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.

The Morning After the 2016 Election

When I went to bed on Monday night, the night before Election Day, I told myself that whatever happened in the Presidential race the next day, I would still go to sleep next to Marilyn the next night, our bedroom would still be cozy, our house would still be our safe haven, my immediate world would not change immediately. Even then, I knew I was telling myself a bedtime story. But I needed to sleep. And I did.

Now it is Wednesday morning, the morning after Election Day. The sun has come up; it’s a perfect, crisp, fall morning. Our Hillary sign is in the front yard, where it has been since the summer. And millions of us are faced with the inconceivable, awful reality—so awful that for now, I do not want to spell it out.

How do we go on?

For me, the answer for now has been to avoid the media, the analysis, and to follow my morning ritual of standing in front of the living room window, palms together, and recalling at least three reasons I am grateful. I managed to find three, even this morning, though I had to push much else aside. Then I picked up the grey Unitarian Universalist hymnal and read a meditation. I do this every day.  Today, I knew which one I needed: number 483, a poem by Wendell Berry titled “The Peace of Wild Things.” You can find it here: http://www.onbeing.org/program/ellen-davis-and-wendell-berry-the-poetry-of-creatures/extra/the-peace-of-wild-things-by

For now, it is giving me the perspective and the strength I need to go in and teach three classes and keep my devastation under wraps. Then I will face the rest of the world and probably let the tears flow.

How are you coping today?

It was difficult to reconcile this view from the living room window with the grief  and fear in my heart.

I had taken this photo early in the evening to post when HRC won.  Yes, I am that supporter, the one with buttons and bumper stickers galore.

I am grateful I went to this celebration of Votes for Women on Tuesday evening in downtown Champaign. I had hope then.

Double Vision and Second Sight

The first pot of the summer, as seen through our front door.

First, I noticed that traffic lights looked like three-leaved clovers, but aglow and blurry.

Then, driving east at dusk, I noticed the rising moon looked double, one white disk overlapping the other. I thought of the haunting Isaac Asimov short story I had read in college about a planet with two suns. More recently, I had watched the engrossing and disturbing film Another Earth, in which a second Earth appears in the night sky; leaving the movie theatre, I had examined the sky warily.

On this more recent evening, I knew I wasn’t really seeing two moons, but I was troubled enough by this double vision that I called my eye doctor and also, of course, looked up WebMD. 

It didn’t take long before I read that double vision was a common symptom of cataracts. So was second sight, the phenomenon of temporarily improved near vision which would then get worse.  That explained my wanting to look at my phone over the rims of my glasses, which had progressive lenses to help me see both close by and far away. 

I was young for cataracts, only forty-eight when they were diagnosed. I was given a new prescription for my glasses and told to wait a while.

A year and a half later, driving was more difficult and the moon was triple.  Grading papers was becoming challenging, with the text starting to float on the page. I found myself enlarging the font on the computer screen so that I could read and write emails. I was ready for cataract surgery.

Before my first surgery,
with my surgeon's initials above my right eye.

The surgeries were scheduled for earlier this month, one week apart, immediately after I turned in grades for the spring semester. I was nervous about the idea of the surgeon going at my eyes with tools, even though the surgeon is my eye doctor, whom I have known for years and trust completely. Nervous enough that I don’t remember what I read about the tools used.  I just repeated to myself that it was a routine surgery with a high success rate, and that since only one eye would be operated on at a time, I would not go blind as a result of the surgery. And not only would my cataracts be removed, but also the new lenses would give me near-perfect vision.

A drawing from my art journal after the first surgery.

The day after my second surgery, with my surgeon's
initials faded but visible above my left eye.
(I love accessories and am delighted I can now wear sunglasses without a prescription!)

Well, both surgeries were successful. I now have the remarkable experience of opening my eyes in the morning and seeing: the white embroidery on the white curtains, the print of a Derain painting on the wall between the windows, everything—and without glasses. I had been shortsighted since the fourth grade and needed progressive lenses as soon as I turned forty. Now I can see things far away and can see these words on a computer screen—all without glasses. This is new.  Startling. And wonderful.

The week after the first surgery, when I came home with 20/20 vision in my right eye, I would close my still-shortsighted left eye and marvel that I could see the purple iris in the backyard from the kitchen window without glasses. After the second surgery, I wandered around the gardens taking photos, in awe that I could see all that color, all that detail, all that glory without glasses.

When we first discussed cataract surgery, I said to my doctor, “You help people see! Don’t you feel like God?” I am an agnostic, but that was the best analogy I could manage.  After surgery, I feel like I am living inside a miracle. “Second sight” has a whole new meaning.

I feel fortunate that my surgeries were done just as the peonies bloomed.

I couldn't get enough color, so I took out my watercolors and played.