Avalanche in Tahoe

[Trigger warnings: death; grief]

My phone rings. It’s my buddy Ron. We’ve been playing phone tag all day, so I pick up immediately.  

“Hey A., before we go into anything… there was an avalanche in Tahoe…”, the words catch in his throat as my mind already knows what’s coming next — “… my friend… he’s one of the ones who died in it”. 

Rationally, we know these things can happen, we know it every time we go out there. But when it happens to your own friend, the world comes down on you. Like an avalanche. 

“Oh no, Ron, I’m so so sorry… do you need me to come over, hang out?” 

I know my words sound hollow but I also know that he knows I mean it. Not only because he’s one of my absolute closest and best friends here, not only because he’s one of the few people who can get me to talk about my own dead father, but also, and maybe now especially, because we’re both climbers, we’re both adventurers, we’re both guys who could have been up there on that mountain. We both know it could have been him, or me, or another of our friends. One of ours, one of us, one of our community. I don’t even know the name of his friends who died in that avalanche but it’s as if I knew him. Because, in a way, I did. 

At 6’1” & 220 pounds Ron is almost twice my size but what I feel right now is the instinct to hug him, hold him, protect him — to take all his pain and grief, and carry it for him. Or, at least, help him hold some of it, as he has often helped me hold my own.

Time to sit with this pain, again

[Trigger warnings: grief; suicide]

One of my oldest and dearest friends, who has endured an awful amount of both physical and emotional pain, once stated that people take their own life when the pain (physical or emotional) becomes too intense to endure. 

That’s probably what brought us close at the beginning, when we met, two beautiful young girls modeling for a charity fashion show, three decades ago — that terrible, unbearable, existential pain that was deeper than what most of our teenage peers were feeling. 

Unfortunately, I haven’t “grown out” of that pain. Or maybe, life has provided me with plenty new reasons to feel unbearable emotional pain. 

“I want to die — please, let me die in my sleep tonight and not wake up again tomorrow morning”. Once again those words in my head, as the pain, too intense, too sharp, too deep, keeps me from falling asleep. 

For the past couple weeks, I have been eschewing the pain, keeping myself so busy that I simply couldn’t think of it much — I mean, I still did feel it now and then, but it was manageable because I was burrying it under “safety layers of busyness”. Keeping my mind engaged elsewhere, staying in my body and out in “society” or forcing my head to think of all the things I “needed” to do. 

But you cannot bury grief forever. It will come back and bite you in the butt. It will come back, it will resurface and claim all your attention, all your energy — mental, emotional, physical. The pain will come knocking at your door and claim its time, make claims on your time, on your energy. It will not simply request, it will require and enforce that you give it your full attention. It will force you to look the truth straight in the eye and deal with it. 

At least, that’s how it is for people like me who cannot live lying to themselves (or others). I cannot lie my way out of this pain. I cannot run my way out of this pain, as much as I would like to and keep trying to. 

Today, this weekend, maybe the entire upcoming week or month or however long it takes, I’m going to have to sit with this pain. Take it on a gentle hike on one of my beloved trails that I want to reclaim for myself. Let it overwhelm me, if it must. Let myself cry, if I can. Sit. Sit alone. 

Sit alone, because there’s no one but me who can sit with me, no one but me who’ll have to live (or die) with this pain.

A moral question

“Where were you when your father needed you?” is something my mother has asked me full of venom almost every time we have talked since my father’s death two & a half years ago — which is one of the reasons why the times we talk are so few and far between. 

Where was my dad when I needed a father growing up?

Where was my mother when I needed understanding or support in my gender journey? 

Where was my sister when I would have needed her to intercede with my parents, as I had so often done for her?

But I never voiced those questions out loud, never addressed them to the people in my family of origin, not wanting to “cure” venom with yet more venom.

