My daughter texted me around 11:00 PM the evening of the election (November 5th) and asked me many questions about how the electoral process works regarding voter estimates. She wondered what would happen, and I said I had no clue. It was true, very true. The next morning around 6:30, she called on the landline, and she was upset. I was asleep, but her mother talked to her and made her feel better.
I know that she recognizes that some of her friends were feeling even worse than she was. They believe, not without cause, that the election results endangered their lives.
But her whole generation feels in peril because it seemed at the time, and even more so now, that the incoming administration will not be terribly responsive to climate change issues; a bit of an understatement, I suppose.
I’m unsure I found the right words for her because I’m still trying to find the correct words for myself. I muddle through, though it feels like walking through pea soup.
Rebecca Solnit
If I get a do-over, I will probably share these words with Rebecca Solnit. “They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything, and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything, and everything we can save is worth saving.
“You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.
