Vital signs

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood still hard as iron, water like a stone.

The past few days, I feel as if I’m walking around in bulky work boots as I hear something cracking under my feet. I’m stepping on shards – the broken pieces of a brutal year.

I think my post-election rage probably delayed the arrival of my annual holiday blues but now that it is simmering on a slow boil, the thick familiar fog is settling in. The song is cute and catchy but this is not the most wonderful time of the year for me and at least a bazillion other folks. grump-cat-christmas

Perhaps I over-prepared for this year’s attack of melancholy. After the reality of #notmyprecedent sunk in and I pulled myself out of the electoral sludge I’d been drowning in for a month or so, I went on the offensive. I decorated with more vigor than I have in several years – even making – yes, making – a wreath for our mantel. My dear wife and I live in a small condo so a little Christmas goes a long way but we even got a tiny live “tree” this year and I decorated it with some of my favorite Santa ornaments.

Christmas: Tiny Trees Edition

I was feeling downright festive in spite of the impending apocalypse of January 20^th. And then it hit me – the big empty of the holidays. It’s pretty much been this way for me since my parents died in 2002. Until then, I was one of those obnoxious Christmas people who started talking about it in September. I mean, come on, who doesn’t love Christmas?

This year I made an addition to my Santa collection.

I want to punch myself in my own throat when I think about being that person – completely tone-deaf to the realities of so many others. I’ve been humbled to my knees in the years since then and my heart feels tight when I think about what some friends are going through this holiday season. Cancer – always fucking cancer. And “firsts” for a couple of friends – the first holiday without a dear spouse.

Estrangements loom larger at this time of year, too, and I certainly have a few of those on my list – some related to losing my job at the start of the year. There are a few (former) friends who deeply disappointed me in ways that I’ve had to just let go of ever understanding and other alienations, some election related but most a long time in the making – just too many years of not feeling seen and heard. All of them are painful and add to my bleak midwinter.

I had a little breakdown in my car the other day as I left the UPS store. I had taken my sister’s Christmas package to ship and after going through all the scenarios of how many days it would take, how much it would cost, etc. – it hit me how very far away she is now in California.

She’s my little sister and I am often mother/sister to her but she always rises to the occasion when I need to hear the calm reassurance of a mother’s voice. She listened to me sob while I was still trying to talk. That’s never pretty. And she did the thing no one else can do when I’m in that place – she made me laugh. I can’t even remember what she said but I know that I was smiling as I tasted the tears on my lips. Her presence from even 3,000 miles away can be palpable at times.

I felt so much better after talking to her – still blue but a lighter shade for sure.

We made a pact to never be apart at Christmas again. She has some grand plans about spending next Christmas in London. Note to self: Get BIG job quickly. I think she’s on to something, though. It might be easier to navigate the emotional minefields of the holidays in an exotic locale – further away from the memories that can crush me at this time of year.

Me and my brother and our dog Taffy, Christmas 1960.

Christmas is quiet, almost somber for me these days – but it hasn’t always been this way. Mine used to be an exuberant holiday spent with parents and siblings and years of traditions. My wife and I have started some of our own traditions now, which is amusing because my wife loathes ever doing the same thing twice. Her idea of hell would be to own a time share where you had to go to the same place at the same time every year.

She teases me now when we do something for a second time and I call it a tradition. I don’t understand her point. Anyway, our tradition is to go to a movie on Christmas Day – usually one just released. Our first Christmas together it was Les Miserables and it was perfect. Okay, maybe not the Russell Crowe singing part, but you know what I mean.

This year’s movie will be La La Land, a musical comedy-drama that’s getting rave reviews. The film is a throwback to the lavish musical spectacles of years gone by where people burst into song at the breakfast table and literally dance on air.

Yes, please.

Please take me there. Now.

And then it will be the 26^th of December and I will no longer feel anxious – at least not until Inauguration Day.

We’ll spend New Year’s Eve with an array of dear friends and then I will stumble out of 2016, stepping on those shards. I think it will sound like walking on a frozen lawn – a muffled crunching that only I will hear – like those rare hushed times when you become aware of your own heart beating.