Growing up, so many burdens — emotional burdens, blame, expectations — were placed on me by my family of origin from the youngest age, especially by my mother who would, just as her own mother, throw things back at people, full of venom and blame. I was young and vulnerable, could not defend myself from the emotional or psychological onslaught, but I knew it was wrong, I knew it was not OK, and I promised myself that I would never, ever do the same to anyone in my own life. I would never throw things back at people, never place the blame at their door or expect them to carry burdens that belonged to me. This has been one of the most important needles in my own inner compass, one I always try to stand by. So now, I’m facing what is to me, effectively, a moral question with the gay climber who rejected me, causing me deep pain. 

He’d like us to be “adventure buddies” and I hope to have the strength, sooner rather than later, to resume a platonic friendship with him, and my wish would be for this friendship to be profound and sincere. I am well aware that the pain caused by his rejection of me from the physical/sexual viewpoint has many layers or facets to it, only partly connected to, or caused by, the gay climber specifically. I know there are other issues being triggered for me, including insecurity around my gender identity, the wounds from a plethora of rejections from other cis gay men and the fear or sense of not “belonging in the gay world”, and the trauma from the loss (neglect & abandonment) related to my father. What “percent” of the pain I’m feeling now is specifically from the rejection received from the gay climber is hard to say. So, since the pain is not entirely caused by him, do I have the right to share with him that being “just friends” now is painful for me giving him at least a part of the deeper explanation, or not? How much do I have the right — or duty — to share with him now? Or should I go through months of therapy to try and solve my own issues by myself (with professional help from a counselor) and only then, later on, attempt a conversation and reconnection as “just friends” or “adventure buddies” with the gay climber? 

My intention to clarify with him, to explain some of the causes of my pain to him, would not be to blame: I have nothing to blame him of! I’m not in the least angry or sour at him, which is one of the reasons it’s so hard for me to just shelve this friendship. My intentions, the reason why I’d want to explain to him about my pain would be to deepen our friendship by being open, honest, and sincere with him, and hoping that he would do so in return. Because that’s part of building a true friendship, in my opinion. So my intentions are “good”. But would that justify my “unburdening myself” with him, even partially? Or would it be unacceptable, inappropriate, regardless of my intentions? 

Do I have the moral duty to carry this burden by myself (possibly with the help of others but not the gay climber), or am I allowed instead to share it, at least partially, with him for the sake of an authentic friendship?

“Defend institutions”

“It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of ‘our institutions’ unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about — a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union — and take its side.

We tend to assume that institutions will automatically maintain themselves against even the most direct attacks. This was the very mistake that some German Jews made about Hitler and the Nazis after they had formed a government. On February 2, 1933, for example, a leading newspaper for German Jews published an editorial expressing this mislaid trust: 

“We do not subscribe to the view that Mr. Hitler and his friends, now finally in possession of the power they have so long desired, will implement the proposals circulating in [Nazi newspapers]; they will not suddenly deprive German Jews of their constitutional rights, nor enclose them in ghettos, nor subject them to the jealous and murderous impulses of the mob. They cannot do this because a number of crucial factors hold powers in check […]”

Such was the view of many reasonable people in 1933, just as it is the view of many reasonable people now. The mistake is to assume that rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions — even when that is exactly what they have announced that they will do. Revolutionaries sometimes do intend to destroy institutions all at once. […]  Sometimes institutions are deprived of vitality and function, turned into a simulacrum of what they once were, so that they gird the new order rather than resisting it. […]”

[From Lesson #2, “Defend institutions”, in the book “On Tyranny — Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” by Timothy Snyder (published in 2017)]

Fueled by pain

It’s been a few months now, maybe six or so, that I have found my old energy levels again, those high energy levels that are usually typical of me, that had been my companion for most of my life. 

In many ways, it feels good. It feels good because I can finally recognize myself again, finally feel like myself more wholly again, and thus interact with the world as more authentically me. It’s also good because it’s proof of my having overcome my burnout, at last. And, as it often happens when we’re unwell, it’s only when we’re eventually feeling all better again that we realize, truly and fully, how utterly unwell we had been. Last but not least, it’s also good because it’s allowing me to actually do things, be more active again, go to social events, drive more easily or safely — function again. 

