Yesterday was John's and my 53rd anniversary and though neither of us felt much like celebrating, we celebrated anyway, dammit!
John prepared lunch at home (filet mignon, sauteed shitakes, baked potatoes, and green beans) and brought it to the facility, along with china, cloth napkins, and silverware. Bubbly too. And we enjoyed a meal together -- me in the hospital bed, him in my wheelchair, while we shook our heads over the election results.
Though flight to Canada or New Zealand has its appeal, we're not going anywhere. Our move to the farm, back in '75, was in part due to the unsettled political climate of that era and was intended to give us a life that could be close to self sufficient in scary times. All that's in place still. But my heart breaks when I read on Facebook posts from Muslim-Americans and African-American and LGBT folks who fear for their safety in this post-civil society. My heart breaks when I think that this country will be in the hands of climate change deniers. My heart breaks at the thought of the undoing of abortion rights . . . For better or worse, this is still my country. And while the Republicans in charge of all three branches of the government will own the coming changes for better or worse, those of us, the popular majority of us, must dig in for a long opposition. I know that not all Trump supporters are hateful racists and xenophobes-- many were voting in hopes of lower taxes, better jobs. Many were voting out of a profound dissatisfaction with and distrust of government. I don't agree with them and I have doubts about how things will work out. But we'll see. The positives I take away from this long, bitter election season are the friends of all persuasions I've made on Facebook -- friends of a diversity not available in my 'real' life. And most of all, the many women who were empowered to speak out about their own negative experiences with the patriarchy -- those women won't be silenced any more. Though our candidate didn't succeed in breaking that glass ceiling, it's full of millions of cracks that can never be repaired.