Escaping An Empire: What the Octopus Teaches Us About Survival

I like to imagine a future that doesn’t require fleeing, but also doesn’t require dying for our children. One where we can live like the octopus: shrewd, wary, our brains and hearts working together.

I have always been ready to leave at a moment’s notice. At the Farm where I grew up, I was a “prepper.” We learned survivalism. We grew vegetables, canned those vegetables. At any time, we were prepared for an attack from the Russians. We had our clothes ready to go. We learned that everyone who was not at the Farm—those who did not raise their own food or follow our practices—was going directly to Hell.

George, the leader of the Farm, also preached that America was the city on the hill, the country blessed by God. As an early white nationalist, he left out the people who had to be killed to make room for the white settlers.

I think of my deep-rooted survivalism and George’s nationalism as the president prepares to attack America, rolling out the National Guard in cities nationwide. When I first heard that Trump was planning to send the military to Los Angeles to go to “war”, I thought, who stays to fight? Certainly not me. We do not live in one of the approximately 66.5 million gun-owning households in the United States. We are not going to be able to defend ourselves against the Marines. The president wants U.S. cities to be “training grounds” for conflict, but what does that look like for the citizens forced to endure the inevitable violence?

At the Farm, the leaders often locked me in a small room for days over perceived offenses. While trapped, I walked around in circles and pretended to be in prison. I had never seen a prison, or even a photograph of a prison. But I imagined that in prison, everyone experienced what I did: working all the time, as I did most days, to prepare for the End of Days.

The Christian Nationalist views held by the president and Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Secretary of War, are the same views held by the Farm: Women are not to hold leadership positions. Men, the heads of the households, are born leaders. Growing up, it was never clear what women were for, and I often found myself thinking that I should leave and find out. I could not imagine that my sole purpose was marriage and children. I love my children, but parenthood is not a man’s whole life, and does not have to be a woman’s, either. To me, this limitation felt like a waste of a person. And as American citizens continue to become moving targets, the current government’s emphasis on “family values”—as it rips families apart, silences women, and enacts violence on its people—is as empty as it is cruel.

As a necessity, I like to have an escape plan. If I have to leave Los Angeles, I am ready, but I would prefer not to. I like my home. If I depart Los Angeles, I won’t be able to take my chickens. It doesn’t work to have chickens and dogs in the same vehicle. But escape is on the mind.

As I often do in times of turmoil, I turn to poetry. I recently read The Octopus Museum, a book of poems by Brenda Shaughnessy, a collection exploring feminism and the fears we have for our families, our communities, our countries—the daily crises facing the American people. Although it came out in 2019, its poems continue to resound.

I think about the octopus. They, too, have an escape plan. They have three hearts and nine brains. They are highly intelligent and can figure out how to get in and out of aquariums, how to unscrew lids. As a defense mechanism, they can drop an arm, and because their arms are filled with neurons, they can grow a new one from memory. But the octopus is also capable of learning to play, of communicating across the divide.

A mother octopus also sacrifices herself for her children. After the young octopi are born in their den, the mother spends her energy and time guarding her kids and ensuring they receive enough oxygen. During this process, she starves herself, and eventually, she dies.

I like to think that there is a future for our country that doesn’t require fleeing, but also doesn’t require dying for our children. One where we can live like the octopus: shrewd, wary, with our brains and hearts working together.

In the closing poem of The Octopus Museum, the family at the center of the collection is escaping. While the parents are carrying food and water, the daughter of the family is carrying both her parents and her brother, who is in a wheelchair. I reflect on my own family. Sometimes, my son is carrying our whole family on his head, and we are topsy-turvy, but he keeps walking straight. Sometimes, my daughter is carrying us, keeping the course. Sometimes, it’s me, trying to walk ahead and search for joy in the darkness. But we continue to walk.

I will not forget my escape plan, but I do not want to leave. I imagine a future where we learn to communicate and listen, to be resourceful, to plan ahead for the moments where we must envision and pursue new ways of living. I hold onto the idea of growing new tentacles. Fierce and tender, wild and imaginative. We Americans need to be a country where our many hearts beat to the drums of a shared music, unite for a shared purpose. May we be blessed, safe, grow arms, hold hands. May we survive.