And I am doing a lot. I’m actually quite hyperactive, full of physical and mental energy, full of ideas, full of intellectual eagerness and pursuits. Not in a manic way, but in a way that, as in the past, feels lucid and satisfying, feels  like me. 

I’m also aware, though, that a lot of this hyperactivity is fueled by pain. That underneath the energy and enthusiasm or passion I feel, there’s a baseline of sadness, like a steady undertone of sadness that I live with and cope with. There’s definitely also a lot of anger and frustration and concern or fear for the political/social situation both in our country and in the world right now, and that is a great part of what is fueling me right now, too. That’s a lot of the external fuel for me. But my internal fuel is sadness, rooted in loneliness and loss. There’s a lot of it. It’s less visible, maybe, because instead of curling up to sit and cry in a corner, I’m getting out: out for live music events or language exchange nights at a local bookstore/café I like; out for hikes, solo or with a close buddy; out for runs, by myself or with the group of local queer runners; out to go and take care of my two friends who recently had surgery, cooking meals & doing the dishes for them, staying overnight, keeping them company; out to do errands and go to appointments and attend work meetings in person rather than online. Out, out, out. 

Out, to assuage the pain that is within.

Voting is like loving: vital, and not to be taken for granted

“

The hero of a David Lodge novel says that you don’t know, when you make love for the last time, that you are making love for the last time. Voting is like that.

”

This quote from the book “On Tyranny” by Timothy Snyder is maybe the one that strikes me the most, the one that hits the deepest chord in me — possibly because of the comparison of voting (a right & duty super strongly ingrained in me since my youngest age) to love/love making. 

From Lesson #3, “Beware the one-party state”, in the book “On Tyranny — Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” by Timothy Snyder (published in 2017):

“

The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections. Vote in local and state elections while you can. Consider running for office.

Thomas Jefferson probably never said that ‘eternal vigilance is the price of liberty’, but other Americans of his era certainly did. When we think of this saying today, we imagine our own righteous vigilance directed outwards, against misguided and hostile others. We see ourselves as a city on the hill, a stronghold of democracy, looking out for threats that come from abroad. But the sense of the saying was entirely different: that human nature is such that American democracy must be defended from Americans who would exploit its freedoms to bring about its end. The American abolitionist Wendell Phillips did in fact say that ‘eternal vigilance is the price of liberty’. He added that ‘the manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or is rotten’. 

The record of modern European democracy confirmed the wisdom of those words. The twentieth century saw earnest attempts to extend the franchise and establish durables democracies. Yet the democracies that arose after the First World War (& the Second) often collapsed when a single party seized power in a combination of an election and a coup d’état. A party emboldened by a favorable election result or motivated by ideology, or both, might change the system from within. When fascists or Nazis or communists did well in elections in the 1930s or ‘40s, what followed was some combination of spectacle, repression, and salami tactics — slicing off layers of opposition one by one. Most people were distracted, some were imprisoned, and other were outmatched. 

[…] Some of the Germans who voted for the Nazi party in 1932 no doubt understood that this might be the last meaningful free election for some time, but most did not. Some of the Czechs and Slovaks who voted for the Czechoslovak Communist Party in 1946 probably realized that they were voting for the end of democracy, but most assumed they would have another chance. No doubt the Russians who voted in 1990 did not think that this would be the last free and fair election in their country’s history, which (thus far) it has been. Any election can be the last or, at least the last in the lifetime fo the person casting the vote. The Nazis remained in power until they lost a world war in 1945, the Czechoslovak communists until their system collapsed in 1989. The Russian oligarchy established after the 1990 elections continues to function, and promotes a foreign policy designed to destroy democracy elsewhere. 

Does the history of tyranny apply to the Unites States? Certainly the early Americans who spoke of ‘eternal vigilance’ would have thought so. […] We certainly face, as did the ancient Greeks, the problem of oligarchy — ever more threatening as globalization increases differences in wealth. The odd American idea that giving money to political campaigns is free speech means that the very rich have far more speech, and so in effect far more voting power, than other citizens. We believe that we have check and balances, but we have rarely faced a situation like the present: when the less popular of the two parties controls every lever of power at the federal level, as well as the majority of state houses. The party that exercises such control proposes few policies that are popular with the society at large, and several that are generally unpopular — and thus must either fear democracy or weaken it. 

