Some things are black and white

I'd love to say I've been MIA for a reason other than grief, but I can't.

Again this morning, as with every morning since last Wednesday, I woke up with an aching, burning pit in my stomach. It is a fire born of heartbreak, grief, rage, worry, and disgust. It is a sudsing discomfort that sits with me all day, sometimes in the background, sometimes more prominently.

A few days ago, I awoke before the sun. Inexplicably, circling my mind was the word retarded. Years ago, that word, as part of an expression, often fit the bill of perfectly describing flabbergastingly silly things. Silly, largely inconsequential things. Things like Daylight Savings, most of Pepco’s decisions, and dry clean-only t-shirts were "so (fucking) retarded." 

I never meant my use of retarded to insult or harm. I grew up with it used as a common expression. I didn’t know, didn’t think about the deeper implications of incorporating it into my own language. I'd simply come to think of it a slang conveyance of superficially irritating grievances. This was a failing, and I am deeply sorry.

Only as an adult did I learn that many consider it an offensive and hurtful term. Only as an adult did I stop to think “what might it feel like to hear this?” At that moment, it was a no-brainer to stop saying it, not least so that my children would never hear and therefore inscribe “retarded” as a phrase in their own handbooks.

“Retarded” doesn’t directly hurt me, but it directly hurts many. It directly offends many. Were I to continue using the term, potentially passing it on to my children as acceptable and also demonstrating to others that I found it acceptable, would be to say to every person out there, who I know and don’t, with any sort of disability or challenge to which ‘retarded’ might refer or dismiss or mock, “your hurt, your discomfort, your sadness isn’t important to me. I don’t care. I like my word so you deal with your feelings when I use it.”

That is not respect, it’s not empathy, it’s not any showing of humanity. It’s an ugly display of privilege, even if it first came from unknowing. I couldn’t look at myself if I didn’t excise that expression from my repertoire.

In the days since the election, I’ve seen and heard about a shocking number of heinous racist acts: cars egged, swastikas drawn, children told to “go back to Africa” and “you’re getting sent back to Mexico now.” I’ve seen signs hung above water fountains in a public school: “whites only,” “colored.”

As awful, I have read and heard about, both first- and secondhand, people who voted for Trump saying things like, “I’m not a racist.” “Don’t blame me for X; I only voted for Trump because of Y.” “Trump is a great man.”

That ugly shit happened in Silver Spring, MD, slap dash in the middle of a seriously blue city and state.

grotesque!

While I believe that most Trump voters knew exactly what they were voting for (see above) and either supported that or decided other things were more important (like guns), I desperately hope that for some he answered another longing. I don't understand that, but I would like to try and imagine that some of his voters will now stand up and say, "I voted for you but I don't support your bigotry. I don't support you seating a white nationalist, anti-semite, wife-beater as your chief strategist. I don't support swastikas being drawn on school walls."

[See this article for all the hate crimes just in the DC-area since the election. See this one for the more than 300 such crimes nationally since last Wednesday.] 

Without such protestations, we who didn't consider Trump good for our country know even more surely where we stand: in a deeply divided country in which much of the populace refuses to reckon with the utter, absolute wrongness of racism, sexism, and bigotry of all kind.

Silence in the face of injustice is assent and approval of it. There is no middle ground. It's knowing you simply can't call something retarded anymore and so you don't, except it's that much worse.

***
For a moment of peace, listen to this. 

Today was really hard

I didn't sleep much last night. The meager hours I caught were in bed with Jack, curled together under his Star Wars quilt atop which the Rebel Fighters try to ward off the encroaching, malicious Death Star. Ah, the eternal divide between dark and light playing out in multicolored threads above a mother holding her son close.

After a family dinner of gumbo and a We're With Her pie, Oliver went to bed early. He is little, young. For now we don't burden him with too much in the way of elections and who will vote how. It is enough now to teach him about community and humanity and how to always work to better both. He went to bed dreaming of the Minecraft Lego topping his Santa list. I think that is as it should have been.

