Where I'm drawing hope from today

If the sun refuses to rise, we will make it rise.

People often cast me as a pessimistic-to-cynical person, and I guess I understand why. I have an extremely judgmental RBF, and I tend to my grudges more lovingly than I do my houseplants. But I think I am at heart a massive optimist: I see the world as it could and should be, and as it is, and the distance between those two worlds hurts me on a very regular basis. All of this to say, I’m pretty heartbroken by my country’s re-election of the pus that infects the mucus that cruds up the fungus that feeds on the pond scum. I’m heartbroken that Democrats again squandered an opportunity to be progressive, and will again likely blame progressives for this loss. I’m heartbroken that this man ran on an unapologetically fascist ticket and decisively won.

So, in between renewing my passports (American, because I’m assuming ICE raids are back on the table; British, just to make sure my ejection seat works) and hugging my loved ones as much as I can, I’m looking for some hope. I often find hope in reading Baldwin, and Coates, and lighter things like The Final Girl Support Group. Being an irredeemable nerd, I find it in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. I tend to love the middle chapters of trilogies, for whatever reason (this does NOT include Halloween Kills), and The Two Towers is no exception. Samwise’s beautiful, open-hearted speech about what people do in the stories that really mattered is a reliable go-to for me. But for once, I don’t want to talk about The Lord of the Rings. I want to talk about World War 2.

And there are famously no parallels to any world wars in Tolkien’s writing, so that’s fine.

Not to be your white Boomer dad, but the era immediately post-World War 2 is extremely instructive in times like ours. The whole world had turned upside-down. Our nations committed unspeakable violence on a previously unthinkable scale. Nothing could be the same as it was. We had to recreate the world while we were still bleeding, and that recreation took a lot of optimism, creativity, and vision. It fell painfully short, in many ways, as every world does. But it was possible because we made it possible. Whoever makes it through to the other side of this Republic-destroying era we’re in now will have to do the same thing. Which brings me to Godzilla.

And is!

Godzilla Minus One centers on deserting kamikaze pilot Koichi, who returns home at the end of the war weighed down by survivor’s guilt and Godzilla-related PTSD. He comes home to mass devastation, his town—like the rest of Japan—struggling to rebuild after their government’s decisions laid waste to them. Everyone in this town has less than nothing, but they have to keep living. So Koichi slowly starts to build a life and a family—the baby shoved in his arms to keep safe, the woman who found the baby, the neighbor who lost all of her children, the co-workers clearing the sea of leftover mines—that he doesn’t feel he deserves. This life-building could honestly be compelling enough without Godzilla’s return, but my man’s name is in the title, so return he does. And with that return comes the promise of mass devastation yet again, but also the chance for a people to save each other, despite their government’s refusal to respect or even consider their humanity.

“This country has treated life far too cheaply. Poorly armored tanks, poor supply chains resulting in half of all deaths from starvation and disease, fighter planes built without ejection seats, and finally, kamikaze and suicide attacks. That’s why this time…I’d take pride in a citizen-led effort that sacrifices no lives at all! This next battle is not one waged to the death…but a battle to live for the future.” — my beloved Kenji Noda, naval engineer and part of this family

We must know by now that we are all we got. Republicans have been proudly screaming it. Democrats have been gently nodding at it. We are all we got. And that actually feels much less lonely to me than trying to find a home in the house full of people who keep letting pillagers in, and then blaming me and mine for asking for too much when the pillagers burn everything down. We are all we got. And that means we can build something for us.