Categories
Lamentation #45
Category: Featured Posts
Mill Valley looks like the kind of town
You’d expect to see in a model railroad set
Minus the trains—
Tracks torn up
After a massive fire
Almost a hundred years ago
But each little house
And road sign
And tree
And store
Glued on
Exactly where it belongs
There’s a hair salon on the corner
With a hand-painted sign outside
Doesn’t say the name of the salon
In fact I don’t even know the name of the salon
Or if it has a name
Just HAIRCUTS
A barber pole
And a giant pair of scissors
Someone not from here
Asked me if Mill Valley is a Hollywood set
And I’m still not sure it isn’t
I mean it definitely has a cast:
There’s Alex the rug guy
Poor thing looks like he hasn’t eaten in a decade
Doug behind the counter
Who co-owns the market
His son Eugene
Who surfs big waves at Ocean Beach
Jason the bartender
Who knows everything
Theodosia the barista
Who only knows how to frown
Kecia who sells flowers
From a cart over the arroyo
Larry the Hat
Who needs no explanation
And Denis
An 80-something fellow
Gentle giant of sorts—
At least six-and-a-half feet tall
Maybe seven feet with the giant mop of white hair
He would dig through the trash
And return things to me in paper bags
That he thought I didn’t mean to throw away
Denis was also my landlord—
And property manager
As I’d round the corner
Up the stairs to my apartment
I’d peek over my left shoulder
Into Denis’s gallery—
And store I guess
I mean nothing had a price tag
But hundreds of oils on canvases
Leaning against the walls
Stacked ten deep
Like cardboard boxes broken down for recycling
Then in the very back of the store
Or gallery or whatever it was
An easel facing the rear wall
And balanced in one of Denis’s enormous hands
I’d see the edge of a mottled palette
And a few fronds of white hair
Jostling around as he tinkered with his brushes
Most of his massive frame
Hunkered behind his latest work-in-progress
An old man emptying his brain
Filling canvas after canvas
In a race against time
Next door is a store called Poet and the Bench
That sells neither poetry—
Nor benches
That was pretty common here in Mill Valley
Also sometimes it was really hard to tell
What was for sale—
And what was just part of the store
I lived above these art galleries
That wanted to be stores
That wanted to be art galleries
In a tiny apartment overlooking
The pedestrian tunnel entrance
On the third floor of El Paseo
In an unlikely love affair
With Mill Valley
A model railroad town
And Hollywood set—
Featuring majestic redwoods
In the shadow of Mt. Tam
From my tiny apartment
I’d watch glorious sunsets
And make vintage cocktails
In my little kitchen
And at 8pm sharp
In a coordinated show of support
For essential workers
We’d howl out the window
Like a bunch of fucking lunatics
The echoes bouncing off the buildings
And through the El Paseo tunnel
I would live above the entrance
For more than three years
Which felt like home
Until suddenly it didn’t
El Paseo was not the only tunnel in Mill Valley
The other one cut between Piazza D’Angelo
And the Balboa Cafe
That tunnel leads through wisteria to a small parking lot
The exit of which faces an old theater
It’s small—
Seats fewer than 300
But just a few months earlier
I gave my first musical theater performance
As J.P. Morgan in Ragtime, The Musical
It was a pro-am cast
With a 21-piece orchestra
Quite a spectacle
Anyhow, I’m sure most of Mill Valley didn’t care
That ten times—
For ten performances
I was J.P. Morgan in Ragtime, The Musical
But that didn’t stop me from feeling—
And acting
Each time—
Like a local celebrity
I would don my wardrobe and do my makeup at home
Then I’d walk the two blocks from my El Paseo apartment
Actually it was more like prancing
Off to the theater
Dressed like J.P. Morgan
Navy blue pinstriped
Three piece suit
Ivory sash
Black top hat
Silver monocle
Chrome pocket watch
Wooden cane
And a ridiculous mustache
I was J.P. Morgan
This weird little place
Half model railroad town
And half Hollywood set
It felt especially right for me—
When I was J.P. Morgan
See, there are a lot of J.P. Morgans
In Mill Valley
And for most of them
It’s not a fucking costume
During the summer of activism
Around police violence
Which could have been any summer
Or anytime really in the last 150 years
So that doesn’t narrow it down much
But I’m talking about the summer of 2020
The mayor of Mill Valley
Herself a dark-skinned woman of Sri Lankan descent
Shut down any discussion of Black Lives Matter
At the town council meeting
Saying it wasn’t an issue of local importance
I guess that was on-script for Mill Valley, too
Where I rarely saw anyone who wasn’t white
And either enormously privileged—
Or descended from enormous privilege
Or at least they acted that way
There were other problems, too
In Mill Valley
Related to being black
See Ragtime, The Musical
Is about a lot of things
Like immigration
And love
But mostly it’s about racism
Specifically whites
In the early 1900s
Being truly awful, racist pricks
To blacks
So to pull off a musical like this
We needed three casts:
An “immigrant” cast
A “black” cast
And a “white” cast
Some members of the black cast
Both adults and kids
Came from the greater Bay Area
But others came from Mill Valley
I don’t know where the hell we found them
But somehow we did
We also needed guns
Fake guns, of course
This was musical theater
Not a theater of war
See what I did there?
