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I was at work when the weight of reality began to tip the scales. It was a Tuesday. Considering the current events, it was a Tuesday we’d known would be slower than most. So, I had my laptop perched on a table in the back of the bar, and between zesting manhattans or pan frying scallops, each of the employees and myself would find small moments we could go and peak at the screen, away from prying eyes. As the early evening drifted into the dinner hour, the crowd appeared to dwindle instead of grow. The normal rush hour traffic, usually buzzing around 1st Avenue, was quiet. The white-haired man on my laptop was hurriedly pressing boxes on a wall length touchscreen, appearing confused and panicked as he tried to explain what we were all seeing. By this time, we’d usually be busy taking orders and 86’ing dishes, but the place was almost empty, just a couple people sitting over drinks, scrolling screens by themselves.
I remember Anderson Cooper saying something like, “They’re ready to call Georgia...” before I snapped my laptop shut and slid it into my bag. I walked past my coworkers all standing silently near the bar, as if someone had just been informed a family member had passed. I opened my mouth as if to say something profound, or hopeful, or maybe funny but nothing came out, so I just waved and walked into the blustery November air. Driving home, I felt nauseous and impatient, like some death row inmate in the midst of endless appeals who just wants to know his fate. I parked and walked inside where my wife was sitting on the couch looking on in horror. We traded expressions of mourning as I took a seat beside her.
To this day I couldn’t tell you which response was more visceral; my rage or my sorrow. Whatever it was, it was there at the age of 27, sitting in my living room, on November 8, 2016 that I woke up. Once the news had been made official, he would be the president. I spent the evening doing what any reasonable person in crisis might do; I indulged in intoxicants, I cursed at Wolf Blitzer, and I cursed at Steve Bannon. I called my parents to shout, and I cursed the south, and all those blood red states between the coasts. By the end of the evening, I was alone with my thoughts. The TV had been turned off, my wife had gone to sleep, the dogs were snoring on the floor near the heat-vents. I sat on my front porch chain-smoking, wrapped in my overcoat listening to Tupac, because what else was I supposed to listen to? When I finally crawled into bed, I’d exhausted myself.
When I awoke on November 9, 2016 I woke up in a different reality. The fabric of my patriotic identity had been shaken, in a way it had not been during my adult life. I was 19 when Obama was elected, and like many people my age, I rejoiced. I believed in change, and I was of the youngest voting generation. We were coming into our own and we had an opportunity to do things differently than our parents or grandparents had. I was naïve enough at the time to overvalue what his election really meant in a structural sense. Was there something to be proud of in regards to America, a nation founded on genocide and slavery, electing an African-American man? Sure, but at what point does that pride begin to get in the way of progress? In hindsight, I spent much of my early 20s giving our nation a lot of credit for his election, and living in a progressive city like Seattle, where change appeared to be all around us, I felt like we were moving in the right direction. Maybe we were, and hopefully in some ways we still are, but I just don’t think we can all stand at the bottom of a hole during a hurricane and try to convince each other that it’s just a little rain. We can both be proud of our nation, and understand its faults. We can both believe that the American Dream is real, but admit that its attainability is also relative to your socioeconomic status from birth, and the status of the generations which came before you, and for many Americans those family trees don’t grow very tall before you find ancestors who fought great injustice in attempting to peacefully live out what for them was more of an American Nightmare.
I got a phone call from a friend and coworker that evening the day after the election. The son of immigrants, he spoke softly about the implications, not the financial or political ones, but the human ones. Toward the end of our conversation, he said, “I just don’t know how welcome I am in this country.”
Not everything changed immediately, but last winter I could see myself retreating. Whatever sense of understanding I’d shaped over the years didn’t make sense anymore. I found myself doing things I’d mostly neglected since I was, well, about 18 or 19. I was reading a lot. Then I found that I was writing again, then I found that I was wanting to learn again, and I was wanting to create again.
Whereas I’m not certain the purpose for which we were left here, I do find solace in believing it wasn’t only to count coins and trade 1’s and 0’s. Let us create something, together, that is better than what we have.
About the Creator
Patrick O'Neill
I am a NW born & bred composer and writer currently living in Seattle, WA with my wife and two dogs. When I am giving my ears a break I enjoy writing about politics, social issues, race and everything else that keeps me up at night.
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