Now each of us

I realize that part of the anxiety that has been stalking my days is related to an upcoming international trip. What if I don’t get back in? What if they don’t let me go?

It is a weird way to live, trying to make long-term decisions when you don’t know how long that term actually is. Should I go for that job that requires yet more upheaval or should I just stay here, where friends and family are close, and live quietly while I can?

I could work in a bookstore (I even have one in mind); I could teach a class at the community college; I could make just enough to pay rent and bills. Some of this is about the dread of visibility. If they don’t notice you, perhaps that makes you safer.

There are swastikas on graves in cemeteries and there are children dying in camps and there are people in powerful positions spending every day working to ensure that the definitions of the unwanted, the disposable, the extraneous, expand and expand and expand until no one is safe but the ones writing the terms.