And what an utterly life affirming feeling that is.

Cheer to all Whos far and near!

This one is for Barb and Jen. Two women, like my girl Venus, who shined through their brokenness this year with style and grace.

Feets, don’t fail me now

wilderness

Can you hear the voice crying in the wilderness? Can you hear the crying?

I’ve heard those voices – my own loudest of all – a lot lately. I have been crying and wandering in the wilderness a great deal since November 8^th. And that’s how I found myself back in church this past Sunday. Sometimes our feet just take us where we need to be. I have no other reasonable explanation for why on a cold, rainy Sunday, I got myself up and dressed and in a pew and found myself listening to Prepare Ye, a calypso style anthem written by Marc Robinson.

Click here to hear it – it has a Lion King vibe and everyone was really feeling it and someone in the choir was even playing bongo drums. It sounded like hope to me and it was a balm to my battered soul.

Can you hear the voice crying in the wilderness? Can you hear the crying?

Don’t even think about it.

I’m attending a new church, one in the city where I live, instead of driving 40 minutes to my old church where I used to live. I had to get out of my own way to like this new church. For starters, it’s fairly modern and I’m pretty old school when it comes to churches. My new church is sort of like a ranch house. It’s rather dated with not much curb appeal – entirely different from my old church. The Property Brothers could do a lot with it.

Funny thing, though – on this Sunday, the simplicity of my new church seemed quite lovely to me. So my wife and I sat down in our row. We’re Episcopalian and every good Episcopalian sits in the same row no matter what church we’re in – it’s just a thing and I can’t explain it. Our new church has chairs – not pews – which bothered me at first because there’s no kneeling. Episcopalians are known for our Anglican aerobics featuring lots of up and down during our services. And there’s something about your energy when you’re kneeling that opens up your heart – a bit like some yoga poses.

Episcopalian workout.

Before I lose some of you who are rolling your eyes because I’m writing about church, let me say loud and clear that I know many of you have been deeply hurt and damaged in the name of religion and I don’t discount those feelings at all. My own dear wife has endured much suffering within her evangelical family. It makes me crazy mad and terribly sad.

I know I have been blessed to have always felt accepted and loved in the Episcopal Church and that is why I returned there after months of wandering. It feels like home to me and since my parents died 14 years ago, there is really no place I feel closer to them than in the confines of an Episcopal Church – fancy or plain. So there is where my feet often take me, particularly in times of despair.

Do not attempt to adjust the picture.

We welcomed our new interim rector on this Sunday and he processed in with a cane. He’s in his mid-60’s and his hands were visibly trembling as he began the service and he apologized for his legs not working quite right on this morning. I assume he has Parkinson’s or some other neurological condition.

He sat on a stool when he delivered his sermon – a sermon that was surprisingly personal and political. He talked about finally pulling himself up out of bed on November 9^th – after checking his iPhone at 3 and 4 and 5 to see if perhaps, an Electoral College Miracle had occurred as he slept. He talked about being able to finally see through his tears later in the day and thinking about where God was in all of this. The very question I asked with rage on that same awful day. I never got to an answer but he did. He said, “God is here with us, the real question is where are we in all of this.”

Sometimes you just have to ask the right questions.

He did not give us false hope – far from it. He said the coming days would be very difficult but that our charge is to “be the grace of God in the world”. So much for a soft opening.

As he preached, with his trembling hands, the irony was not lost on me that #notmypresident might make fun of this dear man – as he so infamously did the disabled reporter.

And as I looked around the congregation, I realized that we had landed in a truly diverse community of faith. It could make a great holiday commercial for Coke – young, old, black, white, Indian, Asian, wheelchairs, walkers and gays – not necessarily in that order. And I could hardly suppress my glee when the developmentally disabled young man sitting directly behind us let forth some unbridled burps during the sermon. It was all so gloriously human.