Another early American proverb held that ‘where annual elections end, tyranny begins’. Will we come to see one of our own elections much as Russians see the elections of 1990, or Czechs the elections of 1946, or Germans the elections of 1932? This, for now, depends on us. Much needs to be done to fix the gerrymandered system so that each citizen has one equal vote, and so that each vote can be simply counted by a fellow citizen. We need paper ballots, because they cannot be tampered with remotely and can always be recounted. This sort of work can be done at the local and state levels. Any future elections will be a test of American traditions. 

”

“Be wary of paramilitaries”

Quoting from Lesson #6 in the book “On Tyranny — Twenty lessons from the twentieth century” by Timothy Snyder (published in 2017):

“

When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come. 

Most governments, most of the time, seek to monopolize violence. If only the government can legitimately use force, and this use is constrained by law, then the forms of politics that we take for granted become possible. It is impossible to carry out democratic elections, try cases at court, or indeed manage any of the other quiet business of government when agencies beyond the state also have access to violence. For just this reason, people and parties who wish to undermine democracy and the rule of law create and fund violent organizations that involve themselves in politics. Such groups can take the form of a paramilitary wing of a political party, the personal bodyguard of a particular politician […]. 

Armed groups first degrade a political order, and then transform it. Violent right-wing groups, such as the Iron Guard in interwar Romania or the Arrow Cross in interwar Hungary, intimidated their rivals. Nazi storm troopers began as a security detail clearing the halls of Hitler’s opponents during his rallies. As paramilitaries known as the SA and the SS, they created a climate of fear that helped the Nazi Party in the parliamentary elections of 1932 &1933. In Austria in 1938 it was the local SA that quickly took advantage of the absence of the local authority to loot, beat, and humiliate Jews, thereby changing the rules of politics and preparing the way for the Nazi takeover of the country. […] It was the SS than ran the German concentration camps — lawless zones where ordinary rules did not apply. […] The SS began as an organization outside the law, became an organization that transcended the law, and ended up as an organization that undid the law. 

Because the American federal government uses mercenaries in warfare and American state governments pay corporations to run prisons and internment camps, the use of violence in the United States is already highly privatized. What was novel in 2016 was a candidate who ordered a private security detail to clear opponents from rallies and encouraged the audience itself to remove people who expressed different opinions. A protestor would first be greeted with boos, then with frenetic cries of “USA”, and then be forced to leave the rally. At one campaign rally the candidate said, “There’s a remnant left over. Maybe get the remnant out. Get the remnant out”. The crowd, taking its cue, then tried to root out other people who might be dissenters, all the while crying “USA”. The candidate interjected: “Isn’t this more fun than a regular boring rally? To me, it’s fun”. This kind of mob violence was meant to transform the political atmosphere, and it did. 

For violence to transform not just the atmosphere but also the system, the emotions of rallies and the ideology of exclusion have to be incorporated into the training of armed guards. These first challenge the police and military, then penetrate the police and military, and finally transform the police and military. 

“

The parallels between the U.S. since 2016 (& especially now) and Nazi Germany with the SS are as terrifying as they are blatant.  

“The ICE test”

Quoting from The Economist, Jan. 31st 2026:

“

Is America’s president building his own paramilitary militia?

America stared into the void this week, but pulled back. Federal action in the streets of Minneapolis goes well beyond immigration. It is a test of the government’s power to use violence against its own citizens — a dividing-line between liberty and tyranny. […]

[…] Mr Trump has not renounced his power to impose paramilitary force on unwilling states. Americans should be on their guard.

[…] Having dramatically curbed illicit flows across the southern border, he (Mr Trump) claims to be seeking “the worst of the worst”. But that is not what his enforcers are doing. Recently, only 5% of those detained have been people convicted of violent crimes. Instead ICE’s brutal means indicate ends that are darker than immigration control, for several reasons. 