So anyway our guns—
Theater guns
Some revolvers
Some rifles
They were vintage
And fake
Of course
But they were also kinda
Real-looking
One day the director
She sat everyone down
And gave us a very serious talk
About only using the guns—
Theater guns
In the theater
And only on stage
During rehearsals and performances
This had me wondering
Because very few things in theater are serious
But this sounded serious
Did some “well-meaning” white person
Wander past the theater
And notice a kid in the black cast?
With a gun—
A theater gun
Way more irony than I can stand
To have a police shooting
During the making of a musical about racism
Weeks later somebody spray-painted
Some KKK-related garbage
On a small building down the street
White people clutched their pearls
And said Not in Mill Valley
But until the police stop
Relentlessly provoking and killing black people
And proving
Again and again
That black lives don’t matter
This will continue to be an issue
In Mill Valley
And everywhere
Walking to rehearsal one evening
I noticed Theodosia wiping down tables
Sporting new purple streaks in her hair
My gaze lingered an instant too long
She frowned at me
Very much in character
Then I passed a parked Prius
Informally the official vehicle of Mill Valley
The paint was dinged up and worn
But the bumper stickers intact:
C O E X I S T
You know—
The blue one with all the religious symbols
And another with a raised black fist
This was exactly the kind of person
Who would probably call 911 on a black kid—
With a theater gun
And this is what makes me want to smash my fist
On the Hollywood set
On the little model railroad town
Watch the little fake houses and stores and trees snap
As they peel up remnants of the fake asphalt
Because the Prius driver would never identify as a racist
On the surface they would deny it
They’ve got the bumper stickers to prove it!
But their racism doesn’t live on the surface—
Like a bumper sticker
It’s buried deep within
And sometimes it has a way
Of sneaking through
Do we have to have our own real police shooting
Our own dead black kid
Right here in model train town
For it to be an issue of local importance?
Though I loved Mill Valley
With its quirky cast of characters
I didn’t like this plot development
Not in the slightest
So I’d end up living in Mill Valley
For another eighteen months after Ragtime, The Musical
So much of that in the thick of coronavirus
To keep everyone safe
We played apartment trading games
Quarantining with my teenage daughter
In El Paseo
Or sometimes it was just us
Oh and the cat we were hiding there
For months!
Keeping the cat litter
And empty food cans
In separate trash bags
And sneaking out late at night
To deposit cat trash in the dumpster
Behind the nameless hair salon
So Denis—
The dumpster-diving landlord
Wouldn’t suspect anything
We did such a good job
That not even Jason the bartender found out
And he knew everything
Plus he lived next door
A paper-thin wall separating our apartments
And my bathroom window opened
Right onto his patio
(Don’t ask why)
(Because nobody knows)
And before COVID canceled love and everything
People would get married
It seemed like every weekend
At the Outdoor Art Club
Across the street
One time I even recognized the music
Cosmo Alley Cats, a San Francisco swing band
From the comfort of my postage-stamp-sized living room
And then there was the time I helped Kecia
By climbing over a railing
And down an embankment
To fish fallen orchid stems out of the arroyo
And the time a woman at the market
Asked me to help her get basil off the shelf
But wouldn’t accept the basil I had right there in my hand
And the time a guy tried to pick me up
At the bar of Tyler Florence’s old restaurant—
In El Paseo
But I acted straight
And it was hard to watch
(Most guys really need to learn how to flirt)
And the time I asked the metermaid
If moving violations
Were within her jurisdiction
To stop her from yelling at my ex-wife
Perhaps an unlawful u-turn was involved
But that wasn’t my point
And those times I slipped out
Through the El Paseo tunnel
The careful art of triangulating
Between the elementary school
The restaurants
And the homes
So I could smoke a half a joint
Without getting dirty looks—
Or even actual aggression
Damn you Mill Valley!