And then came the Prayers of the People, one of my favorite parts of an Episcopal service. A lay person serves as an intercessor and leads the congregation in prayers for almost everything and everyone under the sun. There is a refrain that the leader repeats after each petition to God and it is usually different every Sunday. This one was a doozy: Give us grace to engage one another without hatred or bitterness and to work together with mutual respect.

Do you think that includes social media? Crap.

We prayed for the leaders of our church and the leaders of our country – Barrack, our President and Donald, our President-elect – that they make wise decisions for the well-being of our society.

It was at this moment that I wished I had stayed home in my pjs to watch CBS Sunday Morning.

Membership has its privileges.

Thank God, no pun intended, that the passing of The Peace was next because I really needed to hug my wife and shake lots of strangers’ hands after that. Full disclosure: There were audible groans when Donald’s name came up. This isn’t going to be easy.

We prayed for the Standing Rock water protectors and the people of Aleppo and the victims of the warehouse fire in Oakland.

I think we’re going to like it here.

And wouldn’t you know we ended up kneeling (finally) for communion right beside that developmentally disabled man who smiled beatifically at us.

I’m always amused when God is not subtle. It makes her seem all that more accessible.

Yes, God was there in that colorful flock of saints and sinners this past Sunday and I need to remember that as I continue to find my footing in this abnormal normal that we’ve been thrust into to. Oh, don’t worry, I’ll keep kicking and screaming and ranting and raving but I’m so very weary from crying in the wilderness and it feels good to be with others.

Besides, this coming Sunday is the Christmas pageant. And you know how the gays love a pageant.

So for now, you know where to find me Sundays at 11 – third row from the back on the right hand side, aisle seat.

There’s no place like home.

Always a good show and easier to get tickets to than Hamilton.

I guess two out of three is not an option.

Do you hear what I hear?

The Scream

“I have passed through the initial five stages of grief: Denial anger bargaining depression and acceptance. Now I am in fascination–cobra hypnosis, newly apoplectic every day by the latest. I believe I have actually keened within recent memory. At this rate, i may have a flickering tic in my eye by sundown.” ~ Anne Lamott in a recent post-election Facebook post

As usual, author Anne Lamott writes what’s in my head only it sounds almost lyrical instead of the ALL CAPS RAGE AND DESPAIR that marinates inside me these days. Oh, and my eye tic has manifested as a pain in my right arm. No, not the heart attack kind of arm pain. It hurts the most when I undo my bra. Sorry, if that’s too much information from this nasty woman. My doctor, Web MD, says that this could indicate stress in the rotator cuff muscles. My symptoms started shortly after FBI Director James Comey released his now infamous letter to Congress regarding Hillary Clinton’s damn emails 10 days before the election. Coincidence? I think not. Case closed.

Lamott also writes about stress eating during these troubling times. I have no doubt that Weight Watchers will be inundated with an influx of chubby liberals come January. Carbs are one of our sole/soul comforts these days. If it weren’t so unbelievably frightening, it would be funny. Lamott prefers Oreos and Cheerios. I feel for her because her options are limited. She’s been in recovery for over 30 years, so wine is not a viable option for her. By the way, did you know that Aldi’s carries some decent wine? What? A friend told me – just putting it out there.

Limiting myself to just one glass a day.

I ran into a dear and much admired colleague right after the election. I was leaving a professional function as she was pulling into the parking lot. She put her window down and we lamented together about the results and she picked up a McDonald’s cheeseburger sitting on the passenger seat next to her, took a big bite and garbled, “Look, I’m stress eating!” She’s a very petite and trim woman which made the whole thing even more amusing to me.

I’m trying to practice good self-care so I’m pretty much in a news blackout, which I guess is not really that different from the actual campaign, right? There was so little news about policies and issues. It was Reality TV at its very worst and it helped elect the least qualified presidential candidate in the history of our great nation. We were punked. Bigly. Faux news is the new news. (I just got one of those shooting pains in my shoulder.)

