Book Review #14

 Inauguration

By Idris Goodwin and Nico Wilkinson

  I will admit, I feel very lucky to have a copy of this. It is a limited edition poetry collection (literally only 10 poems in the booklet) (Is it a booklet at that rate? There has to be a proper name for this kind of thing.) written by two people who came to my university to read some of the work. It was written just after the 2016 US elections. Who would have thought that almost a decade later, I would pick it up again to see how I felt about it.

  I will admit, when I got this back in 2016, I was very tired. I was finishing up my last semester of university, just trying to get through the last of it as I started a new job. Then elections hit. And the results hit. And I was tired of everything.

  The only memory I have of the day after election day was coming into my creative non-fiction class and having the most tense case of goosebumps and exhaustion I had since I started going to university. The professor of that class (shoutout to the professor of that class, Dr. Arnegard) told everyone they had 15 minutes to get their feelings about election day out before we had class. I didn't even have time to brace myself as my most vocal peers started screaming at each other. I walked out of that class to take a lap in the building. I really couldn't handle it at the time. I was just tired of my own personal life, and now hearing everyone lose their minds over elections just broke me. I sat outside the classroom for a while after I walked. Dr. Arnegard checked on me, then let me know it had cooled off enough to come in. It definitely took longer than 15 minutes, and it was difficult to get everyone to focus on the things we needed to do that day. I felt bad for Dr. Arnegard and for anyone like me who was just not wanting to deal with the screaming.  

  Then the day of this booklet's reading hit. We were all still tired, but people were also very angry. Very scared. Very just emotional about everything. And these poems hit me hard at that time. It was like a battering ram hitting a brick wall once a pile of bodies were still slamming into it. Everything was a mess. And I was happy to get a copy of this booklet so that I had something to remember this whole situation by. 

  Coming back to it in 2025, after another repeat of this election insanity only 8 months ago, I can feel the anger more. The frustration. The sadness. But I still feel the same, but now with more exhaustion. Maybe it is just the timing of reading it. I am just really tired of hearing the same rhetoric, the same pleas, and the same nonsense from everyone that seems to forget the current definition of insanity. In the terminology of spirituality, we have repeated the cycle. We have decided that we did not learn the lessons of the last decade, so we need to learn them again. We need to learn how to treat each other properly, how to have discussions and not just monologues, and we need to learn how to live outside of our opinions. 

  Sure, you can say we know how to do all those things. "Oh, Ani, we know how to treat each other properly. We know how to have discussions with others. We know how to live outside of our own opinions."

  Fucking prove it. 

  Cause I don't believe anyone does not. Not even me. Even writing this, I know I am writing this out of exhaustion, frustration, and just general apathy for the United States. I am definitely still at the "let it all burn down" logic that I will ride through. And things are burning down. And people are asking me, "But Ani, you're just going to let it burn? You're just going to let things slide?"

  To that I say, "Fucking yes, and I'm going to warm my hands by the fire while I do it, then slide down into the ashes with everyone else."

  Because I am tired. I am tired of the fighting, of the self-righteousness, of the whining, and just everyone with their head up their ass. And that includes myself. I am tired of my own behavior and my own mindset. So I am letting it all go. I'm dropping all of this and watching it burn. I am letting things go to shit so that maybe, in the near future, I can make better bricks by mixing the ashes in. (Dunno if mixing ash into clay or concrete makes the bricks stronger, but dammit I'm going to do it metaphorically.) 

  As far as the book goes, it is a fantastic reminder that we are in a cycle repeat. It reminds me that there is still work to be done, but there is also hope after the fires die down. Things can be better. Things can be different. Until then, I'm just going to burn in the fires. Maybe, just maybe, it will help all of us become better people for 2028.