientation, perceived gender identity and religion, socioeconomic status, and physical ability. I recognize that each of these will mold my approach to the next four years, and it's my duty to examine how they inform my attitudes and resulting actions, or else I'm lazy and complacent and a shitty human being.

So there are those caveats. But last week's events and the renewed salience of pretty much all Leonard Cohen's work make me think that love and outrage are the only options we have to contain the inevitable harm that's about to befall a huge percentage of the population. People will be hurt - emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Lives will be destroyed, and some probably lost to hate, and families will be devastated. The country's reputation won't fare any better.

While running Monday I caught my foot on a sewer cover and fell. I sat by the road a moment, not sure if I was injured (turns out I sprained my wrist so that's fun). Not many people were out so I didn't know whether to sit and wait for someone to ask for help, but then another runner came around the corner. We made eye contact and she could see where my shoulder had picked up some leaves in the fall, but she didn't stop.

I keep thinking about her and how she saw a fellow member of the weird little running tribe in need but didn't offer help. That can't be how the rest of us react when we see someone who needs assistance - it shouldn't ever be but certainly not over the next four years. And the more I think about that, and the more I think about how the world is about to change, the more I want to protect the people that I see in this soul-crushing and beautiful city and have everything be as ok for them as it possibly can.

OKCupid asks you to name six things you could never do without. For the next four years, those will be triathlon, beer, love, outrage, hard liquor, and endurance.