i had to get my hands on Joyful Militancy1 -- and fast. don’t ask why. the universe has a funny way of making me run around for books i end up reading for work.
“do you have 3 copies?”
“oh you do?! AH-MAY-ZING!! I’ll be there before closing, promise!”
pause
“wait i can pre-pay! do you take card info over the phone?”
and that’s how i ended up heading to the book store past my driving hours (i have rules) on a random tuesday before my flight. naturally when someone recommends a book to me, i immediately buy it. if it’s at all related to my job, i buy 3, passing along copies to my staff. and because i’m a good collector, once the frenzy of procurement has passed, the book sits idle on my shelves; sometimes for months, or years. this time only 3 months passed before my staff asked for us to use it as a book club read.
so, it is nose deep in Joyful Militancy that i find myself on election day, preparing for our upcoming book club meeting where i’m at least 80 pages behind. the titular theory is defined as:
“Joyful militancy, then, is a fierce commitment to emergent forms of life in the cracks of empire, and the values, responsibilities, and questions that sustain them.”
amidst the chaos that was to come, i had no idea, just how much i would need the ideas presented in this book.
we watched the american flags crawl around the 10-mile square.
with poll ride discounts, the competition for a driver was high. almost 30 minutes for my 30-minute trip home, i decided to take the train as i always do. we’d been watching the results trickle in; the large conference room plastered with news channels instead of teams calls. fed up with liberalist politics, i walked to take the metro home from the office at 9p instead of 5. leaving only a few senior officers waiting, anxious to know if our election protection was enough.
earlier, i inched out of my corner office (without the view). i couldn’t focus on bergman and Montgomery any more than i could focus on apps by zuck and musk. sliding past the frosty office panels towards the kitchen, the hallway’s only sounds coming from the so-called “war room”. work promised a light dinner for anyone brave enough to be so close to the white house on such a contentious day. we invaded the kitchen, picking through take-out pizza and chocolate like sweaty teenagers after a band competition. food, our only ally.
we chat about surface level things: our 2025 resolutions; who’d booked the best hotel within the budget allocations; what fast fashion brands have the best basics? is aritzia even worth the price anymore? the sun from the day waning, our kitchen getting dark and moody. as the sun set behind the neighboring stone buildings, people did too. like that scene in sound of music, until only a few of us were left at all. lingering my only medicine, i stayed until i’d practically molded. finally taking the metro at 9 - every lyft in dc apparently unavailable.
i was alone on the train. the rickety cha-cha-cha-cha-cha of the wheels slogging over the tracks echoed throughout the car. i watched as the train tunnels turned to viaducts, lights from city buildings my only stars. i oscillated between tabs called “NYT election results” and “10 things you need to know about vipassana.” ignoring the irony of screens being both my savior and demise.
every step on my 20-minute walk home echoed in my head - tension from the day’s stress. at the front of my building, i sat. i’d swore that i wouldn’t stay up all night looking at election results. a promise i made only passively as i lingered, claiming i didn’t really care. i smoked a cigarette, looking one final time. they had started to predict a winner. 71% chance a president will outlaw your entire existence, but still too close to call! the results taunted me like a black friday advertisement.
here, alone, the tobacco burning my throat and lungs, i still couldn’t admit i was afraid. i distracted myself, attempting to puff Os or French inhale. tricks i used to be able to do when i was in college. i laugh out loud, that world feeling so far away in presence, despite only being a short while in years. i couldn’t help but wonder how my own anxiety mirrored that of the county. caught in an unpredictable cycle of hope and despair. i thought about bergman and Montgomery: “How do we make space for joy, even when the world feels as though it’s unraveling?” i finish far too quickly and resist the urge to light another. my 4th butt joining yesterday's first. i closed nyt. nothing we can do until tomorrow, i tell myself.
the next few days were awful, but you were there.
on friday i last minute cancelled plans with a friend in favor of Glenstone. the billionaire art museum/tax shelter that saved my life back in march when i wanted to risk it all. the perfect blend of art and nature, i always leave feeling refreshed. except recently, to accommodate their renovations, they’d switched their ticketing system. the only way i could get in the same day was to take the bus. so i asked apple maps for directions, selecting the transit option.
in all my years of bus riding i’d never seen one this small. after taking a bus and a train i found myself in the middle of a renovated church van. it generously sat 10 people, the pull chord hanging loosely below the window. we ride past dc mansions (which are really just 4b 3ba houses) until they turned into actual mansions with tiny square yards. even though this bus stops right in front of the museum, i worried i’d miss it. the scenes unfolding before me so foreign. but the hills continued to roll until the rectangle yards turned into acreage, and the mansions transformed into the museum.
maybe because i had a mission, maybe because the fresh post-election air was that thick, maybe because i’m a perfectionist. this time, as i explored the art - i wanted more.
the beautiful orangey-brown grasses were just overgrown. the super helpful museum staff, a little less “friendly”. the now opened pavilions2 a little less *interesting*. still, i went down the list, working through my agenda: things to get done to have the most productive rest day.
