Eremition

EREMITION: I’m sitting this presidency out

By Krista Madsen

Call it an existential crisis, or, in the vernacular of our times, a moment worthy of the Barbie soundtrack hit by Billie Eilish “What was I made for?” I blame Trump for many things, but maybe now I can thank him for returning me to myself.

Trump Presidency 1.0 ramped up on the escalator of dread in 2016 and by 2017 fully launched with the consequential overlaps IRL of my dad dying and my marriage ending. These events did not feel unrelated. I consider 2017 one of the more challenging years of my life, forever under a MAGA stormcloud where men on the homefront did not fare well in my darkened worldview. The year a Presidential “win” could break my heart and life could snap like an dry twig but the roots: the roots at least would still be rooting.

From my proud stance as an introvert who would prefer to face most crises from the comfort of my internal spaces—brain, home, written words—I was ejected out into the streets and on social media. Like so many, my rage and despair propelled me into my community, on the bus to the Women’s March in our bright pink knit hats and my handmade signs—“Nope” and “This is for my girls: stand up and be heard.” I made new friends aligned in pain, we gathered in living rooms and churches to strategize and console, I made spreadsheets of all the action groups up and down the Hudson so we could get on the same page, I posted all my venom all over the platforms and outloud. My young daughters and I marched for Black Lives and against all the other many affronts to our well-being and survival. I helped organize a Unity March for our villages, a beautiful day of coming together.

As I was coming apart.

I couldn’t live longterm in that sort of energetic output directed externally rather than internally. I wasn’t meant to be so public. This lifestyle wasn’t one I determined for myself but one I felt compelled to try on for a while and it didn’t suit me. It wasn’t the best use of my time and talents. The real risk was burnout. If I give all my attention to this terrible man, what is left for me and my family?

That’s the thing about the narcissist. How they feed and grow on any energy, whether it’s positive or negative. I am convinced that on some level all our collective protestations amass into only his further empowerment. Did he deserve to take everything from me?

Here we are back where we started but way worse. Don-old the Ever More Awful, somehow stronger and more terrible version 2.0. I am not numb. I am far from apathetic. He hasn’t killed me yet. But the words I kept repeating when his rise again became inevitable was “I can’t do this again.” “I can’t do this again.”

By “this,” I meant all of it. I couldn’t believe we would all still be subjected to this nonstop attack on everything we hold dear again, how he could continue to hijack those who should know and believe better (our lost loved ones, and the Christians), but also, I personally couldn’t absorb the imposed lifestyle of hate again, not in the same way. I can’t find my way back out into the streets, I can’t make the signs again with cardboard and Sharpies, I can’t post the memes on social, I can’t let him consume me.

Yet, in the way that every vote supposedly counts and, should we stop participating, the system unravels (and I have voted in every election available on every level since the age of 18), I know these public actions against him are so essential. It’s a misnomer to say half of the country elected him, when the truth of what happened is a third of the population stayed home. Of course I feel guilt and concern when it doesn’t feel like a viable action in the face of such atrocities against humans and our structures (democracy, decency), to sit it out. What if everyone did that? What else could he get away with if no one was watching? I was so worried that everyone else suffered the same fatigue and wouldn’t be paying attention this round while the empire collapsed unnoticed. The massive protests of millions around the country—in fact, the world—on the day of Trump’s pathetic and pricey ego parade give me profound gratitude and hope. People are still going to fight, it can all still matter.

In fact, the stats are staggering and don’t convey our collective resignation and exhaustion at all. There are three times as many protests now as there were in 2017, back when public protest felt like my entire lifestyle.

How much real power we have to affect anything is unknown (and maybe all comes down to midterm elections), and there is still the secret fear: that all this gasoline only further fuels him. How a bully gets more bullish when he’s threatened. The more his popularity falls, the nastier and more outlandish his utterances and acts.

It doesn’t square with my politics to sit it out. My protest still pervades in other quieter ways. Still in the purgatory of dating apps, I swipe left on anyone who lists themselves as “apolitical” (let alone conservative, or even moderate). The playing-it-safe approach or taking the “middle ground” is no longer relevant or an option when I believe you are either on the right or the wrong side of history. Assuming a neither here or there attitude seems like weakness, a cop-out. (Or disguised conservatism afraid to out themselves on an app and become wholly undatable). The apoliticals are the worst though, bragging about their apathy. I come across many dudes in the Catskills who willfully choose ignorance. They hate all of it, everyone’s bad. All politics is irrelevant to them and all politicians are evil. I try to point out that I work full time in government and can attest that there’s good on every level all the way through the system, people who really mean well, want to do their jobs in earnestness, contributing to the common good in measurable ways that affect our lives. And maybe that’s part of how I can justify not doing this second round in the same way. I don’t need to make an outward show of my protest, when I can just keep doing positive work under the radar all day long everyday.

And then, because I haven’t shouted myself hoarse, there’s still energy left on the side for me to focus on the things that matter most to me. This time I’ve decided that my contribution to the revolution can be writing about it here from the odd angle of my weekly essays (like analyzing The Handmaid’s Tale vis a vis the Trumpacy) or I can host community events like my super-sharey Show & Tell where people come together with an object and a sweet story (another one coming October 16, tickets here). I can write fiction finally that adds whimsy to the end-times (upcoming in a new Tarry Lit Mag). I can try to be a better friend and mother. And I do my favorite thing, which is flee to my treehouse and water the roots.

Eremition. In all the swiping on the apps through so much cliché talk (men looking for “easy going, calm, chill, good vibes, no drama, partner in crime, soul mate, ENM fun”) there are a few left who maybe I still don’t connect with for whatever reason (often politics) but they might have a word that excites me. It’s not time wasted if I learn something. I gained a few new words from these men: “apricity” which I can revisit in the colder months (“the warmth of sun in the winter”), and more recently, “eremition.”

Eremition comes from eremite, French for hermit. Eremite might be one, often for religious reasons, who lives in solitude. Eremition is the practice of retreat into solitude. It’s a bit of a newborn being tossed about more lately in our culture and isn’t yet fully named in the dictionary. Eremite is there, eremic, eremitish, eremetic, eremitism, but not this noun of recent memes and Medium posts. Maybe it’s the mood many of us are in, a means to get through “these trying times.”

But hopefully not too many of us. We need this extrovert army to keep raging against the machine. Meanwhile, my contributions need to be on the homefront where I find it more valuable for me to remember beauty, to keep producing words, art, events that add connection, joy, and meaning to our lives, contrary to how he might frame it. I have to make things that remind me what’s worth fighting for, why it matters, what am I made for. Otherwise he has really won.

I cannot do this again. I hope none of us have to much longer. And I’m grateful for those of you still out there fighting the fight. His balloon inevitably will pop thanks to your efforts. I will water your plants while you’re gone.