One is that the administration appears to believe ICE should be a law unto itself. In their zeal to fill quotas and live out their macho “destroy the flood” culture, ICE agents have revelled in wanton use of force. Administration officials have nonetheless told agents that they enjoy “absolute immunity” as they go about their duties and, a judge complains, have defied court orders. […] Impunity is a formula for more violence.

Another reason to worry is that ICE and its leaders are trampling the constitution. By insisting that witnesses and protesters are criminals, they are denying people their First Amendment rights to free speech and association. In a state like Minnesota, when the head of the FBI says people cannot bring a [legally owned] gun to a protest he is denying their Second Amendment rights. And when ICE agents stop or arrest people without cause and search their houses without a court warrant, they are denying their Fourth Amendment rights. 

Last, deploying ICE to Minneapolis, a city with relatively few illegal immigrants, seems to serve a disturbingly broad agenda: […] to punish “sanctuary cities” that limit the help they extend to ICE; or perhaps as theatre to scare people and deter all kinds of migration to America. […] 

The most disturbing possibility is that the president is creating a militia which answers only to himself. […] 

[…] ICE is ideally placed to sidestep protections. […] Agents can stage provocations pretty much anywhere with impunity, including during elections. […] 

A theme of Trump’s second term has been the accumulation of presidential power. […] If Trump has no anti-democratic designs on ICE, he should be eager to limit its actions. 

[…] As a first step on the long road to winning back public trust, ICE agents should be better trained, stop wearing masks and start wearing body cameras and identification numbers. Deportation quotas lead to brutal tactics and must end. Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, and Greg Bovino, who commanded in Minneapolis, have blatantly lied. They should be fired. 

After this week, even that would not remove the spectre of a presidential militia. Hence the courts need to make clear that states can in fact prosecute federal agents who commit crimes; that ICE’s view of the constitution is wrong; and that the federal government cannot ride roughshod over the states. And Congress needs to hold the administration to account. […] 

Americans woke up to a grave threat this week. But you cannot defend a republic with opinion polls alone. The guardians of America’s institutions should see Mr Trump’s change in tone not as a signal to relax, but an opening to force change.

”

“Are you dead?” — On Loneliness

  • From “A Conversation with Gail Honeyman” on her book “Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine”:

Interviewer: “Where did the idea for Eleanor Oliphant come from?”

Author (Gail Honeyman): “Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine started with two related ideas. The first was loneliness, an issue that’s now thankfully starting to receive more attention as we begin to understand more about its often devastating consequences. I remembered reading an article in which a young woman, living in a big city, said that unless she went out of her way to make arrangements in advance, she’d often find herself not speaking to another human being from the time she left work on Friday night until her return to the office on Monday morning, and not by choice. I started to wonder how such a situation could come about. When loneliness is discussed, it’s often in the context of the elderly, but I began to think about how it might manifest in younger people, and whether the issues might be slightly different for them. Was it harder to talk about, or even to identify, because their loneliness didn’t result from, say, the death of a spouse after decades of marriage, or from becoming housebound due to age-related illness? Did social media have an impact and, if so, was it positive or negative? Was it worse or better to find yourself lonely in a big city rather than in a small town or village? In the end, it wasn’t difficult to imagine how a young woman with no family nearby could find herself in the situation described in the article, moving to a new city, she might rent a one-bedroom apartment, take a job at a small firm where she had nothing in common with her colleagues…”

  • In the intro to Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine:

“

Loneliness is hallmarked by an intense desire to bring the experience to a close; something which cannot be achieved by sheer willpower, or by simply getting out more, but only by developing intimate connections. This is far easier said than done, especially for people whose loneliness arises from a state of loss or exile or prejudice, who have reason to fear or mistrust as well as long for the society of others…

[…]

The lonelier a person gets, the less adept they become at navigating social currents. Loneliness grows around them, like mould or fur, a prophylactic that inhibits contact, no matter how badly contact is desired. Loneliness is accretive, extending and perpetuating itself. Once it becomes impacted, it is by no means easy to dislodge.

”

[Olivia Laing in “The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone”]