I have a greeting card in my desk with a picture of a giant porcelain
toilet bowl on the front. Inside is
written “If men can miss such a large target at close range, then why are they
in charge of the world’s nuclear weapons?” I bought it a few years ago at an
art museum gift shop without any occasion or recipient in mind, but simply
because it gave me a chuckle. Today I am
not laughing.
Earlier I watched Hillary Clinton’s concession speech on CNN
and she is more magnanimous and gracious than I. I am all for unifying the country and a
peaceful transition of power and approaching the next four years with as open
of a mind as I can muster, but for goodness sake, I need a day. I need a day to wallow in grief and shake my
head and hover over my steaming cup of ginger tea, staring into oblivion in my
slipper socks. I need a day to curse at the uneducated white males in this
country, sob in the shower, and fantasize that last night was only a misguided
spoof on Saturday Night Live. In the words of the Dixie Chicks: “I’m not
ready to make nice.” I need a day to get
it together.
My 91-year-old grandmother demanded she vote early this year
because she said when you are 91, you can’t afford to take any chances. My mom told
me she left the booth giddy and gliding, shaking her cane at the line of people
waiting to vote and proclaiming, “I just voted for the first woman president!” This morning on the phone she broke down into
tears and implored me, “Emilushka, what is happening to my Dreamland?” This is
a woman who fled her German-occupied homeland during World War II. She was an
immigrant who, to this day, is profoundly grateful to my grandfather for
bringing her to this country. She learned English, embraced American values, built
a home, and raised two successful children here. She put down roots and today
the soil resembles sand.
I glimpsed a post on Facebook earlier that read: “Worst Day
in America 9/11. Second worst day in
America 11/9.” This morning’s shock when
I awoke to the official news had the impact of an assassination. I will remember where I was on this election
year. I will remember Bridget’s
crestfallen face when I shared the news and my blundering attempt to explain to
a five-year-old how someone who spouts such hateful things can be a decisive
winner. I will remember many of my friends admitting that they were curled in
the fetal position or calling their mothers to cry or praying for the first
time in years. I will remember my
daughter holding up her laminated map of the United States and asking why there
were not more states she could color in blue.
As a friend in St. Louis reminded me this morning, we went
from electing our first African American President eight years ago to one last
night who was endorsed by the KKK. Our
next Commander-in-Chief is a man who has insulted every possible faction of
society who neglects to mirror his own orangutan-esque appearance or beliefs (apologies to our primate cousins for that unfortunate
comparison): Muslims, women, Latinos, African Americans, Asians, POWs, and hell,
even Iowans, my husband’s home state. It
is a slap in the collective face of this country.
I am still attempting to digest the vile truth that we
voluntarily elected a man to our most elite position of power who brags about
grabbing women by the pussy. I am still dreading
all the social progress that may be unraveled and bulldozed after four years of
his leadership. I am still reeling from the
realization that his Supreme Court nominations have the potential to cripple
the rights and freedoms of my daughters for decades to come. His extreme smugness and blatant narcissism I resent
being rewarded, but that is not the worst part. What horrifies me the most is that his hateful
rhetoric is what precipitated his election. His ascent to power came at the
expense of trampling those with weaker voices, in smaller numbers, and with
everything to lose. The rural white populace
swallowed the Kool-Aid and somehow believes that this one person with a sweep
of his magic orange toupee is going to eradicate Islamic terrorism, put cash in
their pockets, and construct a wall to keep out all the drug dealers, rapists
and abhorrent immigrants soiling our American innocence. They believe this
entitled, conniving dipshit with a gold-plated spoon in his mouth is going to
actually roll up his sleeves. To all the coal miners and steelworkers out there,
Trump’s hands are soft and supple– it is his conscience that is calloused.
As I fumble through my day today, keenly aware I am marching
through the well-documented stages of grief, I linger on an over-arching cloud
of sadness. I think about last weekend when my mom, sister and I spent a few
days in Manhattan, taking in the sites and foot traffic and carb-laden bagels.
One of our favorite stops was exploring the 1.5 mile High Line, an elevated
linear park built out of the old train line.
It was Marathon weekend in New York City and as we walked through this
beautiful garden of trees and shrubs, we encountered so many from around the globe,
basking in this rare green space. The sun was shining, teasing the air to a
perfect crisp 60 degrees and around us the leaves had morphed into hues of rust
and cranberry. I heard fragments of
Mandarin, rapid directions in French, and a toddler exclaiming in Spanish while
pointing excitedly at a sparrow. I
relished in the shared experience of accents and took a photo for a family from England
who was traveling with their teenage son in a wheelchair. I thought, yes, we are a melting pot. And the colors intermixing are magnificent. There
were no walls. No barriers. Just trees.
So, as I said, I need a day to be a sore loser. To fantasize about his impending failures,
but at the same time to be utterly vulnerable in my love for this country. After our stroll on the High Line, we headed uptown
to Central Park where we had a lunch reservation. We had almost canceled it the week prior when
we discovered the restaurant was actually in the Trump International Hotel. We decided we could stomach the indiscretion at
the expense of Jean-Georges’ French rolls, but on the way out, the three of us
joked about hiking up our skirts and publicly urinating on his ostentatious
gold sign. After breakfast this morning,
my sister lamented to me on the phone that she wished we had done it when we
had the chance. I happen to agree and something
tells me we nasty women would have had pretty good aim.