The little model railroad town
That won over the train-loving kid in me
The Hollywood set
Where I learned to love community theater
I love you still Mill Valley
Because of you
And in spite of you
In some ways you need to change
And change is coming
Whether you’re ready for it or not
But in some other ways—
Some important and curious ways
I hope you’ll always stay the same
Anyone who traveled with Mitch Ludwig
Knew about the shrapnel in his ass
It was from Vietnam
A Marine
Two tours
And a Purple Heart
A man who lived
But had to watch his friends die
Those metal detectors
At the airport
They would get him every time
The smiles and laughs
From TSA
Only a charmer like Mitch
Could make the TSA laugh
Mitch was the center
Of everything
I flew all over the country with him
Watched him work his magic
We’d walk the halls of the Pentagon
Or Langley
Could never get very far
Govvies and contractors alike
Tripping over themselves to shake hands
With Mitch Ludwig
He brought me along
To show off the technology
But my job was easy
Because Mitch had already closed the deals
With his outsized personality
Starch pressed shirts
Finely fitted suits
Red ties
Always red ties
Clean shaven
And bald as a cue ball
Mitch was the Daddy Warbucks
Of Washington, DC
He had this innocence
Or at least he’d fake it
He’d make an off-color joke
Then grab the end of his red tie
And gently pass it across his lips
As if he was wiping his mouth clean
Three vasectomies
And two reversals!
He would always tell me
I’m still not sure why
But on weekends he’d pilot his yacht
Down the Potomac
Jam packed
With fifty of his closest friends
He’d drop anchor
And we’d tumble overboard
Stand in the silt
Water up to our tits
A shitty American beer in each hand
And not a care in the world
Somehow Mitch would reel us all back in
And pilot the yacht to a seafood shack
Now the fifty had become a hundred
A dozen blue crabs per person
And pitchers filled with more shitty beer
For hours
Nah it was all fucking night
We’d drink beer
And pick these tiny blue crabs
The Old Bay getting all up in our fingernails
And the corn on the cob, ignored
No one ever saw a bill
Or threw down a dime
Mitch always took care of it
Daddy Warbucks style
Then one day Mitch Ludwig
Blew his fucking brains out
No one will ever know exactly why
But does anyone really have to ask?
Because when I think about Vietnam
And Iraq
And Afghanistan
And everything
I wonder
Mitch loved his life
And was loved by his family
And me
And hundreds of others
That was clear
But if our country
And its leaders
Thought so little of his life
To send him off to die in a quagmire
In a war we knew we wouldn’t win
Then maybe suicide was Mitch’s way
Of taking control
Of his own life
Of his own destiny
Because Mitch didn’t die for his country
Mitch died for Mitch
On his terms
The way he wanted
And if our country
Put Mitch in this position
Why should anyone question his choice?
Categories
The Weight
When you feel the weight of the world
Upon your shoulders
It is an illusion
For you are the world
And the world is you
And it is heavy
And I feel it
Too
Categories
A Stranger in San Pancho
It’s 3:30am in San Pancho
Our legs are numb from dancing
And the mezcal has got us wondering
If we’re still drunk or starting to get hungover
I’m sitting at a filthy plastic table
Eating a quesadilla with mushrooms from a can
And frijoles from a plastic tub
But it’s the best fucking thing I’ve ever tasted
Why is this so good?
It’s a combination of factors, she says
I met this woman five minutes ago
I don’t know her name
And she doesn’t know mine
But she looks me square in the eye and asks
Why do we fall in love with people we shouldn’t?
