After a Pause

A few bright moments in the midst of chaos

I’ve been away from this space for almost two months, busy with holidays, eldercare management, teaching a workshop in Florida, and continuing writing/researching a project I began a year and a half ago. Some ideas…a lot of my ideas…need time to coalesce into a meaningful whole and it helps to have writers and guides along the way.

All this has not been a sufficient distraction from watching our government lie, cover up its lies, extort and cover up its extortion, commit horrendous acts of violence against its own citizenry and try to cover up those acts of horrendous violence. Some days it feels like a lot just to make it through the daylight hours until I can return to a cozy nest of bed, books, and sleep.

I would never call myself an optimist, but I have welcomed some uplifting moments in this last two months.

In the aftermath of the shocking murders by ICE of two American citizens exercising their rights of free speech, the good people of Minneapolis have showed the rest of us what determined resistance against tyranny looks like and they have done this with fortitude during a freezing Midwest winter. These brave people have scored a victory for all of us. As of Thursday morning, “border czar” Tom Homan is ending the “enforcement surge.” Let’s not forget that this is the same guy who was caught taking a 50K bribe, though I’m sure he’d like us to forget that episode and hopes that we’ll be satisfied with this retreat. We should not be satisfied.

Several immigration court cases suggest that at least some judges are pushing back on deportations of people detained during ICE sweeps. This is not to say that ICE has been contained. I’ll take a wild guess that the kind of people who sign up for ICE were also storming the Capitol on January 6. These are not people who understand or have even read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They are lawless violent men with big guns and face masks. It will take defunding to shut them down.

Congress is pushing back on tariffs against Canada, our once and hopefully future North American ally. Speaking of Canada, the current occupant of the semi-destroyed White House (hereafter COSDWH) seems to have backed down from his proposal to make Canada a state. And while his “deal” with Greenland remains under wraps, and probably does not exist except in his fever dreams, it seems that his plans to buy/invade have lost momentum in the face of resistance from Greenlanders, Denmark, and the rest of Europe. Greenland might not be a dead desire yet, as COSDWH may decide to revive this useful distraction as the sh*tshow of the Epstein files burbles upward and outward with continued pressure from survivors and a few brave members of Congress.

Bad Bunny entertained 137+ million Super Bowl viewers. Those sugar cane sets! And power poles! And can we give prizes to the hundreds of dancers who made the 13-minute show such a joyful spectacle? Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin did a fine job. The performance was truly all-American in the best possible way. To those pundits and magats who are still yammering about Bad Bunny singing in Spanish, I say: if you feel that strongly about not acknowledging the fact that Puerto Rico is part of the United States (statehood please!) and the wider Hispanic culture that is absolutely part of the history of America, then, um, maybe you should consider giving up tacos, nachos, pollo arosto, tortilla soup, refried beans with hot sauce. You can stick with white bread, while the rest of us enjoy some spice in our lives.

Speaking of spice. One of the most entertaining acts of resistance is the Canadian import and super-sexy Heated Rivalry. Two young male hockey players meet up when their teams compete, they have sex and like it a lot. They want more, but their lives only intersect according to game schedules. At first, they seem too different in personality to build anything more significant than secret interludes in hotel rooms. Ilya is a hotheaded, live-in-this-moment Russian, who grew up under a repressive regime. Shane is a restrained and introverted Canadian. At first, it’s hard to clarify what draws them to each other apart from being two extraordinarily handsome men. But slowly, something else develops: they realize that they respect each other as players, and like each other as humans in spite of their differences, and finally they understand how much they love each other. This is what I think has drawn in an audience of women who want what they have. We who live in female bodies want to be seen and appreciated just the way they see each other, with all our sexiness and beauty and freckles and utterly human flaws.

We are living in a time when our rights to speak, live, and love as we wish are assaulted daily. Conservative groups would like to make gay people invisible again and send women backward fifty years to a constrained life we all thought was over and done. In some states it is now impossible to access reproductive care. A Gay Pride flag was removed from the Stonewall Inn, a New York City site of LGBTQ+ history and resistance against persecution and bigotry. It was restored a day later, but the outrage remains. It is exhausting to re-fight battles we thought we had won. We are so tired.

But let us take heart in small victories. In the world of Heated Rivalry, Ilya makes a choice to leave an intolerant society. Shane is lucky enough to have loving parents who accept him. After witnessing a positive example of another hockey player coming out on national television, two young men discover their potential as a couple. Life as an out gay couple won’t be easy in the macho sports world of pro hockey. Life isn’t easy for any of us, but at least this time sexual freedom and love win. May there be many more seasons. I’m down for all of them.

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THANK YOU for reading and I’d love to hear from you! More posts on Fridays at noon. I hope you’ll subscribe (paid subscriptions help support independent writing on Substack!) and share with other readers. A free and open press has never been more important, especially as we experience life under an administration in Washington that is no friend to writers or readers.

You can find out more about my memoirs Perfection and Eva and Eve here and purchase here.

I work privately with memoir writers. You can reach out via my website: juliemetz.com.