Mourning Madam President

For months, I declared cheerfully, “All I want for my fiftieth birthday is a Madam President!” I was going to turn fifty at the end of November. By the fall, I began to think I might get my wish.

By then, Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic nomination and made history. She went up and down in the polls, but never low enough to make me believe that she could actually lose—and how could she lose to Donald Trump? I mean, really. Americans wouldn’t do that. Choose him. No, not even those who believed the false claims about Hillary.

We all know how that turned out.

My birthday celebrations—quiet dinners with friends—felt like a mix of support group meetings and grassroots organizing. The first dinner was only six days after that awful Election night; we were still shaky, still in one stage of grief or the other.  But despite the grief, the fear, the horror, at all these birthday gatherings, without exception, we did not stop with “How did this happen?” We always also asked, “What do we do next?”

It’s the “What do we do next?” that encourages me. All around me, my friends, my colleagues, my fellow UUs are speaking up and acting. “Deeds not creeds” say the t-shirts worn by many at our church. It’s in doing the deeds that I find a sense of hope, and in acting in community that I find comfort.

Exactly three weeks after Election night, I went to the first meeting of a grassroots group created in the wake of the election. Dozens of women (and a few men) I had never met before gathered to strategize; some said they had never attended such a meeting before.

One of the organizers was distributing red and blue posters donated by a local printing company. On the posters were the words “Hate has no home here” in six languages and a heart enclosing the stars and stripes.

The front window at Jane Addams Book Shop, a book lover's dream.

That Friday evening, too exhausted to grade any more papers, I took a stack of the posters and approached the owners and staff at coffee shops, a bakery, and a bookshop in my beloved downtown Champaign. I was a little nervous as I asked them if they would be willing to display a poster. Each of them said yes; each openly endorsed the message--though one worried about heated confrontations that might ensue (but he’d take the chance, he said). His fear was a chilling reminder of the new climate.

The posters are in the front windows at Cafe Kopi, my other office. 

Still, I also felt embraced and safe, grateful for people who were willing to make a statement of support and welcome in uncertain times.

In these weeks of such unbelievable news that I sometimes am sure it’s just a nightmare and I’ll wake up at any moment, I am sustained by this realization: thoughtful, brave, loving people surround me. They are willing to speak up. Friends hold each other up and work for change, strangers gather to plan action, and these small businesses that have become my second homes, my other offices, state their welcome to immigrants, Muslims, queer folk, people of color, women—to all who might need to be reminded that hate has no home here.

Have you found sources of hope and sustenance after this election? I would love to hear about them.

A close-up of the window at Kopi. The "Hate Has No Home Here" posters were printed for free by Dixon Graphics in Champaign. 

The bulletin board at Pekara Bakery and Bistro, where I have spent many hours writing.

Aroma Cafe, where the posters are just to the left of the front door.

On TV on November 21, 2016: a reminder that words matter.