Saying Goodbye Until the Fall

and one more poem

It’s time to close my computer, to end my search for words and sentences that construct meaning on the page. As many of you who have read these essays over the years know, when the light returns in spring, I am called to arrange not words but cone flowers and bee balm, to dig, to plant, to listen to the phoebe’s calls, to watch the red buds stippling the tips of the birches perform their magical mutation into green leaves.

And too, it’s time to stand on the warm sand beside the ocean, slowly merge my feet, my legs, my torso, with her cold body, breathing deeply, letting go of pain, of twiddly thought.

“Where have you been? I haven’t seen you at the beach all winter. The ocean is warm now. It’s 48 degrees. Come join us, we miss you”, said a friend I encountered this week at our local bar, Maine Beer. Never would I have predicted that I would be one of those cold plungers. But two years ago, inspired by the sight of sane people I respected slowly immersing themselves in the ocean in November, and coming out of its embrace with shrieks of joy, I tried it. And then I understood. Every cell in the body is awakened by that plunge, which produces such a throb of life that worry and preoccupation with trouble disappear: all that remains is the vast horizon of ocean and sky, and me, a breathing organism, tingling with life.

Last Thursday, it was warm here, all of 60 degrees; there was no wind, and at 1 o’clock the tide was still high. Inspired by my friend’s invitation, I put my insulated boots, my bathing suit and and threw my cozy swim cape over that and drove down to the beach. A few children were playing on the edge of the ocean, and a few adults were accompanying them, but otherwise, no one was there.

Plunge isn’t the word for how I enter that water. Creep is a better word. Except I don’t feel like a creep, I feel like a transformed human, part fish, part eel grass, part sand. The pain and numbness I feel in my body as I enter deeper recede as I breathe in and out and raise my arms in gratitude. When the water is up to my shoulders, I let go and float on my back, and then I am the sky and the water. Instead of killing me with cold, the water supports me and buoys me, keeps me from sinking to the dark bottom.

Every day so much is happening in our country that takes me down into the dark bottom. But my immersion in the ocean this week reminds me that my existence is also immersed in experiences of creation and rebirth and beauty, experiences no tyrant one can rob me of.

Thank you for reading me in the dark months and accompanying me on this journey of understanding what is happening in our country now. My concluding thoughts are that none of this is new. This country was founded in part on violence, on entitlement, on whiteness and exclusion. These illiberal values have lived side by side with liberal values of inclusion, fairness, diversity and mutual care. The two have been in conflict since this country was founded. But most of us have wanted to paint a rosy picture of America as the home of freedom and justice for all and only recently have we begun to address the dark side of the soul of America. Capitalism complicates everything, particularly when the richest capitalists have enough power to prevent their being taxed in ways that would support the lower and middle classes.

Two great books to read on these myths of America are: A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America, by Richard Slotkin and Illiberal America, by Stephen Hahn.

Currently the forces of exclusion, whiteness, violence and rule by a few are winning. Will the extremism of these tactics ultimately bring the downfall of illiberalism? Will the liberal values find spokespersons who can articulate a new story of how to tax wealth and benefit black, brown, foreign born, women, poor, and support rule by the majority and not by a few rich men and their fawning female sycophants?

The only thing new about this conflict about who gets rights to health and happiness is that if one side of this conflict loses, the likelihood of having a sustainable planetary ecosystem that support the lives of all peoples will be seriously compromised. This moment, now, not next year, is when we need to reduce carbon emissions. Increase those emissions now in the way the illiberal forces intend to do by supporting wealth over well being…and the consequences could be well, life extinguishing. That is new. Never has success of one side over the other portended so much destruction.

When the dark returns and I start up Code Red once again, I have, at this moment, no idea what America will look like. Will Trump be on his knees as a result of massive civil demonstrations? Will the Supreme Court have stopped illegal deportations and upheld birthright citizenship? Will Musk be banned from the halls of government, will we be in the middle of a Civil War, will we be in an economic depression, will we be at war with Greenland, will there have been a cyber attack that brought the country to a standstill, will fires have raged out of control because there’s no one to fight them?

What a time to be alive. What a time to be part of what Johanna Macy calls the Great Turning. Which way will it turn? It is all quite terrifying. But if I can creep into the cold ocean in April, I can creep into the future and keep breathing!

See you in November! Thank you for your accompaniment in these dark times. I wish all of you a summer filled with fierce and joyful resistance in the company of newfound friends met on the streets or at community pot-lucks with rabble rousing neighbors.

NOTE: If you still have the energy for it, I have included below a poem of resistance, of howl and wake up!!

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Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, written in 1855 while he was living on Long Island, miles from where I grew up, is the inspiration for the poem below. His poem idealizes democracy and our westward expansion. I can only wonder how he would write about America now.

America, The Song of Myself, 2025
Kathleen Sullivan

I am America, I am large, I contain multitudes
loaf with me here on the grass
lie your head on my pillow
listen to my voices, linger in my sorrows
 
I am the forest, the hundred-year-old pine
the majestic oak ordered cut down by the National Forest Service
on the lie that my demise will decrease the risk of fire
not line the pockets of the corporations hungry 
for the riches they will earn from the sale of my body

I am the farmer from Ohio whose crop will rot in the fields 
ruinous tariffs trampled my market  
I am the farmer unable to feed my family
soon, I will lose my home, my beloved farm

I am the transgender prisoner housed in the women’s unit 
targeted by that blonde pimp with plumped lips
who goes by the title Attorney General of the U S of A
I am the person held liable for slashes to grants to help 
incarcerated parents bond with their kids, kick 
fentanyl addictions

I am the ocean grown warmer, shedding tears into the clouds
that fall and flood the earth
the ocean grieving the loss of my eel grass beds
those wombs of life now dead or dying. 
I remember when my depths were teeming 
with fish and plant life and whales sang
and dolphins leaped and the octopus waved

I am the immigrant mother 
afraid to open the door, be seen on the street
afraid ICE will sweep me up, send me to prison,
afraid I will never see my child again

I am that mother’s child, afraid to go to school, 
afraid that while I’m away, the woman
who bore me and feeds me and comforts me
will be taken from me forever
they told me America was the home of the free
they lied

I am the eighty-year-old  
who can’t sleep afraid I will lose my Social Security
I am the student afraid to protest the genocide in Gaza
I am the law firm forbidden to enter a Federal building
I am the child who will go without lunch 
I am the cancer patient unable to get care 
I am the manic depressive unable to receive medication 
I am the millions who will die in the next pandemic
I am the veteran protesting for democracy 

And too, I am Mr. Big Oil, wearing my handmade shoes 
and my stand collar jacket 
flying my company plane
over the red man’s reservation, searching for that black vein 
that runs under the endless fields of prairie grass 
no more government regs, no more pansy 
climate activists, only the thrill 
of drill baby drill

I am the vp of your country, here to warn you about the evils
of empathy, the sin clouding your mind
how will you care for your own if you worry
over those unvaccinated black kids dying in Africa 
or those immigrants shackled and flown to a foreign prison
empathy is a left-wing threat to civilization 

A quiet place here, on the grass, 
no dandelions, nor biting bees buzzing 
only green grass fertilized with the spoils of Mr. Big Oil
my grass, mown and watered, mown and watered
mown grass the high sign of myself

America 2025 who am I
what songs will you sing with me
who will write the words
who will decide what stays and what goes
who will love me, who will protect me
will I live or will I die
I am large, I contain multitudes