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 Change of Perspective

Yesterday, the wind blew at me from the south, whipping my hair straight behind me, making my walk to the car at the end of a long day feel like a resistance workout. My flapping shirt and the swaying tree branches, the muffled roar as I got into the car and shut the door, all reminded me that we are always in motion.

Sitting for hours grading papers, going through a full Monday of teaching three classes, posting midterm grades, talking with students, being in my usual routine, I felt only time pass and deadlines get closer. On days like that, I can forget—and usually do—that we are on this huge orb that is moving very quickly on its axis, that this orb is at the same time whipping through space.

The power of the wind, though, made the movement real, present. And the movement reminded me of the consistency of impermanence. Everything is changing all the time. We are literally in a different place every moment, whether or not we see it. And, yes, we are at a different moment in time, too.

While this realization of constant change often fills with me with a yearning to hold on, the recognition can also be comforting, especially in difficult times. And sometimes it enables me to be right here, right now and to really, truly inhabit this moment.

Recently, Marilyn and I flew out East for our annual trip to celebrate the twins’ birthday. On our short flight north to Chicago, I took several photos, including one of our neighborhood, a photo in which we could pinpoint our house and delight in the bird’s eye view, and another of downtown Chicago, in which we could find the location of our favorite hotel. 

A mandala created by UUs of all ages in our fellowship hall at UUCUC on Sunday, after a thought-provoking service titled "Practice Impermanence."