Morning Aftershocks

The one thing I can tell you today is that for four long years Donald Trump lived in my head. I let him in. My disgust for all he stands for and my anger and determination to fight it gave him some prime real estate.  For four more years he haunted my spirit, even as I reveled in his absence from the house of our people. My anticipatory relief at “not going back,” of finally being rid of him, let me know what weight I still carried.  

I’m not in denial and I’m not stupid.  I know he won last night,and I am well aware of what it says about us and of the danger ahead. 

But, still, I’m not going back. The promise I’m making to myself in this new Trump era is that he gets no piece of me. I’m nearly 70.  I don’t know how much time I have left in this awesome and beautiful world. But I will cede no more of it to the anxiety, fear, and existential dread I felt from 2016 to 2020, and that has danced at the edge of my consciousness ever since.  

 I will also not join in the blaming and finger-pointing at the people who joined me in fighting this good fight.  It’s not the fault of Harris’s VP pick or her earlier liberal positions or her laugh.  It’s not the fault of Joe Biden for not leaving the race earlier.  It’s not the fault of the Republicans who joined us after the rot they had tolerated in their party for too long, got too putrid. It is the responsibility of people who could not trust a strong, smart, competent woman to do a job as well as an insecure, ignorant and deranged felon.  It’s the misogyny.  Again.

 I can’t want health, sanity, and safety for my country more than it wants it for itself.  

I will obey the rule of law. I will fight to protect the vulnerable. I will vote, when I can, for a better deal. 

But I am pledging my allegiance to the vision of America that I voted for yesterday, a place of freedom and democracy, justice and opportunity, truth, science, and progress. I will continue to teach my students about that American dream.  And I am living as I would live in that country — in joy and generosity and an expansive love — and I will turn the full beam of my light on whomever comes my way.  

 I will not hate. I will not dread.  And I will never let DJT occupy an inch of my precious heart and soul ever again. He has not won me.  He never will.