I don’t know, why?
It’s a combination of factors, she says
The stranger
***
Earlier I attended the big dance
In the flesh
But my mind
Obsessing about Maria
She stood out on the crowded dance floor
Pink v-neck, jean cutoffs, no shoes
She looked at her bare feet
And danced with wild abandon
Like a little girl
But with the body of a woman
Her shirt danced, too
Like intertwined lovers
Beneath pink linens
She was out of place here
At the big dance
With live big band music
But so were we
Gringos, most of us
But a lot of Mexicans, too
From La Ciudad, Guadalajara, Sayulita
We came for the live music and for lindy hop
A dance, a swing dance
I came to San Pancho for a lindy hop festival
But I was running away
Way more than I was coming
***
Earlier, at dusk, I sat on a rickety stool at an outdoor bar
Everything is at least a little bit rickety
And a little bit outdoors
In San Pancho
Maria was tending bar
Yes the same Maria
It was her bar
She was the first person I met in San Pancho
It was earlier, still daytime, already hot, maybe 11am
She was walking a little hotdog with perky ears, no leash
His jet black coat matched the enormous mane atop Maria’s head
That fell in haphazard layers down her shoulders and back
Maria spoke to me, in broken English
I responded, in broken Spanish
She helped me find my room
Assured me no one would ever lock the outdoor gate
Nunca?
No, nunca
Maria was the nicest
And the prettiest
In San Pancho
She was also my neighbor
From my balcony
I could see her front door
Across a patio speckled with garbage
But to be fair to San Pancho
Let’s just call it stuff, not garbage
San Pancho is a small town
So it was more coincidence than scheming
That I would run into Maria three times in one day
But there was a little scheming, too
And it was also a long day
And a long night
I didn’t ever get much sleep in San Pancho
By the time I’d had a cold shower
The only option
And gotten myself into bed
The roosters would already be crowing
False advertising!
Fuckers never wait for sunrise
At least not in San Pancho
Shortly after, the sound of Mexican music
Blaring on little speakers the size of sand dollars
Because everything is under construction
In San Pancho
At least a little bit
By now it was my last day here
I was starting to get used to it
Amid the roosters
And the sounds of construction
And the tinny Mexican music
I would stare at the broken ceiling fan
Thinking about how much my feet hurt
From dancing
And Maria
See, I had invited Maria to attend the big dance
With the big band
That was my scheme
Back when I was trying so hard to flirt with her at the bar
Women don’t like it when you try too hard
There’s a right amount of trying
And I’m trying to figure out what that is
Because it’s different
For different women
I didn’t think she would come to the dance
Perhaps I was trying too hard at the bar
Tengo novio, she said
¿Dónde está? I asked
You see I was flirting
With Maria at the bar
Her bar
Using flirting logic
How can you have a boyfriend
If he isn’t here right this second?
Maria didn’t know
But her fellow bartender had already sold her out
Given me intel
Maria was available, she said
With a certain look that conveyed
Go for it
There are things you notice
After a breakup
It’s like a sixth sense
Or maybe a seventh
The gift
And the danger
Is that virtually anyone
That’s right, almost anyone
Can be your quarry
At least it seems that way
Whether or not it’s true
Or maybe everything is exactly the same as it always is
But I am different
Seeing things that may not have been there
Signs that I shouldn’t have acted on
At Maria’s bar in San Pancho
Half-sitting on a stool, half standing up
Ready to walk away
Or run
Sipping warm mezcal
I tried hard to get her attention
While trying just as hard to look like I wasn’t
Truth is I had no business being around people
See, I was less than a month off a busted engagement
Serious shit
We had named our kids and everything
Then one morning
The morning after Valentine’s Day, in fact
She fucked me
Good and hard
And then she was gone
Forever
Should have known better
Because she never liked morning sex
Or sex at all, really
But she did that time
The last time
* * *
I came to San Pancho
On a whim
Buying my airfare the expensive way
Missing the sign up deadline
For the lindy hop classes I wanted
And my ex
Her mind was not at all connected to her heart
But I still loved her
It was not even a month
Couldn’t just turn that shit off
She left me
But she also freed me
Now I could do whatever I wanted
Go wherever I pleased
A blessing
A curse?