Jack though, nearly ten-and-a-half, is politically aware and interested. He attends a Quaker school in which values of justice, equality, inclusion, stewardship, and peace are infused into the curriculum on a daily basis. They have just completed in-depth studies of The Middle East, Islam, the Electoral College and voting in America. Discussions are rich and substantive. 

Jack was up watching when Clinton won the nomination. We cheered together, and he cried alongside me. I issued thanks that my children would grow up differently than I did. That no longer would a white man be the only picture in their heads of what a President looked like. 

You see, I really thought Hillary would finally shatter the glass ceiling. Many have mocked me today for feeling so stunned, but stunned is precisely how I feel. I also feel deeply ashamed, sad, and worried. 

Last night, Jack sat next to me on the couch, earnestly coloring in his printed-out Electoral College map as the returns came in. Tom got up for a second bowl of gumbo. Nutmeg returned home from his evening romp through our neighborhood.

We, all of us, brimmed with hope and joy. And I wanted my boy to witness it all.

I've waited my whole life for a woman like Mrs. Clinton to lead us. She's not perfect. No one is. Not one Democrat and not one Republican. She is absolutely the most qualified candidate in my lifetime. She has served Americans, haters and supporters alike, for decades.

Tom voted for her with such pride, early and enthusiastically. Since I met Tom I've known what an ardent feminist he is. He's a quiet one, as he is quiet in most all ways, but his actions and respect speak volumes. 

And Jack. He exhausts me, but he is my North Star. His compass always points toward goodness. Toward justice. Toward kindness. Knowing him makes me a better person. For all the ways he is challenging to parent, he is easy. He is a deeply moral human, one who chooses love over exclusion, who always stands up for what is right. 

As the night drew late, and Jack's red pencil needed sharpening while blue did not, he began to cry. "Mom," he whispered, "Will my Muslim and Mexican friends from school have to leave now?" Is that a question any child in this country should ask? No. My heart began to pinch.

The numbers kept coming in, and it struck us all that a man endorsed by no major newspapers but rather by the KKK and NRA, a man with multiple claims of sexual assault, fraud, discrimination, and racketeering issued against him, a man who has never demonstrated the slightest bit of concern for any of the poor and immigrant and female citizens of this country, a man who has spewed so much racism and divisiveness, might take the mantle of leader from President Obama, the first Black president. A man of such grace and dignity and principle may have to pass the torch to someone who bragged about grabbing women by their genitals because he could. My heart pounded.

Around 1, Jack and I got into bed. He was weepy and exhausted, and I, struggling mightily to rein in my panic and disgust and dismay, found myself wishing I'd pushed harder to tuck him in earlier. I hugged him close and promised that he was safe and that we would always share and fight for love and tolerance.

This morning, all of us bleary-eyed and exhausted, the election over, Jack asked, "Mom, what do we do?"

"Honey, all I know to do is to try and be a bright light of goodness. Will you help me?"

He hugged me tight, like a baby koala gripping its mother, and said, "Yes, Mom. That's what we'll do."

And then he walked upstairs and put on his Hillary shirt. At school, some ribbed him. "Jack, she lost. What are you still wearing that for?"

My son simply said, "Because I'm proud to. Because she would have been a good President."

I cried a lot today, y'all. I felt a great deal of fury and sadness too, and unremittingly nauseous. It was a gray and rainy Wednesday, and honestly, that felt totally appropriate.

I asked myself some tough questions and read as much as I could. I talked to friends, acquaintances, family, a number of whom feel decidedly less safe and less seen than they did yesterday. I heard confirmed reports of racist graffiti in various parts of the country, I saw women gloating about being "deplorable and proud." I'm not sure how to ingest those things. My head continues to spin and my heart continues to hurt. I don't have a lot of hope right now. I don't feel at peace.

But when I look at my sons, when I think of how Jack has handled a decision that I still struggle to handle, when I think about his tired eyes and sweet smile and how he put on that shirt and then literally put one foot in front of the other to get packed up and out of the door to school, how he left just after asking me "what is something I can do today for anyone who is sad?", I am heartened.

