Electoral earthquakes & aftershocks
Well you never know how far from home you're feeling
Until you watch the shadows cross the ceiling….— from ‘Summer’s End’ by John Prine1
I woke up at 5am on November 6 with stinging and teary eyes. I had turned away from the news early the night before, stunned and saddened, but sleep had still come late. My dreams were troubled. Extremely unfortunately, it wasn't all a dream.
“This feels like a 9/11, the ‘89 earthquake, the pandemic and something else altogether,” I told Kwame on Wednesday, trying to sum up my dark emotional landscape as the election results2 sunk in. He was away on a work trip so we were talking on the phone. I was in the kitchen, taking down pots and pans, soaking rice and lentils for kitchari, and wondering if I had what I needed to make a pie.
Some survival instinct that seems very linked to my Croatian grandmother kicks in during disasters, and this felt very much like a catastrophe.
“Eat, eat,” I can still hear Nana’s voice and see her pushing a plate of food across a table. She wasn’t overindulgent, she was practical. Having lived through World War 1, the Great Depression and World War II, both of my grandparents had experienced food insecurity earlier in their lives. Having plenty later in life, they always made sure to share. Food for them was care and love, and more basically, fuel. It’s hard to function if you are hungry.
On Wednesday, the sun was out and the streets seemed relatively calm, but all I felt was heartbreak and disappointment. I couldn’t fathom how many people had willingly sided with misogyny and racism, greed and denial instead of competence and decency and hope
I chanted and did yoga and texted friends. Everyone with whom I was in touch was reeling. More than one friend said she was calling in sick to work. Several people sent poetry. Eventually I put out an open-door invitation to pals to come by if they liked. I wanted be in the same room with people.
Today when the heart is a small, tight knot,
I do not try to untangle it. I don’t tug on the strings
in a desperate attempt to unravel it.
I don’t even wonder at how it got so snarled.
Instead, I imagine cradling it, cupping it
with my hands like something precious,
something wounded, a bird with a broken wing.
I cradle my heart like the frightened thing it is.
— from ‘Inviting Spaciousness”, by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
I walked to the corner market where the mood was sober. I hugged the shop-owner and asked a checker where to find the canned pumpkin. While searching the shelves for something it turned out they didn’t have, I shared some of the poetry that's been sent my way (thank you poets everywhere!). Eventually I left the store with a fresh sugar pie pumpkin.
I thought of those other disasters I’d been through. In New York during 9/11, a half dozen of us ended up at a friend’s apartment, cooking, eating and trying to fathom what we’d just seen on the streets and in the skies and the horrible footage being replayed on the news. In the immediate aftermath of the 1989 earthquake, several of us stood in the driveway of my apartment building in Santa Cruz, passing around a box of Teddy Grahams, piecing together what had happened and assessing the damage to the building and throughout the region.
Earthquake damage depends on the strength and durability of one’s foundation. The same can be said about whose life will be disrupted most acutely by this election. And this current electoral earthquake is likley little compared to the mainshock coming in January. Those protected by their gender and skin color and income bracket maybe able to shrug off the impact of a seismic change that’s on its way, btu I don’t think anyone will be immune to aftershocks that will likely be rumbling for a while.
I thought of my Grandmother again, how she always seemed to have some home-made apple strudel on the counter for anyone who might need it, or a row of kale and lettuce and carrots in her garden to pick for lunch or dinner or as a parting gift.
On election day, Janet came over with a car-load of instruments. We had signed on to play a couple of polling places through Play for the Vote. The first station was in the lobby of an affordable housing complex. After consulting with the poll captain, we were directed to a spot a hundred feet away. We set up on a wide part of the sidewalk. There was no line, but a regular flow of people were pulling into the parking lot or walking by to vote or drop off their ballots (over the next couple of hours, we would help more than one person find the right entrance to the station).
As we strummed through a John Prine tune, a pair of older men of color strolled by.
"Did you vote?" we asked, during an instrumental break.
"Yes, we did," they answered. We cheered.
And then one turned back mid-stride, looked at us, and said "I'm a Trumper."
We were stunned, as I think he expected we’d be. Fortunately, he didn’t stick around to assess our reaction.
“I can’t believe he thinks that’s in his best interest,” Janet said.
"Sexism," I speculated. Whatever his reasong, it was a real-world inkling that things might go a far different way than I hoped.
I have been so inspired by Kamala Harris’s courage and intelligence, heart and power these past few months. Over the weekend, I watched the clip of her Saturday Night Live cold open with Maya Rudolph multiple times, delighted and hopeful. On Tuesday morning, I woke up thinking of women everywhere and especially the powerful friends and creative allies in my life who had been galvanized by the moment. After all the postcards and calls, concerts and phonebanks and finally casting my vote for a woman president, I felt part of a strong movement, and so determined to be part of keeping it going.
Tuesday’s result was a gut punch. The test of my determination, I realize, has just started.
I can only imagine what so many others are going through today as they calculate where it will be safe for them to travel, or if they’ll have access to the medication or healthcare they need or a choice of whether to have a child or not.
I watched Harris’s concession speech while roasting pumpkin and chopping kale. More than once, I thought she might start crying, but she didn’t. Again, I was amazed at her grace, poise and her courage, and her willingness to model hope and possibility despite the gravity of the situation.
“You have the capacity to do extraordinary good in the world. And so to everyone who is watching, do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves. This is a time to organize, to mobilize, and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.”
A few minutes later, I heard a knock on my door. I put the pie in the oven and hugged everyone a little too hard. I stirred the pot on the stove, found a vase for the beautiful bunch of peonies Erica brought over. We talked about our mothers and grandmothers, nieces and children, sexism and homophobia, prejudice, faith, healthcare and… salad dressing recipes. We commiserated and raged, ate, cried and, amazingly, laughed. Life. We didn’t look at any news. The pie turned out great.
Later, after everyone left, I listened to a bit of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Instagram livestream3. She was sober and clear. “I’m not here to sugarcoat what we all are about to collectively experience, but I think that what we can do to prepare is build community,” she said. “We are about to enter a political period that will have consequences for the rest of our lives. We cannot give up.”
"November 6, 2024,” Letter From an American, by Heather Cox Richardson
