The First of the Three Spirits
Last night my mom and I sat cross-legged on the living room floor and sifted through a box of the past. For such a small family we have an inordinate number of remembrances — notes written in perfect copperplate, congratulatory telegrams, handmade Valentines to long-dead crushes. We read through letters my grandparents wrote to each other when they met (“You are mine, my only love forever.”); we saw glimpses of the hurting and clumsy young people they were before we were the hurting and clumsy young people they raised.
There were names neither of us recognized in long letters detailing the banality and the drama of everyday life.
This is all that’s left of these rare and precious, prosaic and familiar souls. 100 billion people have lived and died, each with forever loves and sad news, and most have left nothing behind but tightly folded letters.
When I was very young, I wanted more than anything in the world to perform. For years I kept that a secret, but I imagined I would grow up to be Gene Kelly (or some feminine, modern equivalent), all soft closeups and spectacular dancing, and be a film star.
I didn’t account for the fact that it wasn’t 1940, or for my innate stage fright. But more importantly, for the barriers that life and circumstance put in the way of what we can become. So that dream — along with the one about being an astronaut and the one where I was president — got shoved aside to make room for pain and poverty and the business of living.
And eventually, I forgot about the deep desires of my heart, or it was too late. Maybe both.
I wonder how many millions of others had Technicolor, hail-to-the-chief dreams that were lost. Dreams that became old Polaroids. Actually, I don’t have to wonder, because I know that loss is universal.
We are all the same, rare and precious, prosaic and familiar.
“His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.”
The Second of the Three Spirits
Today, having never become a film star, I am very lucky. I am safe and warm; I have food and shelter; I have work. I am not struggling. I feel the heaviness of that privilege.
At this moment, about 52 million Americans are living in poverty. 14 million are children. And “poverty” is an easy word with little meaning, so I’ll give that to you in real terms: Less than $20,598 a year for a family of three.
At this moment, noon on Christmas Day, 1 in 3 Black and Native American children are impoverished. And 1 in 4 Hispanic children. Nationally, children with single mothers are experiencing poverty at a rate 5 times higher than other children. And 38 million Americans don’t have enough to eat.
Tens of millions don’t have healthcare. Millions more don’t have enough.
The federal moratorium on evictions ends in January. And so, at this moment, nearly 40 million Americans are looking forward to a new year on the streets.
Of course, there’s the pandemic. It’s safe to say none of us have lived through anything like COVID-19. I’d say we never will again, but with climate collapse comes increased severity of respiratory diseases. Rising, too, are incidents of vector-borne illness, along with famine, drought, desperate poverty.
It becomes hard to process the depth and breadth of suffering, not just in this nation but everywhere. That was true in 1843, it was true yesterday; it’s true today.
At the same time, (12:04, December 25) 11% of the world’s population controls 82% of its wealth. They will live longer, be healthier, and their whims will decide the fates of those 38 million hungry. Of those 40 million on the verge of homelessness. And I wonder if those few feel the immense weight of their privilege.
“Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”
The Last of the Spirits
This isn’t how I imagined my life would turn out, not by a long shot.
I didn’t dream of pandemics and political upheaval, and I certainly didn’t think I’d devote the rest of my life to shouting about inequity. But we don’t get to choose the time in which we live.
I’m lucky, though, not only today but tomorrow. I can’t imagine looking forward to a future of unbreathable air and rising temperatures, the widening wealth chasm and of billions (if we make it that far) more born, living, and gone, who leave nothing behind but the secret dreams of their souls.
Someday, if you’re lucky, yours will be reverently unfolded on a living room floor, read over with hitching sobs and laughter.
You will leave something behind you, and I’d like to believe you get to choose what it is.
I struggle with how to close this piece, because I don’t know how it ends. I would hope that part is up to us, but I don’t know that, either.
But I wish you peace today, and your own hope, because sometimes that’s all there is.
“Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!”
Thank you. This is a lovely Christmas gift to strangers.
That is an incredible story of prose and passion. I have to qualify the following statement as being overbearing, but just reading this has enriched my understanding of the power of the written word. I am grateful to have read this. Thank you Robin.