Sacrifice.

 

Dear you,

Spring returns.  It’s Easter Sunday and I am thinking about sacrifice instead of bunnies and birds.  Bummer.  Sacrifice.  How far would I go for someone, for us?  What would I be willing to do to stop the assault on Ukraine, to stop environmental wreckage here/everywhere, to stop the expansion of xenophobic nationalism here/everywhere?  I write the checks, make the calls, Tweet the politicos, speak bluntly to the Trumpy foes around me.  Doesn’t feel like enough.  The ups and downs continue, one day hopeful and the next pretty discouraging.  Each of us living in relative safety are experiencing a mix of impotence and courage.  Impotent courage?  Courageous impotence?  An oxymoron life.

Christine Smallwood’s narrator talks about experiencing that mix of impotence and courage in her recent novel, The Life of the Mind. The narrator imagines encounters with the children of the future, how they “would ask what she had done”.  She talks about the petitions she signed, random donations to causes and sensations of “regret”.  The children say, “Nobody cares about your ten dollars a month. . . You should have chained yourself to a power plant.”

That would take unequivocal courage, unquestioning sacrifice, like those made by the numerous volunteers headed to defend Ukraine.  Some are qualified, some are not.  All they/we need to do is go to the website fightforua.org (International Legion of Defence of Ukraine) and find out what to do.  Many Americans are totally willing to volunteer.  But what if the current perception of this war changes and we decide to go all in?  This could be big, and we’d definitely have to expand the number of armed service members. Volunteers wouldn’t be enough.  If that happens, would we need to reinstate the military draft?

Of course, The Onion addressed this possibility in their typically sassy way.  They featured fictitious Zoomers contemplating what they would do if they were drafted. Responses:

“Try to become a senator’s kid.”

“I’d pay a gig worker $30 to go to war for me.”

“I already wake up every day thinking I might have to take on an active shooter, so I’m ready.”

“I would leverage the experience of war for my college admissions essay.”

Typical of good satire, this all sounds like truth, something we’d hear if conducting a real survey with real Americans.  What’s in it for me?  How can I get out of this bloody obligation?  Well, there might be something in it for you, for me, for anyone who is tiring of the weak-tea freedom and contingent safety of our USA.  Perhaps we should all be planning a move to the brave land of Ukraine.  No time for impotence there.  Let the migration begin.  Why not?  Here, just this week, a jury in Michigan found the men who wanted to kidnap their governor not guilty.  Oklahoma declared abortion illegal, totally. A democratic contender for the senate in Iowa was barred from running due to supposed “irregularities” in the petitions supporting her candidacy. Said irregularities were pointed out by Iowa Republicans, of course. The weather oracles predict a highly active 2022 hurricane season, and the housing market is still insane.  (Please Google “tiny house Santa Rosa Beach, Fl.” Check out 196 square feet of nonsense listed for over a million dollars.)  Sounds like a good time to migrate!

Fantasy aside, I know I’ll stay here.  Too much sacrifice has gone into this USA experiment.  I, while sighing loudly, will persist; continue writing checks, making calls, Tweeting demands, and speaking bluntly.  However, I am still haunted by Smallwood’s children of the future:

“You should have chained yourself to a power plant.”

I hear you. Sacrifice is required.

Happy Easter 2022,

Joyce