I guess it’s a matter of perspective
But I wasn’t thinking about any of that
I was only thinking about Maria
And the things we could do
If only she wanted to
***
In San Pancho
And really almost everywhere I go
I’m surrounded by lindy hoppers
They’re in every major city
And many not-so-major cities, too
Yes lindy hop is a dance
Usually
But not always
Between people of different genders
Involving touching
And intimacy
But it’s not an intimate dance
It’s not tango
Or zouk
All dances
On some level
Model intercourse
But lindy hop
At least to me
Feels more like basketball
Than sex
For this reason
I’d been careful
To avoid casual hookups
With lindy hoppers
Getting naked
And exchanging bodily fluids
Other than hot breath and sweat
Could mean no more basketball
And basketball
Is way less complicated than sex
You can even do it in public!
But I couldn’t think about basketball
Or lindy hop
Because all I wanted
Was Maria to agree to a game of one-on-one
With me
She could probably sense my hunger
I needed to know if the boyfriend was real
I had learned something from the last one
And the last one
And maybe even the one before that
Sometimes people aren’t clear with their intentions
Sometimes those intentions change
Sometimes those intentions were never there to begin with
And that’s a really nice way to put it
***
Once I had a five year relationship
Back when I was too young
To have any idea what the fuck that meant
For our final year
I guess we didn’t know it was our final year
Not at the time
We tried an open relationship
We had rules
Everything was okay
As long as we talked about it
So I’m at my grandmother’s house in New York
And my girlfriend’s in San Francisco
And my entire Sicilian extended family is sitting around a long table
Eating a cassata cake
And alternating sips of espresso and sambuca
I’m on the phone with my girlfriend
Not even really sure why
She’s telling me about a guy
Another lindy hopper
Burt, she said
I had seen him around
He was older
And kinda short
When he kissed me it tasted like cigars, she said
Gross, I thought
But with my whole family there
I didn’t say anything
It was so weird, she went on to tell me
When we had sex, his dick wasn’t even hard the whole time
I felt a heat well up inside me
From my also not hard dick
Not at the time
Right up to my temples
I wanted to scream
Throw the phone out the window
Tie the absurdly long phone cord into a noose
And hang myself
Right there in front of my whole family
Over the cassata cake
And the espresso, the sambuca
Well that’s nice, maybe we can talk about it more when I get home
She didn’t break the rules!
We talked about it, right?
But then tell me why the fuck
Why the fuck did it hurt so much?
Maybe I could hear something
That wasn’t being said
Because a few days later
I returned to San Francisco
And she left me
For Burt
Moved to Twin Peaks
Into his apartment
With his cigar breath
And his soft dick
Left me wondering
Was I too tall?
Did my breath smell too good?
Was I too hard?
Since when is that a problem?
Before I had time
To get self-conscious about being too hard
While having sex
I was hit with the worst depression of my life
Moved back in with my parents for six months
I didn’t know how to do a relationship
For sure
And I didn’t know how to do a breakup
Either
And this is why I wanted Maria
So badly
Yes because she was friendly
And beautiful
And waifish
And she danced with her whole body
Not her mind
Yes all those things
But also because by now I had learned
That breakups don’t need daily milkshakes
And six months living with Mom and Dad
Well maybe sometimes breakups do need those things
But this breakup only needed one thing
Maria
***
Maria, Maria, Maria
Maria wouldn’t stop dancing
Looked like a mishmash of hippie dancing
And some kind of country line dance
She smiled from ear to ear
But still looked innocently at her feet
As her hair and her boobs bounced around
In disheveled and frenetic wonder
I was falling for her in every conceivable way
She had brought some friends
The bartender spy
And two other women I didn’t know
I kept watching Maria dance
Every so often I looked away
Just in case
But she kept looking at her feet
As though in a trance
I was distracted by some conversation
Two of the organizers were talking
Who let the locals in?
In a split-second decision
I realized I should come clean
Don’t worry, I invited them!