at the outer edge of the property there is a wooded trail that leads to additional outdoor exhibits like Simone Leigh’s Satellite. as the sun starts to set, i make my way there. on a bench i’m telling my handheld camera just how unproductive this self-care day has gone. i’m disappointed. i couldn’t set aside the dirt and muck and mess of the world, for even just one day. i couldn’t tell it off or push it away. i couldn’t make it disappear. the museum closed soon and as i sat talking to a machine, i realized i’d spent more effort getting to the museum than actually enjoying its art.
i remembered the words from Joyful Militancy: “joy is not a thing you ‘achieve’ but something you allow.” i needed to step back a moment. accept an invitation to welcome the emergent possibilities of presence. maybe as if knowing, maybe from the wind - newly crisp, i got up. the medicine i needed was movement. i head back towards registration.
one foot in front of the other, one more thing under my control.
i take a step towards the slatted walkway. there, halfway through the walk, were two older white women i’d seen around. i head towards them, slowly. sliding past them becoming my final challenge in a day riddled with missteps. i think i’m in the clear when one of them says, “sorry to bother you, but i am curious. where do you get your news?” maybe because she was old (i have a soft spot), maybe because i was feeling lonely, maybe because Spirit softened my heart. i entertained her conversation. i did not want to talk about the election. but i did not want to be rude more.
“i actually don’t watch the news,” i say. this lady stares at me like i’ve gown an extra head and appendages. “so like… how so you know what’s going on then? social media?” i breathe deep, recommitting to my decision to be polite. “i avoid the news because of the work i do, and i try to avoid social media to gain back the time i loose at work. i often only know about “news” that my friends or family share”. her brow furrows. she considers all i presented then proceeds to tell me that she has a theory. “we lost the election because young people get their news from social media”. she goes on to tell me how shocked and heartbroken she is. her friend shares the same. she closes her unsolicited soap box by telling me at 75 she knows that if it takes 10 years to recover from this “grave loss” she won't have much life left (if any). “at least you have your youth. at least you’ll live to see the other side of this,” she said.
and there, amidst my mucky yucky unproductive self-care day, it clicked. i zoomed out. i remembered that joy actually has nothing to do with the conditions presented by empire. our people have found joy even amidst the most vile conditions of life.
we used animal and vegetable scraps to make soul food. we used our pain to make blues. we took anger and made thriving social changes (changes that one could argue led to the rise of f word and the big orange buffoon). “our work is not to overcome the world’s darkness, but to persist in love and hope despite it.” bergman and Montgomery made the vision plain3. the world around us was crumbling, but within me, a space for joy still persisted. because joy is required for any long term fight against empire. joy, which asks us to notice even after many have moved on.
then, i started seeing joy everywhere.
joy in the bus driver who waited as we ran to the stop. joy in the line as we waited at the opening of TesoLife. joy in the little stories people tell you as you make their coffee on a saturday morning. joy in the small plants that persist despite the conditions (tomatoes in november?!). joy in the smile of my wife’s face, grateful i woke up this morning. suddenly it clicked for me; everything we’d been reading about perfectly applied to the terribly awful reality we’re facing. i realised that joy doesn’t cancel out sorrow; it simply opens a world of possibilities even within the tension of it all.
i thought about the viral instagram poet:
“i don't pay attention to the world ending. it has ended for me many times and began again in the morning.”― Nayyirah Waheed, Salt
joyful militancy was teaching me to be okay with the chaos and okay with my place in it, wrestling with the dichotomy of it all. recognizing that every day was a chance to try something new.
so what the fuck does it all mean? what does it mean when you’re sitting on a couch in one of the most expensive cities in the world, whining about taking a 2-hour bus ride to an art museum on paid time off? what does it even mean when books tell you to consider that things suck, but you should still smile? still find joy4. that’s the question i found myself asking too. i’m not sure there is an answer, or a conclusion that is tied up neatly. i’m still living it. still trying to find the joy in it all.
bergman and Montgomery remind us that there is a vast world out there filled with examples of horror and joy walking hand in hand. neither overcasting the other. both working together to fill the space between.
what i realized, as a stranger tells me her most intimate and biggest fears, was that we all have them. and we’re better for them. our fears making space for our joys to be illuminated. to be acted upon. and there it was, the lesson of Joyful Militancy: even in the darkest of nights, joy comes in the morning5. not because the world has changed, but because we, in our persistence, find new ways to live, love, and push back. the work is not to escape this chaos, but to be with it—joyfully. and that, in the end, is our resistance.
the pavilions house most of the art on loan to the museum. the pavilions were closed from early 2024 until october 2024 (a few weeks before the visit i discuss in this piece).
mirrored after Habakkuk 2:2
here i’m distorting the book’s definition of joy which is not mere happiness. their definition: “From Spinoza, joy means an increase in a body’s capacity to affect and be affected.”
psalms: 30:5