So I’m under a TV blackout except for every liberal’s lifeline these days. Yes, on the eighth day, God created Netflix. And it was good. And ironically, the show saving me in this post-apocalyptic election world is one about a monarchy – The Crown. If you’re reading my blog, you’re most likely watching The Crown, too, but for those in the royal dark, the series is about the early reign of Queen Elizabeth II. It’s a fascinating behind the scenes look at her marriage to Price Phillip and her relationship with Prime Minister Winston Churchill. And it’s a glorious diversion from the reality of the Park Avenue president-elect only without as much gilded furniture.

Who needs term limits?

I haven’t been able to give up social media but I’ve made my Facebook world a kinder, gentler place. And for the record, I think “unfriending” is a misnomer. We can be friends in REAL life and not be “friends” on Facebook because in real life, I might not ever know that you get your news from Breitbart or that you really think that all Muslims should be deported. Another irony – people are more their real selves behind a keyboard than in actual conversation. Social media is like HD TV – it makes all your warts and blemishes that much bigger.

And honestly, it makes it easier for me and my wife to worship with you at church if I don’t know that you supported a ticket that opposes our marriage. What I don’t know can’t hurt my heart. And spare me the “how can we ever find unity if we don’t talk about our differences” crap. Tell me what I should have said to a friend I have known since the 7^th grade when she accused Michelle Obama of being a “race baiter” because she talked about the White House being built by slaves. There is no middle ground to find on scorched earth.

I haven’t slept through the night since the Cubs won the Word Series. Granted, that was a short night since the game didn’t end until after 1 AM. I’m not much for drugs but Tylenol PM has been my constant companion. But even with my version of the little blue pill, I still wake up at 2 AM and immediately start worrying about so many of the things I care about. Many – most actually – of the folks closest to me are feeling the same way and while often comforting, it can be an exhausting burden, too – trying to be present to their pain while holding my own.

My best friend from college is a chaplain in California at a large urban hospital. She is a woman and she is gay and she is Muslim. Damn, there goes my shoulder again. She’s struggling and she has to be available to everyone she encounters in her work – there can be no “others” in her day. She has observed that it is only white people who ask her if she’s okay – because she doesn’t seem “like herself”. She’s come up with a brilliant response. She tells people that she is “soul sick”. And there ain’t enough chicken soup in the world for this kind of sick.

I’ve been going to the movies – always a balm for me. I can highly recommend Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Fantasy is so superior to reality these days. And I just want to pinch Eddie Redmayne’s ginger cheek. Spoiler alert: Love really does trump hate in this movie.

But I made the mistake of going to Costco the other day. How can it be time for Christmas again already? The decorations made me feel disoriented – like going into a Christmas shop on the boardwalk when you’re at the beach in July. They seemed garish and out-of-place. Bell ringers are out now, too. I have plenty of valid issues regarding the Salvation Army so I’m never excited to hear those bells, but this year, the tone sounds almost ominous to me. It’s a tolling, not a ring.

A few days ago, my mourning changed to anger – white hot anger about what has happened in our country. My shift was not subtle. It came the moment I read who Trump had appointed as his chief strategist – Steve “Darkness is good” Bannon. Let’s be clear – the term “alt-right” should only ever be used with the word DELETE. Even Sarah Palin knew that if you put lipstick on a Nazi, it’s still a Nazi.

Yep. That was my tipping point. That day I signed up for the Women’s March on Washington – the Saturday following Not My President’s inauguration. Initially, I didn’t think I had it in me – to be in our nation’s capital at such a deplorable time. The last time I marched in Washington was 23 years ago for gay rights. That march changed my life in immeasurable ways. It made me feel empowered to live my life out loud. I hope this march empowers every woman, man and child there to go home and speak up for all of those that this new regime would diminish if given carte blanche. Hell, I might even burn my bra since I may not be able to clasp it anymore by then.

Resistance, my friends.