They’re just some friends of mine from the bar
They won’t stay long
Now I sprung into action
The song changed, something a little slower, good
Maria, let me show you the dance we do here
She smiled and took a few steps in my direction
I reached out both my hands, which she clasped
With my left hand
I took hers
And placed it on my right shoulder
At the same time
I put my right hand on the small of her back
Pulling her closer, gently
But keeping space between us
Basketball
Not sex
With my left hand
I softly took ahold of her right
And held it at eye level
Step, step, rock-step
Say it with me
Step, step, rock-step
I talked softly
Under the music
My lips nearly touching her ear
And led with my body
Which always follows my heart
She was clumsy
She looked at her feet
But she followed me
And then time folded
Our bodies became one
We hit a dancer flow
A million songs behind us already
But still she looked at her feet
¡Ahora, mírame!
Our eyes locked
Her smile softened
Her big brown eyes widened
We were still in a flow
Dancing as one form
Was this basketball?
Or sex?
I hadn’t a clue
The pounding in my chest
So hard it was distracting me
In an instant
The moment was gone
Maria’s friends beckoned
Her hands fell to her sides
¿Y entonces, Maria?
No se
And in a flash the four of them scurried away
Into the dusty parking lot
And down the cracked and cobbled streets of San Pancho
***
I didn’t follow them
That Romeo bullshit doesn’t work
Only in movies
I gave them plenty of time to leave
And once they were good and gone
I went out into the same parking lot
And I called my friend Samantha
We were about the same age
Both married to other people for decades
I divorced, she’s still with hers, good for them
Sammie and I were old neighbors
In San Francisco back in the 90s
She helped me return to earth
After my girlfriend left me for Burt
Cigar-mouthed
Soft-dicked
Burt
Sammie and I hadn’t talked in years
But if anyone could understand me now
It would be the woman who understood me then
And “understand me” is a nice way of saying
That she ripped me a new asshole
Look at you! 42 years old?
You’re a grown-ass man acting like a child
Sure, sure, chase tail all you want
But goddammit for the last time
Don’t fall in love so easily
Don’t trust someone until they deserve it
Don’t give someone everything they ask for after three dates
Learn how to say no
And for fuck’s sake
Set some goddamn boundaries!
***
I went back into the dance
It was getting late
The floor was slick
Almost like an ice-skating rink
On a slick floor
With the right shoes
You can dance for hours
Without getting tired
There were people from San Francisco
I largely ignored them
I can play basketball with them anytime
Here I got to dance with strangers
From all over Mexico
And all around the world
Even a darling French couple
Absolute scorchers on the dance floor
Finally I’m worn paper thin
It’s 3:30am
And I wander back into the same dusty parking lot
For more mezcal
And impossibly good quesadillas
That’s where we began
When I met the stranger
I still don’t know her name
But I will never forget
How we marveled at the strange beauty
Of parking lot quesadillas
Born of canned mushrooms
And plastic tub beans
Somehow this stranger
She knew what I needed to hear
Right when I needed to hear it
Why do we fall in love with people we shouldn’t?
I don’t know, why?
It’s a combination of factors, she says, the stranger
But is it?
How can we know who we should love?
And who we shouldn’t?
And why?
People fall in love
By accident
They don’t schedule it in their day planner
Put it on a todo list
Maybe it really is a combination of factors
And nobody can put their finger on it
Maybe we all just get swept up in the moment
And fall in love over plastic tubs of frijoles?
***
My body had already failed a good while ago
And now I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open
So I decide it’s time to leave the dance hall parking lot
And the quesadillas
And find my way back to my room
My cold shower
And the broken ceiling fan
I’m sure the roosters are preparing
To wake me up
Well before they’re due
Those fuckers
At 4am the streets of San Pancho
Still aren’t totally quiet
A few dogs barking, an occasional car, and what’s this?
The sounds of skateboarding?
And giggling?
Maria?
Sure enough
Maria, still barefoot, skateboarding, at 4am
Which was really just stumbling around
On cracks and cobblestones
Crease!
She couldn’t pronounce my name
So adorable
Add that to the combination of factors
I was falling in love over and over again
As if it wasn’t under my control
Perhaps it wasn’t
Esta es mi novio, Manuel. Manuel, Crís es un bailador!
