Waking to Truth
At this point, the lights should come on.
Adjusting our eyes, we’d look around the room, and we’d be told it’s time to break out into groups for discussion.
With deep sighs, we would stretch a bit, maybe take a bathroom break, stand up and get some water or coffee, look around at familiar faces and maybe slowly, hesitantly, regroup, in our various clusters.
The host of this large gathering eventually calls us to order and asks us to try — everyone here knows how difficult this is — to focus.
“ What’s going on for us? How are we feeling right now?”
Anxious. Overwhelmed. Isolated. Nervous. Pumped up, says one guy seated off to the other side of this large room. Some seated near me appear ready to cry. Others have been comforting one another, a couple of women a row behind me hugging each other. Other voices ask when this exhausting group exercise will be over. When can we return home?
There are no answers, we’re told. This is simply a chance for us to express how we’re feeling after all we’ve just been through, seated in darkness, watching and listening to presentations on the giant monitor, seeing images of police confronting black men: one with his knee on a man’s neck. Hearing gunshots. Watching protesters assaulted with tear gas by troops. Watching and listening to Senate confirmation hearings here, a Weather Channel report on yet another hurricane beating down on the Gulf Coast, a CNN report of firefighters battling multiple wildfires across California.
Now, with lights on in a room where one illuminated wall display keeps a running tally of COVID cases and COVID deaths, along with a U.S. map highlighting in red and orange where the virus has been intensifying, another display flashing updates of polling results in states and counties marked in red and blue, the psychological assault continues.
We’re confused, people tell the host. What’s the point? Is anyone in charge here? How does this end? Is anyone enjoying this roller-coaster ride, the simulation exercise, this sensory deprivation experience?
We’ve all been in drills and workshops, but what are we learning here? What are we experiencing? What’s the point of all this?
In our small breakout groups that follow, we hear some people saying things that make our eyes roll: “We’re so close to winning!” “We’re going to whip your asses!” “This is all such a joke!” “You people are full of crap!” “Why won’t you admit the truth?” “How can you be so screwed up?”
Yet we also hear some reaffirmations: People are frightened. People are missing one another. I miss my grandchildren. I miss my kids. I miss visiting my mother.
They just want to hold each other. They’ll never take basic stuff for granted again.
“We want our lives back.”
Like so many classroom experiences, like so many group exercises, this one seems so intense.
When the large group comes back together, we’re seated in a big circle, with a few clergy at the dais in front of the room: a minister, a a rabbi, an imam, a nun. There’s also a visiting sociologist and the facilitator of this convened session, who’s trying to break down this surreal experience for us. There are also half a dozen or so social workers who have been meeting with our subgroups.
This is sensory deprivation, with surgical masks, with the rug pulled out from under us, with the air pressure in the room turned up, with all clocks removed for this marathon session, when we have lost — or are we still losing — all sense of orientation.
Which way is up or down? Who IS in charge? What’s the point? Whatever happened to truth? Why are people acting like this? Where are the boundaries? How is this going to end? With a fascist state replacing our democracy? With our planet utterly destroyed?
The never ending election, with the climate literally changing around us, is devoid of answers, and we’re deprived of being able to be together,
Does anyone here truly remember what :normal” used to be? How many of you are feeling there will ever be a happy ending?
How many are feeling emboldened? Excited? Fulfilled? Remorse?
What lessons are we learning here — about one another?
About what’s really important? About how we need to act? About how we can come together? About how we fall apart?
* *
I’ve taken part in emergency drills at nuclear plants wher the level of sheer insanity is so overwhelming by so many layers of participants that walking outside at the end of the day shocks all the senses. This was simply an exercise, a simulation.
I’ve participated in group exercises where reality steps away and we’re surrounded by a world of fabrication, all as an experiential teaching tool.
But this nightmare, from which I awoke, goes on. And as in the imagined scenario, I’m left with the questions: How does it end? What can we learn?
When can we return home?
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