Jonathan Capehart, a gay black journalist, had a great piece in the Washington Post last week about the palpable fear that many of us are experiencing post-election. A fear that some of our friends – mostly white, mostly male, mostly monied – don’t feel – the fear of being targeted under the new administration. Capehart sums it up here really well: “But here’s what our well-meaning friends, especially those who have not felt the sting of discrimination or even otherness, need to understand. President-elect Trump has made promises that represent a threat to real lives and livelihoods. Some are unconstitutional. All are immoral.”

So, yeah, we others are kind of worked up over all of this. But we still enjoy your pictures of puppies.

Truth be told, it’s all Hillary’s fault that I’m going to the march. Damn her. A week after the election she honored a long-standing speaking engagement at a celebration for the Children’s Defense Fund, a cause near and dear to her broken heart. And God bless her – she showed up looking like – well, me, a few days after the election – no make up, regular going to the grocery store hair and a weary looking face. Twitterverse went wild with commentary – someone saying Hillary had “no more fucks to give” and another speculating that she was raising a middle finger to patriarchy. Whatever, I’m still with her. And it wasn’t how she looked but what she said that kicked my sorry ass.

“I know this isn’t easy, I know that over the past week, a lot of people have asked themselves whether America is the country we thought it was. The divisions laid bare by this election run deep, but please listen to me when I say this. America is worth it. Our children are worth it. Believe in our country, fight for our values and never, ever give up.”

Truth.

I don’t have super powers like Hillary but I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me.

So in January, I will march but what about those damn holidays before us?

Pray for peace, people, everywhere.

And pass the cookies.

I’m still with her and our power’s turned on.

Piss and vinegar

Why, yes I am. Thanks for noticing.

This election has made a lot of us face some hard truths about our country and ourselves. I suppose the fact that Trump won (not the popular vote, of course) is the most sobering one for the 47.8 percent of Americans who supported Hillary Clinton. I can’t really give any more of my precious time or tears to Trump. I have too much work to do on myself.

I’m not who you think I am. Perhaps I never was.

Maybe I was always really a radical trapped inside the exterior of the good girl and moderately sensible shoes. I just cared (note past tense) way too much about pleasing people to fully express my truths. That’s one reason I didn’t come out until I was well into my 30’s. I was afraid people wouldn’t like me and most of all, I did not want to disappoint my parents. They, of course, were not at all surprised that I was gay and only cared for my happiness and well-being but I still deeply regret all those years of not being fully known to them.

So for most of my sixty years I have operated under the adage that my dear departed daddy used to often tell me, “You can catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.” I don’t know why it never occurred to me to ask my father the obvious question all those years ago. Why the hell would you want to catch flies?

Exit polls reveal that voters prefer savory over sweet.And 3rd party voters prefer arsenic.

Yes, I know the phrase means you can attract more friends by being nice than by being rude. It just doesn’t apply to voters. Voters like vinegar. Bitter, stinging sour vinegar. Sort of like the taste that I have had in my mouth since November 8^th.

Ironic isn’t it, since we liberals so glommed on to Michelle Obama’s passionate cry at the Democratic Convention back in July -“When they go low, we go high.” I know I clung to it like a personal floatation device – fully knowing that we had the moral high ground in this election. We repeated it on social media when Trump supporters would post vile commentary like, “Lock her up!” or “Drain the swamp”. I even shouted it at the first rally that Hillary and Michelle appeared together at in my hometown a few weeks before the election.

And then they win.

That rally was the day before FBI Director Comey released his letter, the October Surprise (i.e. Tsunami) – an unprecedented move 10 days before a presidential election. You remember – the one that pollsters and the media said had a very “marginal” effect on voters. At least that’s what they said before the election. Then after a lot of Wednesday morning quarterbacking, many of them proclaimed that it probably had a bigger effect than they had measured. Ya think? If there are any swamps to be drained, I hope Trump starts with the pollsters. Bye, Nate Silver. We are never ever getting back together.

I don’t know if that’s the main reason Hillary lost the election. I know I’ve read at least 1,412 theories on the subject, and I’m done agonizing over it. Bottom line: Trump was elected Lord of the Flies and now we have to put on our big girl panties and grab him and his minions by the balls to make sure that we don’t let an already great America go back.

