The Beauty of Anachronism

A month ago, I suffered a serious setback in my personal life, as a year-long relationship came to an abrupt and unexpected end.

Today, on a morning walk, my heart still heavy with grief, I passed this lovely anachronism, and it set me to thinking more broadly about defeat, and loss.

This was the 1984 election. After the 1980 debacle, many of us hadn’t accepted “there is no alternative” to Reaganism and Thatcherism. We held out hope that white working-class people, led by women, would return to the Democratic fold and re-establish the New Deal consensus that had been fractured by the Vietnam war and the social upheaval of the 60s.

The election results crushed those hopes, as the GOP’s tax cuts and deficit spending powered a well-timed economic boom, and whites of all classes responded enthusiastically to the President’s anti-intellectualism and race baiting.

Time goes in only one direction. As time does its awful work, we can be helped, at least a little, if we open to the present moment, and feel the humor that resides in what is. Relaxing the mind, we might come to awareness of how little we know about what comes next.

Amongst progressives, most of us were completely wrong, back in 1984, about how our country might move forward. We couldn’t foresee the halting progress under Clinton nor the deep cynicism and criminality under Bush II. But most of all, we couldn’t foresee the flowering of freedom as one barrier after another came down—nor the deliberate organization of the present fascist movement in response to that freedom.

The other night I got together with my friend and co-parent Melanie Mintz, and we watched Saturday Night Fever (1977). We thought we’d vet it before offering it as entertainment for our 12-year-old daughter. Watching scene after scene, we howled with laughter at how inappropriate that would be. After 34 years, we’d forgotten almost everything that’s in the movie, except the dancing. The stereotypes. The racism. The debasement of the female characters. The darkness and cruelty and hopelessness in every aspect of the characters’ lives.

All that didn’t seem so extraordinary or so awful when the movie first came out. Now it does, and I am so happy and amazed to look at the change.

We didn’t get what we wanted in the 1984 election, and we were at a loss about how to move our national politics forward. But the country did move forward—stunningly, in retrospect—toward a kinder and more decent society, and the politics have moved and continue to move with it.

I’m still plenty scared by the fascists trying to undermine democracy. And I’m still really sad about losing that relationship. But I’m buoyed by my renewed awareness of how waves of change carry us onward—despite grief, despite loss, and despite hope.