by Beth Couture & Renée E. D’Aoust
From: "Renee E. D'Aoust"
To: "Beth Couture"
Subject: Letter from Renee
Date: Saturday, November 12, 2016 12:14 PM
Lugano, Switzerland
Dear Beth:
And so the US Electoral College elects the sexual assaulter in chief—Trump. I’m gutted. Devastated.
How are you feeling, my beloved friend? I think of you on the front lines, serving people, finishing your MSW. How can I support you better?
How does it feel in America?
This morning, Tube of Fur woke at five a.m., as she does, and she grunted. Last night, we walked our chestnut trail; it’s called Sentiero Eden. Waddle up, waddle down. It is small comfort to me that Tootsie does not know how screwed we are. She has stayed close by me all week, as I get out of bed, to teach, to write, to go to physical therapy. Wednesday after the results were clear, my physical therapist (she’s Dutch) said: “this affects everyone!”
This is global climate change. This is the normalization of racism, hate, sexism, climate change denial, the denial of responsibility we have to our brown & black & every color & LGBTQ sisters and brothers, the sham that I'm supposed to get along, the idea that I'm supposed to normalize the sexual assaulter in chief, the idea that I'm supposed to support a system of white supremacy in the country whose passport I carry. This is the normalization of excuses that favor fascism.
I say, white people, this is on you. Squarely. I'm a white woman. This is on me.
Our black and brown and LGBTQ brothers & sisters have been terrified to live in America. We have killed our First Peoples through genocide and called it assimilation. No more. I'm now terrified, too. I never wanted to leave America to live in Switzerland. Now, I do not want to come back. Why? I don't feel safe. Know: I've been raped, sexually abused, harassed, stalked. A friend told me last summer that I did not understand domestic violence. And I wondered, "Have I done such a great job of normalizing myself? The violence in my past?" You see, 25 years ago when I spoke up, my extended family stopped talking to me. My mother’s two sisters shunned my mother. My aunt told me I was "precocious" and "guilty of everything [HE] would do from now on, to any other girl" if I didn’t report. Another abuser stalked me online for years. Another woman told me “I wanted it.” Have I spoken of how my body is a locus of assault? Have I written about it? In obscure terms. I will now speak up. I am terrified of global climate change. Global climate change affects my body and the earth. But brown and black and LGBTQ bodies have been terrorized for years. So my fear is privileged; I am a white body. I am terrified that the sexual assaulter in chief has normalized ignorance, normalized grabbing pussies, normalized grabbing my pussy.
I have been practicing a potpourri of radical self-care that includes drinking too much coffee, eating too many Italian cookies, breaking up with Facebook so I can freak out on Twitter, and grabbing Tube of Fur to cuddle.
Kindness is my religion, being a doormat is not. My belief in kindness has meant I keep my mouth shut. As a white woman, it has been my privilege to keep my mouth shut. But when my brother killed himself, I swore I would not abide bullshit. I have not kept my pledge. IN IAN'S NAME: I WILL SPEAK UP.
Beth, please be my witness. I am terrified.
I’m so grateful for the readings you sent last time. Please continue to help me see my own blindness, to break down my privilege, to serve.
Give my love to Esteban, too. I send you love during a time of war.
Renée
P.S. I'm attaching my new motto.
From: "Beth Couture"
Date: Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 9:19 PM
Subject: Letter to Renee
To: "Renee E. D'Aoust"
Philadelphia, PA, USA
Dear Renée,
The other night I dreamt about dying. In the dream, I was somehow certain that I was going to die, and I was so scared and so angry and sad. I kept saying I wasn't ready, I had so much left to do, I couldn't die. Not yet. It reminded me of when Ed and I talked about death, about the afterlife, and it hit me in such a powerful way that maybe there wasn't anything after this life. Maybe we really do just die and rot, and that's it. I have never been able to accept that idea. I don't believe in heaven or hell, but I've always believed that we don't just stop, that there must be something after this and we will be aware of it. I don't know if I believe this because I actually believe it, or if I'm just too scared to think about the alternative. In that conversation with Ed, and in the dream, I faced it. I allowed myself to think that maybe that's all there is--death and no longer being. And I sobbed like I have never sobbed. I couldn't stop. It felt like someone was tearing out my insides. That's what it feels like now, almost all the time. Like I am looking into the face of something too horrible to comprehend and I can't stop sobbing. Like I am seeing the possibility of death for the first time. And I'm not ready to. I'm not ready to look, but I have no choice. I'm not ready to face the possibility that this is all there is.
Esteban and I decided a few months ago that we wanted to have a baby. This was such a big decision for us. I don't think it was something I had ever allowed myself to imagine, because I am terrified of being a mother, of fucking the kid up, of raising a kid in such a scary world. Getting pregnant always felt like such a selfish thing. There are so many kids in the world who need parents, so few resources to go around, so little certainty that the world would be okay for the kid. But we decided that to have a kid, to make one ourselves, would be an act of hope.
The day after the election, I realized that I could not bring a child into Trump's America, that I no longer believed enough in the good in the world to get pregnant. I think about having a baby now, and it feels so cruel, so absolutely harmful, and I can't do it. I think Esteban could still do it even though he understands my feelings, but I can't. I don't have that much hope. And it breaks my fucking heart every time I think about it. It feels like death, and the grief is so big, so powerful that I don't know what to do with it at all. We are looking into adoption now, and that may be the most ethical decision anyway. Certainly we can love the child the same. But it hurts so much to think that we don't, can't have the same hope we used to, the hope we worked so hard to have.
I guess that's what I'm feeling most of all--hopeless. For the first time. I've always been, in spite of my depression and anger and fear, in spite of the reality I see as a social worker, an optimist. I have always believed that no matter how bad things are, they can and likely will get better. Not without a fight, of course, not without a hell of a lot of work, but they will get better. Things will be okay. I'm not sure I believe that anymore. I know the US is a country built on slavery, on genocide, on greed. It's a country that claims values it so often acts in direct opposition of. Trump really is no surprise. But the loudness of his bigotry, his fear mongering, his stupidity, still surprises me.
My sister got married a little over a year ago and is now afraid that her marriage will be nullified, that the woman she loves will no longer be seen by those in power as her family. My three black nephews now have even more to be afraid of when they walk down the streets, because of the violence Trump endorses and encourages in his supporters. I work with students who are afraid for their lives, the lives of their families, their futures. This isn't how it should be. And I'll fight for how it should be, for how it will one day be. Because there's no other choice. Right now I'm grieving, and I feel there's no other choice but that either. I'm so grateful you're with me in the fighting, in the grieving.
So much love to you, and please give my love to Daniele, to your sweet dad, to the Tube of Fur (who always gives me hope).
Beth
Beth Couture is the author of Women Born with Fur (Jaded Ibis Press). She received her Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. She currently lives in Philadelphia and is completing a Master’s degree in Social Work at Bryn Mawr College.
Renée E. D’Aoust’s first book Body of a Dancer (Etruscan Press) was a ForeWord Reviews 'Book of the Year' finalist. D'Aoust teaches online at North Idaho College and is the Managing Editor of Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. She lives in Switzerland. www.reneedaoust.com