As I often do in times of moral uncertainty, I turned to the words of Harvey Milk who said, “I have tasted freedom. I will not give up that which I have tasted.”

Oh. Hell. No.

I am flat-out worn out from being the good girl for so long. Oh, I’ve spoken out before on issues near and dear to my heart – LGBT civil rights, HIV/AIDS stigma, Amendment One and HB2. But I’ve never really boldly crossed that “honey” line. I’ve bit my tongue over the years with some family, friends and colleagues when they’ve made comments that offend me and my ideals. God forbid I be accused of being a humorless liberal or too politically correct. Not me, people like me. They really, really like me.

Fair warning to all – my Sally Field phase is over. I’m acquiring a taste for vinegar. Vinegar gets shit done. Simma down, now. I’m not looking for a fight with anyone on either side but I’m sure as hell not going to default to sweet talking my way out of any either. I’m too old and there’s too much at stake.

That would be nice but it’s no longer a deal breaker for me.

47.3% of voters may have booked passage on the Titanic but I see that iceberg ahead and I’m going to use my voice as the biggest baddest foghorn you’ve ever heard.

I’m angry and I’m going to fight tooth and nail for the America that I believe in – the America that is good and kind and loving – the America not hell-bent on preserving the white status quo – the America that is not afraid of someone being different – the America that celebrates being different.

I started to get a queasy feeling in my stomach the Sunday before the election. My wife and I drove over to Buena Vista, an upscale neighborhood in Winston-Salem, where we like to walk when the weather is nice. The streets are lined with gorgeous trees and there are sidewalks – it’s a great walking neighborhood and the houses there are big and beautiful and apparently, home to an awful lot of people who voted for Trump – at least if yard signs are any indication.

True story.

I find it hard to believe that these folks were simply voting for change because it sure looks like they’ve been doing pretty darn well for a while. Just an observation.

The “R” word has been thrown around a lot this election cycle. No, not all Trump voters are racists but Charles Gaba, founder of ACASingups.net, nailed it in one short not so sweet tweet when he said, “Not all Trump supporters are racist, but all of them decided that racism isn’t a deal-breaker. End of story.”

Yes, there was lot of Flying the W this election and I’m not talking about the Cubs. White Makes Right could have been another big seller for Trump hat vendors this year.

Author Toni Morrison gives a blistering view on this ugly reality in an essay this week in The New Yorker. You can read it here but here’s a stiff shot of it:

The comfort of being “naturally better than,” of not having to struggle or demand civil treatment, is hard to give up. The confidence that you will not be watched in a department store, that you are the preferred customer in high-end restaurants—these social inflections, belonging to whiteness, are greedily relished.

So scary are the consequences of a collapse of white privilege that many Americans have flocked to a political platform that supports and translates violence against the defenseless as strength. These people are not so much angry as terrified, with the kind of terror that makes knees tremble.

Why we can’t have nice things.

I don’t want to be angry for four years because I still believe down deep in my bones in kindness as “the only thing that matters” as the wonderful poet Namoi Shihab Nye writes in her poem of the same name.

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

What you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness.

The electoral map certainly highlighted a lot of desolation and I think we all lost a lot last Tuesday. Maybe now it’s finally time to think about all of this through a different prism than the red state/blue state one. I’m not crazy about purple either. I might suggest something like a burnt sienna as we navigate our new country in search of kindness.

An Ariel view of the new electoral map.

But this is where my work is. I know I cannot dismiss all Trump voters as racist and a threat against me and my wife as gay Americans.. I would lose some family members and a few good friends if that was my moral litmus test.

I know I have to stop thinking of that man standing in front of me at Starbucks – the older white man with the big belly that is taking up the whole counter while he fixes his coffee – more cream, a shake of vanilla – while the rest of us wait – as my enemy because I think he looks like a Republican.

I promise to do better. Tomorrow.

