At 3 a.m. after the crushing election news, I collected snippets of reaction and posted them on Facebook. I’ve put them here in case they add up to anything. I’ll let you be the judge of that.
First these were the only words I could say:
Then a rage poem started forming; I’ve edited it here though not finished it.
Don’t give me a love story when it’s time for war.
Make me into a fire-breathing dragon,
the most venomous of Medusas.
Let my fire and poison stretch
as far as they need to.
Then I found and posted these more helpful pieces by women more articulate than I:
Anne Lamott sharing Adrienne Rich: “My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed. I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.”
Rebecca Solnit: They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving.
You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.
The Wobblies used to say don’t mourn, organize, but you can do both at once, and you don’t have to organize right away in this moment of furious mourning. You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who’s upset and check your equipment for going onward.
A lot of us are going to come under direct attack, and a lot of us are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones.
People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran, and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it’s sunny or raining. Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.
Anne Lamott: I don’t even have the words for not having any words. We stick together. Breathe. Keep the patient comfortable. Feel like shit. Take care of the poor, each other and ourselves. Look around for all the light that remains and can never go out. Sending you all a big quavering hug.
Barbara Kingsolver: Truth and love have been smacked down, so many more times in history before today. Truth, because it’s often inconvenient, and love because it is vulnerable.
But truth is like gravity, and carbon, and the sun behind an eclipse: it’s still there. And love stays alive if you tend it like a flame. If you feel crushed by unkindness today, it’s a time for grieving, reaching out to loved ones, noticing one bright color somewhere in the day. Remembering what there is to love. Starting with the immediate, the place and people we can tend ourselves, and make safe. We can’t save everything all at once, but it’s still worth saving something. Because there are so many of us to do it.
And we are all still here today, exactly as we were yesterday. Like gravity and carbon and the sun behind an eclipse.
Kamala Harris ended her concession speech this afternoon with this adage: “only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case. But here’s the thing, America, if it is, let us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant, brilliant billion of stars.”
*These are times that require forceful cursing. It that offends you, don’t read my posts. I have a feeling more will be called for.