I think that if Hillary can stand proud, in the face of so much hatred and such searing loss, that if Jack can square his young shoulders and go forth in kindness and compassion, then I have a challenge to accept and a standard to meet. I am profoundly lucky and I don't take that for granted.

This country has a lot of work to do, and I will do all I can.

Ready!

During the past week, I have gone through many stages of something that can only be called Freaking Out-Pissed 'n Disgusted-Somewhat Drunk-In Denial-A Few Tears-Cautiously Hopeful. It's been the longest roller coaster and not a particularly fun one. I and my co-passengers are nauseous, tired, and ready to get the hell off.

I believe we'll approach the ride's end sometime late tomorrow. Jesus be a fence, I am pulling the off chain like nobody's business. Here is what I hope awaits. 

After exiting, my shaky-legged co-riders and I will be met by an enormous throng of exultant people handing out Pepto Bismol, flutes of champagne, mylar blankets, and gift certificates for well-adult stays in area spas and meditation rooms.

Hillary, in a diamond pantsuit handmade by scores of relieved Nasty Women, will be passed from shoulder to proud shoulder, beaming brilliantly. She will shed some of the forty years of tears she has accumulated by shouldering all manner of misogynistic and political bullshit. No one will judge this display of emotion but rather applaud it, likely crying too because this woman is an epic Olympian and, my god, we almost got our kitties grabbed.

The Screaming Yam will be pouting in Uge Field, the ungilded back forty of Mar-a-Lago. His comb over will have fallen to one side, a greased slick of blech weeping atop his shoulder. Around him, his evil minions will be combusting one by one, their maniacal hatred for pretty much everything too toxic to remain in the world. Like giant farts released from Yam's belching bottom, they will stink the atmosphere up one last time before dissipating into nothingness. 

The bullies will stalk around, punching angry fists into open palms. Their leader was knocked out in the last round! But ultimately they'll come to see that the hard-working She Nerd really cares for them in all the ways Yam never did and never will. They may not admit it. Bullies usually don't. We sense some acceptance when their choir chooses a new song and "Lock Her Up" is forever sealed away in the Vault of the Overplayed Threat Anthems. It's something!

The motley crew of wild-eyed cowards peppering Congress will decide to take a collective Xanax and remember that thing they once heard about Country. Country doesn't mean lying and obstruction and silly threats like refusing to hear any of the other side's Supreme Court justice nominations. It doesn't mean throwing women and people of color back in time like so many Sisyphuses with yet another world-sized boulder just so a few (mostly white guys) can enjoy the best view for a while longer. Nope, the wild-eyed meanies will realize that they and the pitiful majority of the media who've sold their souls for a popularity that is more ephemeral than they'd care to believe have erred. They're a huge part of what's made America feel not so "great" lately. Working together and listening to and respecting each other and facts is a better way to great.

Our country will step back from the precipice of full-scale destruction, exhaling gratefully as we wake from a nightmare that almost cost us too dearly. Much of the world will do the same, filing all those economic contingency plans into the Code Red safe that no one ever wants to open again and thanking the pantsuited army for saving the day. 

Our phones will go silent, "Unavailable" no longer ringing night after night after night.
Our televisions will appear broken, quiet, black moments swimming in the righthand corners once inhabited by hyperbolic, "we're all going to die!" lies and in the lefthand nooks more truthful embellishment.
Our garbage facilities will launch into overdrive, recycling the forests of campaign signs and mountains of glass bottles that were used and consumed during this dreadful carnival. 
Gary Johnson will head home and smoke up. Jill Stein will hitch a ride with an eager environmental crew and do something good for the planet. No one will ever utter the phrase "anti-vax" again.
Our children will see a hopeful way of being united instead of an ugly way of being cleaved. For so many of them, my sons included, their reality will be that a black man was a great president, and a strong, incredible woman followed in his footsteps. 

In just over twenty-four hours, when we get off this roller coaster, our shoulders will drop and we will smile. Pantsuit sales will skyrocket. We will join hands, and the healing will begin.