A few days before the US election, I visited my oldest at their* first real job, selling bath and beauty products at Lush Cosmetics. They have been so proud to start this job, and I was excited to visit with them. The store smells AMAZING, and I walked away with several products including some really yummy-smelling bath bombs. I am going to talk about politics here, but I promise the relevance of Lush will come back into this story.
On Tuesday, our nation held an election. By Tuesday night at “bed-time” (which was really a joke for me, as I got almost no sleep that night), it was apparent that Donald Trump had won the electoral votes needed and would become our next president. Locally, there would be no change in the conservative government, with all of our progressive candidates being defeated by large margins. And I cried. A lot.
All over social media for the next few days, I began seeing posts telling people to “suck it up, get over it, your candidate lost, don’t be so whiny.” Some of these comments were even directed at me personally, as I expressed my views and fears. What was missing was basic human compassion. What was missing was an understanding of why I, and others, were upset. What was missing was listening, or a willingness to hear. What was missing was love.
Many people have written about what I felt, but I will share my own words here. Only 6 hours after my attempt to sleep, I had to stand in front of a class of college students, and I was worried. This is what I expressed on Facebook:
In a little over an hour, I am schedule to teach my 7am College Success class. The topic scheduled for the next couple of sessions is diversity, privilege, and celebration of culture. And I can’t do it. I cannot face my class – which includes about 30% international students – and say “privilege isn’t bad, it’s just what’s so – where you have privilege, recognize it and use it to make a difference.” I cannot talk about being in a country where we celebrate culture and diversity, and I cannot even face the piece of the conversation about how we make a difference and what we can do when we face intolerance in all of its’ forms. I cannot look into the faces of my Muslim students, knowing that if Trump has his way, they will all be returning to the lands of their births, regardless of the danger that may put them in. I cannot face my Mexican students, knowing that their parents/siblings/cousins/friends/etc could be rounded up and sent home before next Christmas. I cannot face my gay/queer/trans/pan/gender fluid/bi students, knowing that our vice-president-elect would like them to all be hooked up to electrodes to “cure” them of their “ills.” I cannot face my African or African American students, knowing that our president-elect was backed and endorsed by the KKK. I do not know how to face them at all, but I will.
I may be taking the coward’s path today, but I cannot have those conversations today. Instead, I will skip ahead to the sections about health, fitness, exercise, and sleep. We will come back around to this (my favorite section of the whole semester) when I can breathe again, or when I am about to run out of class sessions, whichever comes first. But today, there is no way.
Several well-intentioned friends responded and said “You are amazing! You can do this!” But I knew that I could not. I told my classes that we would come back to this topic, and I dedicated part of my class time to sitting to talk about feelings, worries, concerns. I cried, others cried, we expressed shock and dismay, and worry and fear.
What seems to be misunderstood the most is that people aren’t crying or upset because their candidate of choice did not win an election. We are upset for our own reasons, but I think many people have had a similar reaction to mine.
You see, I am a realist most of the time, but I tend towards optimism overall. I believe most people are good and will do the right thing. I believe most people are more willing to love than to hate, and I believe that as we have opened our hearts and minds we have become more of a nation of acceptance and support.
When a candidate who stated his opposition to marriage equality, discussed deporting and banning people based on religion and confessed to sexually assaulting women received enough votes to become president, I lost my faith in humanity. And THAT is why I cried. As I told a friend on the phone, “I will regain my faith, but it’s going to take a moment.”
For 2 days, I grieved. I gave myself the space to grieve – not to grieve a candidate’s loss but to grieve my own loss in my faith in people. I cried. I processed with friends and family. I drank wine and ate chocolate. I also went to work, made dinner, took care of my children – all of the things that life requires. I checked in with my 17-year-old, who was much more optimistic than I felt. They attended peaceful protests at the capital building and kept me apprised of their safety. Knowing that THEY – a queer, gender-queer, bi-racial young person – were feeling loved, supported, and empowered was critical to me. Knowing that they were ready to take actions gave me not only hope for the future but also the space to sit back and wait until I felt ready to do the same.
On Thursday anger set in. I started calling people out on their lack of compassion, on their name-calling, and on their blindness caused by privilege. I deleted people from my social media who were unwilling to converse respectfully, and in some cases even blocked them so that I would not have to deal with them in the future. I received messages saying that I was creating divisiveness for unfriending people over politics.
But it wasn’t about politics. In some cases, it was about people expressing hateful, sexist, racist, xenophobic or homophobic views. In most cases, it was my own unwillingness to be called names or told that I, and those I care about, simply don’t matter. My choice to have my Facebook feed filled with compassion and respect was challenged. I didn’t care.
So what does all of this have to do with a bath bomb, you might have asked yourself by now. I promised I would come back to this, so here it is. Last night (Saturday, 4 days post-election) I wasn’t feeling well and decided to take a bath. One of the items I purchased was a holiday bath balm – it’s really pretty green, and smells like citrus and patchouli. “Perfect,” I thought, “my favorite scents, and green for the heart chakra!” I got in and popped in my lovely green bath bomb. And then something magical happened.
I thought that I could use some heart healing after the difficult week. But my plans were amended when a bright, hot pink started coming out of the middle. Instead of green, my water began turning purple. And I had thoughts.
SO MANY thoughts:
- Hot pink! Woman power!
- Purple? The highest vibration of color, crown chakra
- Purple! My favorite!
- Power… where can I use my power?
- Healing – what is it going to take to heal myself? My community? My nation? My world?
- What do I need to do? Who do I need to talk to? What actions can I take?
- What can I teach my children, so that they will stand up for injustice in all forms, all of the time?
- What needs to happen for my students to feel safe?
There were more, but these were the ones I felt the most deeply. And I realized, in my thoughts, that I had moved beyond grief and anger and into acceptance. But not acceptance like giving up, acceptance like “This is what is so. What next?”
It reminded me of this quote from Dr. Angela Davis:
“Now I am regaining my faith. Now I am making plans. Now I am speaking up and saying, very clearly, “No more. Now way. Not on my watch.”
On January 21, I will join hundreds of thousands of women in Washington, DC to express our commitment to women’s right, human rights, and protection of our planet. Over the next few weeks, I will help a friend get her non-profit started, and I will wear my safety pins, and I will stand in the way of violence should I come across it, and I will speak up for intolerance should I hear it.
Tomorrow, I will begin talking to my college class about diversity and privilege and making a difference in the world. And today, I will hug my children, and make them breakfast, and play games. And tonight, I may take another bath.
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