How to survive this particular day
three ideas
1. This morning at 3:52 my friend Elaine called to say that she loves me. I was hoping she was calling to say it was all a mistake and Kamala had won, but she was crying. I was awake, sort of, and glad for the call, even though the medicine I take makes it nearly impossible for my eyes to produce tears. So I just shivered, and chattered my teeth involuntarily, and we stayed on the phone for five minutes and said we’d talk again soon. I think all of us need to reach out to people we love, especially women, and tell them that we love them and that we have their backs.
2. Those of us who are a little older can also reach out to women who are younger, even if we don’t know them, and tell them that we see them and we admire them and we have their backs too. I wrote this email to Wes Moore, head coach of the Wolfpack women’s basketball team, when I got to work:
Dear Wes,
I had to send a note this morning to let you know my older daughter and I attended the opening game, again as season ticket holders. I was grateful to have that distraction (and win!) on a stressful election night, and am proud of our Wolfpack Women. I'd posted that this was our plan and a colleague in the English Department told me that she wanted me to root especially for Saniya Rivers, one of her students, who she says is so grounded, mature, and thoughtful.
I appreciate the good work you do with our students and community, and I just wanted to pass along that your student-athletes are inspiring to so many of us. I don't know if they are having a rough morning but they should know that my daughters and I think they're awesome.
With gratitude,
Belle
I didn’t write to the players directly because I don’t want to be a weird professor, but I know he’ll pass this on because he’s done it before. Basketball may not seem that important right now but those young women, their lives and dreams, are of course important. They are tough as nails and I see them.
3. There must be some wins where you are? Mark them, celebrate them. In NC, we have Democratic Governor Josh Stein and Democratic Attorney General Jeff Jackson. The kind, empathetic, experienced public school advocate Mo Green is our new superintendent of public instruction. We broke the supermajority by one seat, which means Stein has veto power. In Alamance County, two progressive Black candidates, Seneca Rogers and Tameka Harvey, won their school board races.
How about any signs of hope where you are? It’s okay to feel otherwise, to rage and cry or chatter your teeth.
I did cry when I told Bea. But I told her we’d get through it because we must.
How are you feeling, Frog Troublers? Lots of love from us.
P.S. This is Harriet’s motto, which I try to remember: “I’m not available for sinking. I’m only available for swimming.”
This morning, when I broke the news to my 7 year old before school (who has been very interested and worried about this election), I let him know that good people all over this country and this planet continue to work for justice, peace, and care, and that we would continue to do the same. I also told him that we are fortunate to be woven into multiple fabrics of community--from family, to neighborhood, to school, to our UU congregation, and that we can all lean on each other in difficult times. Parenting in these moments is, I believe, also a form of self-care--I must tell myself what I'm telling him, choose to remember what I want him to remember.
One of the hardest things I've had to do is get up this morning and come to campus to teach two classes. I've already had a few students email to say that they just can't come in. They are too devastated and can't stop crying. Personally, I got up this morning and took my dog for a walk in the woods for an hour because nature and dogs help heal me. I tried to stay in the NOW and look around rather than ruminate on what happened last night. Today I'm going to start my classes with the offer to talk. I want the young women (and men) in my class to know that I care and that I know this is not the America many of them thought they'd be living in. But then I thought--maybe it IS the America that's always been here--racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic--but Trump just gave them agency to say it out loud. All I can do now is Breathe in, breathe out. And give hugs to anyone I see in the halls.