Mucho gusto I said
As they giggled away
Into the dark, dusty San Pancho night
The boyfriend
He’s real
I wanted to think about this
But suddenly a man on a moped was nearly on top of me
I didn’t see him coming at all
He stuck out a bony finger and said
In a very thick accent
Go home
Esta bien, amigo, voy a ir a casa
No! Go home, right now
I got the message
But I didn’t really know what to do
Other than keep walking to my room
I was at least half way there already
So that’s what I did
One cold shower
And a few hours later
When those fucking roosters woke me up
Again
I stared at the broken ceiling fan
Again
And I thought
Not about Maria
Not this time
I thought about me
I thought about a man
Who fell in love too easily
Then he came to San Pancho
And never loved the same way again
Categories
Washing Pennies
Violent thunderstorms would often strike Freeport, GBI. I was four years old, but I can feel them like it was yesterday. Several times a day, mothers would holler, wet kids running in every direction, rain funneling off the palm fronds and slapping the pavers, anger cracking through the sky. Thunderstorms meant one thing: time to wash my spare change. I lined up the Bahamian pennies around the perimeter of our screened-in porch, starfish side up, watching the rainwater course over them. Years later I would learn that a change-washing machine is one of the famous old quirks of the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Two places that have clean change: The St. Francis and my parents’ porch in Freeport in 1980.
These storms never lasted long. In just a few minutes, maybe a rainbow or two, then blue skies, sunshine, and kids, everywhere kids. Ashish and Vinay, who gave me something so spicy to eat that their mom had to spoon-feed me yogurt until I stopped freaking out. And Nick, my babysitter. We would launch model rockets. Once, we lost one deep inside a field of poison oak. The kid uniform in Freeport was one article of clothing: swim trunks. Nick was maybe 16, so the dress code applied to him too. “I’m not allergic,” he said, lofting me onto his shoulders and marching into the thicket. From my elevated view, I spotted the downed rocket first. Or maybe Nick knew it was there all along, but let me be the one to find it because that’s something Nick would do.
Artichoke mandala 
Pad ma kuer 
Risotto stuffed peppers 
Roasted veg and creamy polenta 
Penne primavera w/ griddled zucchini 
Fun with French onion soup
Content warning: This email contains details regarding abuse, violence, and sexual assault.
Monday night, I hopped on IG live to talk about what happened at the Capitol. My story is one of many. It’s not the only story or the central story.
But, it’s important to share because so many of the people who helped perpetrate what happened are trying to tell us to move on and forget about what happened – saying it isn’t a big deal.
They’re asking us to move on for their own convenience. These are the same tactics used by abusers. What they are really asking is: “Can you forget about this so we can do it again?”I’m a survivor of sexual assault, and I haven’t told many people that in my life. But when we go through trauma, whether we have neglectful parents or any kind of trauma, these episodes can compound on one another. Part of my hesitancy to tell this story until now has to do with some of my trauma. As a survivor, I struggle with the idea of being believed.
Many Republicans have done everything they can to try to rewrite history. They say we’re exaggerating or stoking tensions or even that I should apologize. Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz have had nearly a month to apologize for their role, but over and over they’ve doubled down and said they did the right thing and if they could go back, they’d do it all again. That’s why they need to resign, because they will do it again.
First, let’s dispel the idea that this insurrection happened suddenly – that there was no way for Hawley, Cruz or Trump not to see this violence coming or anticipate their role in stoking it. Everyone knew something was going to happen.
One week before, I started to get text messages from other members of Congress saying that I needed to be careful on Wednesday. So I started thinking through a security plan with my staff.
Insurrectionists arrived in town starting on Monday. That day, as I exited the Capitol, a crowd of Trump supporters were gathered directly behind my car. All there was to protect myself and other members of Congress was a waist-high fence.
My heart was beating fast. They were yelling insults my way. I tried to lighten the mood to create enough space for me to drive away and get out of there.
Later that day, I went to the grocery store and saw all these people in MAGA hats. It felt tense. And, I guess it felt like – whether you’re from the Bronx, New York City, Queens, or wherever – you can just catch a vibe and kind of know a general sense of when things aren’t right. And things started to feel “not right” when I was in that grocery store that Monday night.By Tuesday, 24 hours before the events on January 6th, I had already resolved that I wouldn’t go back outside except to vote. Myself and other members asked about security plans, and we were told that it was being handled by Capitol Police and couldn’t be shared.
