Here is why I believe in people again

• Because when I went down to North Carolina to canvass voters, not only did people whose doors I knocked upon/lives I intruded tell me they would vote blue, but they thanked me for my work.
• Because of #pantsuitnation, where I got to hear the stories and read the observations of women around the country, united solely – or really initially – in our belief that Hillary should be president. I learned about Republicans who defied their families/past voting patterns to do what was right. I learned about people in hospitals trying desperately to find a way to vote (and somehow they always succeeded). I learned about centenarians (or close) who were born before women had the right to vote and were lucky enough to be alive to vote for the first woman president.
• Because even though this was a ceiling bursting open for women, I saw boys and men cheering Clinton on just as voraciously.
• Because my son has only known a black and female President.

At this point, you might be wondering if I am using the crack/cocaine. I am not. This was the blog I started writing on the afternoon of 11/8. That’s how sure I was that we – she – would win. It was a gorgeous day here in Manhattan and I was looking forward to taking both my kids with me to vote, to show them Hillary’s name on the ballot, and to make history. We were having a party that night and I had 5 bottles of champagne at the ready.

Instead:

• Son complained entire time we were in 8-10 person line that voting was “boring” and “when can we go?”  He vaguely refused to care that Hillary’s name was at the very top of ballot (I tried to spin this into “it’s normal to him!”). Maybe I should have seen this as an omen.
• Giddily prepared for party.
• Greeted friends who arrived with more champagne and one with a red, white and blue bouquet of flowers (*this* is America, people! We still enthusiastically thought that not so long ago).
• Kids gathered on the floor in front of the TV as the adults sat on couches, jovial.
• First states to come in were red but that was no biggie because, like, who cares about Indiana?
• Children cheered as New York, New Jersey and some New England states were announced.
• Our smiles started to wane/strain/collapse as more states went to Trump. We reassured ourselves that it wasn’t and could not be over. We drank more.
• Then the darkness. Champagne remained unopened. People left, grim-faced, barely saying goodbye.

I’ve resisted writing about the election because it’s all been said. Because just when I think it can’t get worse, Steve Bannon or Jeff Sessions happens.Because while writing can be healing, this is beyond that.

Mostly, what I find hard to get past is that next day. The day it became real; the day Clinton gave the speech of her life when she conceded the election. The day she told me, my daughter and those in between us that it was not over even though it felt very over.

Here in my bubble – and thank god for my bubble – perfect strangers hugged each other on the street. My sister talked of making eye contact with a woman with tears in her eyes, and of placing her hand over her heart and getting a nod from the woman, her fellow American. That next day, I – many of us  – felt terrified. Unlike that other next day, 9/12/01, these States felt the very most un-United we could be.

There is no comedy in this, no wry slant, no clever observation. I have no words of wisdom or deep thoughts, though I had to have some of those for my kids, the older of whom burst into tears when we told her Trump won (Sidenote: Serious gratitude to their teachers for finding ways to soothe, discuss and reassure when I could not).

I am trying to take my cues from the last person I will be proud to call President for a good long time (that would be Obama) and from Clinton who both say we cannot despair. We cannot let it kill us that white supremacy has been given a platform or that instead of our first female president, we have a misogynist who has admitted to harassing and groping women. We cannot let it dampen our American-ness that there is talk of a Muslim registry, the epitome of history repeating itself. Or that the first Presidential appointments went to Nazis, racists, people who had been fired for erratic behavior.

So as not to despair, I sit here, re-reading how I felt just two short weeks ago. I look at my smiling face in a post-vote selfie: Full of hope and lightness and pride. It’s hard to remember that right now.  But.  As my glass half-full 10 year-old reminds me, there are nearly two million more of us who didn’t vote for Trump than who did. Those woman who were born before the 19th Amendment – and those of us who came after –  still finally got to vote for a woman for President. Those people who were so kind in North Carolina did their part. It wasn’t enough, but the majority of us were not driven by fear or hate or anger but by optimism and faith in the good of people. By the feeling that in America, we can truly be free.

So…now we mobilize. Donate. March. One friend told me her 6 year-old asked her to buy a Trump cookie “So I can eat his face off.” There really is no better way to put it. Let’s eat his face off!

And, as Dr. King once said, “Only in the darkness can you see the stars.” They aren’t glistening yet. But maybe they will be one day soon.