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.

A History of Marriage Equality in Cake (with a tangent about tax returns)

On June 1, Marilyn and I went to our County Clerk’s office, which was open that Sunday to allow same-sex couples in civil unions to apply for marriage licenses on the first day that became possible in Illinois. By signing a piece of paper, we converted our civil union to a marriage.   Our marriage became effective as of three years earlier, the original date of the civil union. So, one minute we were not married, and another we had been married nearly three years. It felt like science-fiction, very joyful science fiction.  Now, our relationship is recognized both by our state and by the federal government. In Illinois we are equal to every other married couple. After decades of activism, the process was simple and the mood at the County Clerk’s moving and celebratory.  
  
I joke with Marilyn that our relationship’s legal status has been inversely proportional to the size of the cakes with which we have celebrated our union.  

On the afternoon of June 1, we celebrated with a small, brown-sugar-oatmeal cake, one of our favorites from The Cake Artist’s Studio. We shared it with a couple of close friends over cups of coffee after we all went out for barbecue.  Later, the four of us watched the local news coverage of the historic day at the County Clerk’s office. 

Three years earlier, when we had our civil union on June 17, 2011, we had five small cakes because we had so much to celebrate:  the fifth anniversary of our commitment ceremony, progress towards equality, and our civil union.  The ceremony at the courthouse lasted only two minutes and thirty-eight seconds, but it was as moving as our forty-minute commitment ceremony at the Unitarian Universalist Church had been five years earlier. Our state now recognized our union (though the federal government still did not). More than fifty local friends stopped by our house in the afternoon for cake and champagne. 

Back in 2006, when we had our commitment ceremony, we had a three-tiered cake, which we designed with the Cake Artist, and we even had an extra round cake to make sure there was enough for the hundred guests at our reception.  When my father asked whether our ceremony would be recorded in a government office and my mother asked whether an announcement would appear in the paper, I was touched--I was sorry I had to tell them both no.  The ceremony and our union had no standing in the eyes of the law.
 

When the marriage equality bill was first passed in Illinois last fall, Marilyn brought us a cake from—where else?—The Cake Artist’s Studio.  Even while we celebrated, I wondered whether filing tax returns would become easier.  After our civil union, we had to file more tax returns than we did before.  The state needed us to file as a married couple, but to do that we had to create a federal tax return as a married couple—a return we could not file with the IRS.  So when we did our taxes, we had to generate four returns: two federal returns that we filed as single people, and then the “fake” married federal return to generate the married state tax return. It made us crazy. I joked that this was a conspiracy: “Sure! We’ll give those gays equal rights.  Well, almost equal rights. And then we’ll make them fill out extra tax returns.  Even better, we’ll make them fill out tax returns that they cannot use.”   

I am thrilled to tell you that from now on, we can file one federal tax return as a married couple, and our state tax return will be generated easily after that, as it should be.  Ah, equality!  I think this calls for a slice of cake. 

(The formatting on blogspot is not cooperating today; please excuse the inconsistencies).