Fast forward, Wednesday, January 6: At 12:45pm, my chief of staff called me and asked how I was feeling. In that moment, I was feeling great – Rev. Warnock and Jon Ossoff had just won. I was on cloud nine. It took a weight off my shoulders – and I hoped maybe it would take the wind out of the sails of the growing mob outside the Capitol.
Shortly after we hung up, I heard violent bangs on my office door and all the doors into our congressional office. My legislative director – G – told me to hide. I ran into the bathroom – then quickly realized I should have gone to the closet instead. When I opened the door to move, I heard that someone had already gotten into my office. It was too late. Then, they started to yell: “Where is she?” “Where is she?” “Where is she?”
This is the moment I thought everything was over. As a spiritual person, I thought: if this is the plan for me, people – you all – would be able to take it from here. I felt that things were going to be okay and that I had fulfilled my purpose.
Peeking through the hinges of the door behind which I was hiding, I saw a white man with a black beanie come into my direct office. He continued to ask, “where is she?” “where is she?” Finally, I heard G follow him and say “Boss, it’s OK to come out.”
The man in the black beanie was a Capitol Police officer – he was alone with no partner, and I never heard him identify himself as Capitol Police or anything. We weren’t sure if he was there to help us or hurt us. He was looking at me with a tremendous amount of anger and hostility.
Yelling, he told us to go to a different building where all Members would be extracted – not providing the room number or any other exact information on where in the building that extraction point was. Still, we started running. Alone with no escort and no specific location, we could hear the rioters outside. Not knowing where to go, I ran to find the offices of members I knew in the building. After running up and down the stairs, googling frantically to find room numbers, I eventually found Rep. Katie Porter’s office and asked if we could shelter with her.
She welcomed us in, and we started searching for where we could hide. We pushed couches against the door. I found clothes and sneakers to change into in case I needed to run, jump out of a window, or blend in with a crowd. We turned off all the lights.
Shortly after we finished barricading ourselves, we received intelligence that bombs were found not far from where we were.
We discussed what we’d do if the building exploded. Staffers were making decisions to put their lives on the line to save us.
When I finally learned the location of the extraction point, I didn’t feel safe going there, knowing that some Republican members were live tweeting the locations of the Speaker and others. I knew the National Guard hadn’t been called. We were in Rep. Porter’s office for hours.
After the building was secure, I walked over to Rep. Pressley’s office where she and her staffers made sure I was fed. We were at Ayanna’s office until 4am as Congress finally proceeded with voting to certify the electoral college. There are more details to share at some point, but not today.
Rep. Pressley told me that night that what I experienced was traumatizing. Hearing her say that, it forced me to pump my brakes. If you have experienced any type of trauma, just admitting and recognizing it is already a big step. The moment you admit that a thing happened to you is hugely important.
I look back on this and Ayanna really helped my healing. Telling your story is an important tool for healing, which is why I’m telling mine. Together, we have 435 stories and we need to tell them because every time a Republican gets on television and tells us to forget, these stories are reminders of what they’re trying to absolve.
What happens now should not be a partisan issue. This moment is not about a difference of political opinion. This is about basic humanity.
We knew that violence was expected on January 6. We knew the rioters depended on someone upholding the lie that the presidential election was fraudulent. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley chose to tell the lie because they thought it would be politically advantageous.
Six people have lost their lives, eyes and limbs have been lost, and many more people traumatized. Even after all of that, not even an ‘I’m sorry.’ Not even an: ‘I didn’t realize what I said would contribute to this violence and if I had known, I wouldn’t have done it.’ Instead the response has been, ‘I did the right thing and I would do it again.’
If that is their stance, these members will continue to be a danger to their colleagues. Given the same conditions, they will choose to endanger their colleagues for political gain again. That’s why we need accountability.
It’s not about revenge, it’s about creating safety. We are not safe with people who hold political power who are willing to endanger lives for political gain.
I appreciate you taking the time to read this or listen to my IG live. I’ve been giving myself the time and space to heal. And, if you’ve experienced trauma, I hope you’ll do the same. You don’t need to have experienced the worst thing or the biggest thing.
Talk to someone about it. Acknowledge it in your heart.
Big hugs and build a snowman for me,
AOC