No, that’s on me to do better. But I will no longer go with the “honey” approach. I will speak the truth as I know it. I will be respectful and civil but I will no longer stop at the line that I drew for myself so many years ago when I bought into the good girl scenario.

The results of this election made me recall something a dear friend said to me years ago in the context of a professional dilemma I was experiencing. I was opting for the path of least resistance and staying on the high road in the situation. My friend said, “Addison, taking the high road is great but sometimes you can wind up in a ditch.”

Many of us have felt like we’ve been in a ditch this past week or so – or maybe even more like road kill. Anyway, there’s no AAA to pull us coastal elites out of this one. It’s on us and we better get started.

You can sleep while I drive.

We’ve got a long way to go. Pack snacks.

Shit just got real

Maybe there’s a God above

But all I’ve learned from love

Was how to shoot somebody who out drew ya

And it’s not a cry that you hear at night

It’s not somebody who’s seen the light

It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

~ Lyrics from Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen died yesterday and this Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year continues.

Funny. I thought losing my job would be the worst thing that happened this year.

Not even close. Losing my country is a hell of lot worse.

I thought Wednesday morning would be my low point but just like all those worthless tracking polls, I seriously miscalculated. Yesterday was worse. Reality is setting in. President-elect Trump.

I have tried to avoid all television (thank you Baby Jesus for Netflix) – even MSNBC, that bastion of liberal news. Nope. I can’t even take Rachel Maddow. It’s too much like looking in the mirror – I can see the pain on her face. I know I should avoid social media, too, but it is comforting to mourn with others. I know there has been a lot of hate chatter on Facebook but I weeded my FB garden of most of that so my feed is mostly filled with folks who feel an awful lot like me these days. In other words, awful.

Get over it. Move on. I hear you but I’m not there yet. Not even close. This wasn’t like my favorite team losing the big game or not getting the house I put an offer on. This was a rejection of almost everything I’ve spent most of my adult life working for – equality – for women, the LGBT community, people living with HIV/AIDS, people with disabilities – you get it, people.

Yesterday there were several disturbing stories circulating on mainstream and social media about post-election bullying and intimidation that seemed to be empowered by Trump’s election. Students in a middle school in Detroit chanted “Build the wall” to Latino students who were seen crying. Some of these incidents cut close to home. In Durham, a wall was spray painted “Black Lives Don’t Matter and Neither Does Your Votes.” The Ku Klux Kan announced a Trump victory parade in Pelham, near the Virginia border. And very near my home in Winston-Salem, a lesbian couple with children came home to find a sign on their door that said, “Lesbian Bitches You Are Sick Get Out Of Our Neighborhood – Trump Train.”

A sign of the times.

So this wasn’t from some “libtard” website – this really happened to people I really know.

And just an hour ago my sister told me that one of her oldest friends, a woman who grew up right next door to us in our little hometown of Harrisonburg, Virginia, was riding her bike this morning on a path in Boston when a man wearing a Make America Great Sign and holding a bullhorn pulled right in front of her and screamed in the bullhorn: Have you read Hillary’s emails? She almost fell off her bike. This happened today in Boston. Boston! Not Podunk, USA.

So forgive me if I’m not ready to move on just yet. On Tuesday, our nation empowered this dangerous extremist behavior by electing a man who ran on a platform of misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and racism. No one should be surprised or shocked. What we saw during the campaign is exactly what we are getting in this new America.

Is this the change some of you were looking for? Not so great if you ask me. And sadly, anyone who is “different than” may pay dearly for any of your buyer’s remorse. (See moral bankruptcy.)

I’m not naïve enough to think that if Hillary had been elected everything would be sunshine and roses in America today. No, it would probably be even more dangerous had she won since Trump had already planted the seeds for a contested election. It’s irrelevant anyway because this toxic genie was let out of the bottle when Republican voters made him their nominee for the most powerful office in the land.

