The Purgatory

I have not written a long-form blog post in more than two years. 

The project that for so long was a fulfilling creative outlet began to feel, most days, like a chore, an obligation, a requirement to produce something clever or profund for public consumption, rather than the inverse and what it started as: authentic personal catharsis that other people happened to like. Moreover, this clunky, outdated format lost its appeal in what could more succinctly be stated in a tweet or a skeet or another pithy social media post of 240 characters or less.

But social media itself, as everyone knows, grew increasingly problematic in the interim: a toxic slurry of ragebait, AI slop, and misinformation that "in these unprecedented times" transformed what was once a fun diversion--and at its best an effective tool for advocacy--into a virtual Superfund Site. I abandonned X (fka Twitter) completely, disgusted by the algorithms and bots ushered in by its Muskifcation. I used Bluesky and Facebook less and less (although still quite frequently). I was a receding tide, and I was OK with that.

In August my children's father, who is still a close friend, was stricken by a sudden, life-threatening illness that put him in the hospital in Seattle, where he remains to this day. It's unclear when he will be coming home. If he will watch our son's first high school baseball game this spring. If he will see our daughter graduate in May. If or when he will play the guitar or ski again. The shock and grief of this event bowled me over: I wept constantly, for any and no reason. I plummeted to the bottom tier of Maslow's pyramid: homing in on my kids, my dogs, my job, my house, and little else. I would never presume to call myself "a single parent." I had (and continue to have) the help and support of friends and family, including my kids' dad's devoted partner, whom I got to know better through our shared trauma.

Throughout the late summer, fall, and into the winter I was biding time, counting days, tracking progress and hoping for slow change--all while watching a parallel macrocosm of my own closely-held strife unspool in the news: climate-driven disasters that struck in new personal ways; the country crumbling under a relentless, cruel, and unconscionably stupid assault on democracy, humanity, empathy, education, and public health; Trump's mission to make us all sicker, meaner, dumber, and more afraid never seemed closer to fruition. Certainly at no time during the decade that I have been yelling about him into the void of this platform have his threats felt more potent or real. 

I envied a friend who had applied for and received Austrian citizenship. I cursed my impulsive, selfish decision to add another giant dog to a small space. I doubted that I would ever travel again to anywhere but Seattle for medical reasons or some drab destination dictated by college visits or sports trips. I paid bills in a grinding cycle. I lost 40 pounds. I woke up, made breakfast, fed and walked the dogs in what had morphed into a hostile, confrontational environment. I worked at my computer and answered calls and emails for my job. I prepared and cooked meals. I rarely saw my friends, nor did I want to. I avoided eye contact on the street. I continued to disappoint everyone. This was all I could do, or did do. "Self care" was a wellness industry racket. Or so I told myself.

Then I came across a passage from Dante's Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, which my mother had once called the best description of depression she had ever read. It wedged itself in my mind and committed itself to my memory. I saw it everywhere, not just in my own life, but in the lives of people on ventilators, people in ICE custody, survivors of America's military industrial complex and its extrajudicial war crimes at the hands of socipaths and incompetents. In people fumbling for the light switch in whatever their own punishing darkness was--the place that Dr. Seuss called "the Waiting Place." Anyway, Dante wrote:

I did not die

And yet I lost life's breath.

Imagine for yourself what I became

Deprived at once of both my life and death.

No words had ever felt more apt. On the cusp of her 18th birthday, I fought with my daugher in unprecedented ways. I explained to my son what "purgatory" was. He got it. As I stumble toward 2026 with a mix of dread and hope, I want to return to Dr. Seuss, not Dante. I want to do what Dave Chappelle said in his most recent Netfix special is the thing we all need to do: "wait this orange N***a out." I want, somehow, to emerge from the waiting place as Dr. Seuss predicted, the place where people are just waiting:

Waiting for a train to go

Or a bus to come, or a plane to go

Or the mail to come, or the rain to go

Or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow

Or the waiting around for a Yes or a No

Or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite

Or waiting for the wind to fly a kite

Or waiting around for Friday night

Or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake (EDIT: I actually have an Uncle Jake)!

Or a pot to boil, or a Better Break

Or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants

Or a wig with curls, or Another chance.

Everyone is just waiting.

NO!

That's not for you!

Somehow you'll escape 

All that waiting and staying

You'll find the bright places

Where Boom Bands are playing

With banner flip-flapping

Once more you'll ride high!

Ready for anything under the sky.

I've never been one to make or take seriously New Year's resolutions. I invariably fall short and spiral into self-loathing. So instead, for 2026, I am keeping my hopes small and straightforward: less Dante, more Seuss.