A Pho King Mess

On pretending we're not the problem and the invisibility of what surrounds us

I wrote this a year ago, back when I thought Trump had no chance to win the election, and I was still capable of optimism. I’m still not defeated, and I still believe there’s hope for us all.
But man, a year later, this has a little more sting to it.

Mark and I are sitting in a nearly empty restaurant in Portland, watching two fantastically cute non-binary people in knit hats and dresses sing “Wonderwall” on the karaoke stage.

The restaurant owner pleaded with me to get up and sing, but no one needs that kind of negativity in their life.

I do try new things, and I’m happy to embarrass myself with the best of them, but I play to my strengths.

I was gifted with a strong voice that I can use to lift others high and that can make people weep, but it comes with a side curse: My voice is only for writing.

I sing very much like Animal in the Muppet Band.

The restaurant is a weird little place that I love: Butterfly Belly. It’s as odd as its name — the entire place is based on “pho” jokes, and the owner says he’s a “pho-knee” guy.

Mark and I each had a Long Island iced tea served in a big coffee cup called, of course, the “pho cup.” When you order it, the owner gasps and says, “Madam! There are children here! Be careful when you order that!”

Everything on the menu is gluten-free, and Mark and I eat egg rolls and fried calamari and pho-nominal beef broth that’s been cooked for 48 hours, and the “Wonderwall” duo laughs and the owner sings “Let It Be” and we all have an excellent night out.

We all pretend we haven't walked by the tents on the street, and the people doing drugs in front of stores, and the men who are clearly not only mentally ill, but physically ill.

Portland is famous for this, of course, because they don't hide it.

It's just as bad where you live. And if it isn't, well, it's that bad in California, and New York City, and Austin, and in Florida.

We’re all part of it.

None of this is sustainable.

We pay someone to dig up oil, then someone to make chemicals from the oil, then someone to take the chemicals and make fabric from it, and then we pay somene to make a tent, and then we ship the tent across an ocean and wrap it in a cardboard box and pay people for that, and then we pay someone at Walmart to sell the tent for $40 so it can house someone on the sidewalk for two weeks until it falls apart.

All of this, instead of simply providing a home.

I walked by a woman today who had a small dog on a leash.

The dog was wearing a blue, cozy-looking down jacket, and the woman led him over the legs of a man sitting on the sidewalk.

We're all doing that, though, aren't we?

We worry about it being 90 degrees in Houston this week, as we order bone broth made from cattle on a huge factory farm, as we walk back to our air-conditioned or heated room.

No one knows what to do.

Apparently, knowledge isn't power.

We all have all of this knowledge now, or we think we do, but we have no idea what to do with it.

We worry about how to afford groceries, and we rail against the insurance companies, and we wear socks that are made with cotton that poisons the people who grew it, and we're all afraid to read the news, and we post on Facebook about what TV shows we're watching instead of how we're afraid and overwhelmed.

There's a lot to be scared of.

My Facebook feed is full of posts about Israel and Gaza, but not of Ukraine and Russia.

There's no mention of the Uyghurs, the 16,000 mosques destroyed, and the people who have been sterilized.

Good, kind, sane people, whose judgment I usually trust, are throwing around the word "genocide" and accusing other good, kind, sane people of somehow supporting the mass killings of children because they eat the wrong sandwich or watch a certain actor.

I can't even begin to make sense of it.

I re-read an article today that Rebecca Solnit shared a couple of years ago, but it feels even more raw and relevant now.

I've linked to it below.

The gist of the article is that we have to find some way to keep living and to find meaning at the end of the world.

My sister says it’s inevitable that Trump will win, whether we like it or not.

My climate change people say we’re past the brink of disaster— it’s over and we’ll know it in the next couple of years.

I refuse to believe this.

I don’t care if I'm wrong, and this is just my cheery, stubborn, defiant optimism refusing to accept defeat.

Peasants who gave birth during the Black Plague fought to protect their children and build a life for them. When the Romans were invaded by the Goths for the 4th or the 11th time, and when London burned down, it seemed as if the world was ending, but they all went about their lives and rebuilt and raised families and carried on.

We are not worse off than they were.

We have indoor showers with hot water, for pete's sake. We have TOILETS. We have TIKTOK.

And yet none of this is sustainable, and we can all feel it breaking apart.

There is no world where it makes sense that when I stir my coffee that was grown in the stripped remains of a rain forest, it’s served in a disposable cup made half a world away and I’m supposed to use a spoon made of oil from the ground and then throw the spoon away.

It defies belief that to drink a coffee, I am supposed to open four packages of creamer and unwrap the spoon from another plastic sleeve.

None of us knows how to fix this, or what comes next

.But I have to believe that we can find some joy and some meaning here, and that we can do better than to give our dog a down jacket and have him walk around the shivering human on the street.

Can we sing karoke while people are freezing outside?

It's always been that way, I guess.

We always have.

But maybe we can change.

I hope we figure it the pho-k out, and soon.


Link to the article referenced above:
https://medium.com/@YotamMarom/what-to-do-when-the-world-is-ending-99eea2e1e2e7