There have been some really well written pieces about post-election grieving but I came across one of the best on The Huffington Post website yesterday – I am Sitting Shiva for America written by Vanessa Zoltan, a chaplain at Harvard University. Shiva is the Jewish practice of grief. It is a seven-day mourning period where family members gather in one home to receive visitors. Zoltan is sitting shiva for a lot of beliefs that died in the wee early hours of Wednesday.

You can read her blog here but here’s a bit of it:

We’re going to need more than seven days, folks.

I will take action. And man oh man, will I. But for a week I am going to wear my, “Nasty Woman” shirt because while sitting shiva you are not supposed to change your clothes. And for this week I am going to refuse— patently refuse hope. Hope (for me. I am only speaking for myself) this early will be a denial of all that has been lost. Hope this early will be because it’s easier than being mad and reckoning with all that is lost (hope for environmental policy reform, peace for millions of my fellow-countrymen who now fear being deported, what I believed the American experiment stood for, friendships that I can no longer take seriously because of their vote, and on and on).

I wish I could sit with her.

I did sort of sit shiva yesterday with a dear friend from Israel. She’s been an American citizen for about 10 years and voted for Obama twice and was a Hillary supporter. She’s my age but she’s always had a very maternal aura with me – loving and nurturing. She’s a mother and a grandmother and she’s my Jewish sister/mother. She knew I was hurting and she took both of my hands in hers and looked me straight in the eyes and said, in her marvelous accent, “Everything will be okay.” And when we said goodbye, she said she was going to kiss me like her mother used to kiss her – a series of very rapid pecks on the check. She smothered me with those kisses and told me she loved me.

And it was the safest I have felt since early Wednesday morning.

On my drive back home from seeing her – about 40 minutes in the car – my phone “pinged’’ several times – notifications of messages coming in. (Chill, I did not text and drive.) I often listen to MSNBC in the car on my XM radio but since that’s radioactive now, I turned to old faithful – NPR. Don’t you know they were doing a story on the election. I’m glad I didn’t shut it off immediately because it was an interesting piece about a couple in Massachusetts. The wife is an attorney who voted for Hillary and the husband is a fireman who voted for Trump. They, like most of America, are trying to find some peace in all of this carnage. They didn’t have any pearls of wisdom to share and honestly, at one point, it sounded like the wife wanted to sock the husband. Anyway, it made me feel less lonely for a few minutes.

When I got home I looked at my phone. I had a FB inbox message from one of my dearest friends in the world – a gay man who I have loved for 20 years. We have the most wonderful “odd couple” relationship and we’ve always said that if we weren’t both gay, we would have made a great couple. We both are yellow dog Democrats who love sports and sarcasm. Yep, we’re a match made in Provincetown. Anyway, he has been beyond inconsolable this week and thought getting together for dinner would be good medicine for us all. Only he said it in his uniquely charming way that seems to almost always make me laugh and tear up at the same time. He wrote, “I love you so much and this shit show is reminding me to take stock of the things in my life that are important and you are high on that list.”

My gay husband, Jeff.

Now you see why I adore him. And he’s right – it’s time to be with people who nurture and restore us.

The next FB inbox message was from a friend who is a young mother of two pretty fantastic daughters. She always takes her girls to vote with her and they were all super excited about the historical prospect of voting for the first woman president this year. When she told her girls on Wednesday morning that Hillary lost, they both cried. Her youngest daughter then immediately asked her about marriage equality. I told you these girls are fantastic.

“Will the marriages for everyone stop, Mommy?” Gulp. Then this little supershero said, “If they do, I will make beautiful art and I will give people marriages.” Sign me up.

My friend shared all of this with me to reassure me that as she said “love seeds are planted everywhere and our family plans on increasing the active ways we love others.” Gee, I wonder why those girls are so fantastic. (Their dad is pretty great, too.) She closed her message with some words that actually penetrated the veil of despair that I have been wearing since early Wednesday morning. She wrote, “You are loved. We will stand by you.”

Maybe all the hallelujahs aren’t broken. I’m clinging to them today.

These two make me feel less scared for my country’s future. And they may officiate my next wedding.

Bookends

Two writers. One blog.

Author: addisono