We live three minutes from our elementary school. At most. If I wasn’t already in the car to go to work myself, there would be no excuse for driving, except maybe “winter” (because, ick). Our goal is to leave the house at 8:20, giving the girls a chance to find their friends in the morning and take a deep breath before the day begins. If we leave by 8:30, we can still probably make it, sometimes before the early bell, but definitely before the late bell. Especially if I’m willing to run back home after the bell has rung and grab my youngest’s glasses, my oldest’s lunch… (knock on wood, it’s been a little while).
At 8:35 every morning, Monday through Friday, an amazing thing happens. Somehow, 650 children arrive at our neighborhood elementary school. A line of cars, meticulously guided by school staff, weave in a one-way circle through the school parking lot. There’s not even so much a kiss-and-go policy, but an efficient stop-and-roll. Stop the car, kids roll out. Blow a kiss, call a few reminders behind them, and move out.
I feel a sense of solidarity when I leave the car loop. Every parent making that same right hand (only) turn has, in broad strokes, lived the same morning I have. There were teeth to be brushed, hairbrushes to be found, shoes to be paired. Is it gym this week (sneakers required) or is it art and cowboy boots? Who wants a cheeseburger today? Anyone, anyone? Yeah. I don’t blame you. We’re late! Let’s go! Everyone – even those timely children – are part of the common experience of, you know, mornings.
And so I leave the parking lot feeling at one with my fellow parents. And yet, at some point throughout the day, the morning, even just my drive, this feeling begins to dissipate. Just a bit… what are you waiting for that green light to issue you a personal invitation? And maybe there’s a little fissure in the foundation of good will as I get to work and pass the empty desk, again, of that one co-worker who has somehow managed to work from home for various vague reasons for a year. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wearing leggings every day, and doing laundry on a whim at noon on a Thursday? Deep breath. Seriously, we’re out of tea again? I show up, in person, every day! I deserve free tea!
I don’t think of myself as a particularly angry person. I follow multiple yoga practices on Instagram! I love sunsets! And musical comedies! And yet, the fact remains that by the time I get home, 9 hours after the comradery of car loop, I’m tired. I burned myself, just slightly, on the oven rack. Did we seriously eat the Girl Scout meeting snack? How do I possibly owe the school library $18 for your lost book? Have you even looked? If I look and I find it, I swear you’ll owe me $18. And… now I’m standing in the tidal wave of stagnant water from emptying the dishes “pre-soaking” in the kitchen sink. And I need to change my shirt. Little things. Little. And yet.
There’s no shortage of anger. Lately? Always? Maybe it’s not particularly new, but it feels palpable of late. Whenever I turn on the tv, scan breaking news, or god forbid read the comments section of anything, anything at all. An article on Top Rated Children’s Games? Is everyone ready for an online brawl about screen time, childhood responsibilities, the comfortable malignment of Millennials and whether preschool should be free? Okay. So… that’s a no on Just Dance Revolution, then?
Because in the past decade, my empathy gene is routinely refreshed by Disney and Pixar movies, I defer to Inside Out to try to understand this. Anger is a red brick whose head bursts into flame when he gets truly steamed. Been there, buddy. But at the heart of it, Anger – per Pixar – is about fairness, or rather the lack of it.
We get angry because our expectations aren’t met. We had a plan, even if we weren’t consciously aware of it, and the plan fell apart. I planned to get out of the house on time (no one said our expectations had to be realistic or reasonable). I had a plan to leave work five minutes early, to get home in 15-18 minutes tops, and now 23 minutes later (yes, my commute is super short; I should never be angry), I’m cutting it really close to being late to the next thing. We expected to be recognized at work, at home. We expected a friend to stand by us, a marriage to last. Whatever it is, for each of us, all of us, it boils down to, I expected, in this moment, for my life to be different. Easier, happier, fuller, less covered in dishwater… different.
The thing about anger is that it’s a creepy lurker. We’re not always aware that it’s there, but we get a weird feeling that pricks between our shoulder blades when we’re otherwise calm. Then out of nowhere, it’s bursting out from behind the bushes. You again?!, we think. Or we don’t think at all, because anger’s like that. We often don’t talk about anger until we’re apologizing for it. Or we’re holding on to it because, damn it, life didn’t work out how we planned and if there’s nothing else to control, it’s going to be this, this moment, this argument, this round of a 12-round fight.
