Lessons in: Acceptance
The extrapolation of a social media post originally posted in January 2025
Brief explainer: I have been posting photo dumps from each month this year on one of my social media platforms. The original intention was to write some thoughts about what happened in a fairly earnest way, but as life would have it, the universe said, “sorry ma’am, nobody has that sort of time anymore.” So it’s taken me until JULY to get my thoughts from JANUARY outside of my person. Apologies if this seems totally outer limits, but you know, what isn’t these days? Thank you for indulging me.
Lessons in: Acceptance.
January 2025
TL/DR: Acceptance isn’t lying down, it’s locking in!
When Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second (devastating) term, I was traveling abroad in the UK. The specific day is memorable because I was being given a particularly extensive, profound, private tour of Liverpool. It was that day that I learned the last official American Confederate flag to be lowered was in Liverpool. A thriving, neutral, port city with commerce ties to the American South. I thought this might just be fanciful local lore (my favorite) at first, but no. From Google: “The last confederate flag to be lowered was the ensign of the CSS Shenandoah which was lowered in Liverpool, England on November 6th, 1865.”
I couldn’t help but think of how relatively young America - in its current iteration - is. I was also given a tour of heavily populated downtown areas that were leveled by German bombs in WWII raining from the sky, and privy to stories of how the rebuild took shape. And while all of this horror perpetrated on innocent people, and fear projected as strength in the form of hateful cruelty and dehumanization, could only remind me of our current political landscape and the horrors that are promised to materialize, the result that I could touch with my own hands and see with my own eyes, and the lore I could hear with my own ears in 2025, was evidence of a hearty, warm, efficient, friendly city that was rebuilt bigger and better. I was feeling beaten down until I was shown, clear as day, “We’re not the first. We’re not alone. And no matter what happens, or how long it takes, there will be a severe course correction.” In this, I was able to find acceptance.
After many Beatles related stops and seeing some of the patchwork history of the city, I popped into The Cavern Club. A legitimate, basement music venue that any band you’ve ever heard of has either played, or wished to play. The historic club manages to somehow embody characteristics both dank and musty, as well as polished and well-manicured. At the door, the lady taking our cover did not hide her distaste for having Americans in her presence on that particular day. I couldn’t blame her and let it roll off my back. On my way out she stopped me to apologize. After learning that I was from California she realized that I was “one of the good ones,” and couldn’t let me leave thinking she was as big a shit as she had first presented. It didn’t bother me to start and her apology only highlighted the polarization we all experience. We aren’t so different. There are plenty of voices that sound just like mine in states that are politically the polar opposite to California. This isn’t a dressing-down of a woman being honest, quite the opposite. It’s an appreciation of her honesty. Both on the way in and the way out. We ended up having a lovely conversation, but without curiosity and care for your fellow human, those conversations can’t happen.
So here we are, miserable, forced to suffer the amplified hate-scapes of bloviating grandfathers telling us what we can’t do, over and over and over again, and while acceptance of authoritarianism and fascism sounds soft and like the antithesis of preferred operating procedure in the face of such inhumanity, it flat out isn’t! One can’t change a thing, until one has accepted it is indeed *a thing*. And once the thing has been accepted as something requiring attention, one can learn about it, and with some work, start to navigate how to effectively organize and resist it. This is what has been driving me wild whenever I hear someone say, “I can’t believe they’re doing <insert outrageous behavior x, y, and/or z here>”, pertaining to this administration. My response is always, “You need to, immediately. Start believing them when they show you. Immediately!” We collectively need to accept what is happening, because until we do, we’re unmoored and without orientation.
Acceptance isn’t lying down, it’s locking in! LFG!
Tile Mosaic floor from stage at Strawberry Field