The United States seems to be mid-match right now, hanging on to the round like there might not be another. There’s an acrimonious brawl that’s spilling into our perceptions of who we are as a people, as a nation. Disagreement isn’t the issue. Disagreement keeps a person, a country, from thinking too much on the surface, from stagnating in status quo. But the rhetoric filling the airwaves is divisive and alienating. Debate is good, but it has to start from, end in, a place of dialogue. Guess what? Compromise doesn’t mean that everyone wins. Often, it means everyone loses. That’s not a disaster. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the point. Each side concedes a loss in order to move forward. Does the thought of that, of concession, make your blood boil, just in theory? Because it does mine, a little. But, but… why should I bend? I’m not the one who’s so clearly in the wrong here.
Are we a mirror of our political process, or does it mirror us? It’s certainly hypocritical of me to admit to my own hair-trigger volatility and then judge the anger of others. We tend to judge our own anger as righteous, a moral high ground on the right side of history, whether it’s our own small dramas, or the national or global stage. We see their anger as – at best – maybe ignorant. The cycle continues, grows deeper. Now, it’s not just unwitting collusion; it’s contemptible. Abhorrent. Us, them. Other. And that works for us, because it’s a lot easier to judge, and dismiss, someone when you’ve drawn a clear line between us and them.
From the Oracle of childhood, who should be required reading for adulating:
Then the North-Going Zax puffed his chest up with pride.
“I never,” he said, “take a step to one side.
And I’ll prove to you that I won’t change my ways
If I have to keep standing here fifty-nine days!”
“And I’ll prove to YOU,” yelled the South-Going Zax,
“That I can stand here in the prairie of Prax
For fifty-nine years! For I live by a rule
That I learned as a boy back in South-Going School.
Never budge! That’s my rule. Never budge in the least!
Not an inch to the west! Not an inch to the east!
I’ll stay here, not budging! I can and I will
If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!”
~ Dr. Seuss: The Zax
It’s a malicious malcontent that makes us choose anger over reason. We’re better than that. We’re better than the nativist, xenophobic rhetoric that has begun to define this political cycle. As a country, we have expectations that aren’t being met. They’re different for everyone, and sometimes diametrically opposed. I’m pretty solidly sure in my convictions, but I can recognize that makes them right for me, not right for everyone. I haven’t lived my whole life yet. Who knows what sum total of experiences will shape me going forward, or have shaped others in their past… shaped me in my past. But for as many reasons, and more, as there are citizens, we’re disappointed. In our politics, our global image, our direction, each other. We’re angry. That’s not the problem. Anger can be an impetus for transformation. But when was the last time you made a really great decision in your life when you had flames coming out of your head? I’m going to be honest. I’ve burned bridges, I’ve said things I can never take back, and I’ve felt righteously, indignantly RIGHT. Sometimes, looking back, I’m still sure I was right. Sometimes I’m sure I was wrong. Sometimes I’m just sorry no one called for time out. The problem with anger is that it’s not reliable.
My daughter is an active volcano, not necessarily erupting, but there’s a lot of seismic activity going on under the surface. You can’t rule an eruption out, but you don’t know when it will be or what might cause it. In the meantime, you just live your life, and then… the ground rumbles. When my daughter gets upset she will, occasionally, run upstairs or outside, “I just need to calm down!” she’ll yell. Sometimes she’ll repeat the process several times. Sometimes she’ll give up and just go to bed. Sometimes there’s lava and we all get burned. I empathize because I’m more volcano than lake myself. But even at 7, she knows that the solution, even when it feels elusive, is to take it down a level.
Robert Frost wrote, Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.
Anger is fire and ice. It’s fear and it’s disillusion. It’s disappointed expectations and a sense that we didn’t get ours, large and small, and there’d better be someone to blame because it’s just not fair. Truth. But as my daughter told me when she calmed down recently, Angry is just part of life. It really is. And since it is, we’ve got to learn to channel it. To march ourselves to our bedrooms until we’re able to speak rationally, and then figure out why we’re so ticked off and what we’re – reasonably, realistically, responsibility – going to do about it. Because we can all do better.