Like many, I have been thinking a lot, worrying much, stuck in between wanting to live my life and make plans and feeling the need to hold onto what I have even more fervently than in the past. Feeling like I need to make my kids stronger, both emotionally and physically, to stand against what might be. I want to be with them more, protect them more, ensure their futures are not soiled.
We hang onto what we can; it's my conversation with a co-worker of Mexican decent whose mother never learned English, for whom he translated as a young child. Exactly what happened to me with an Italian mom. Making peace with what we have, trying to get along.
While I have tried to accept that some of the people I like voted for him, and I talk with them, about everyday things like coffee and the weather, our children and grandchildren, ideals I know we have in common, I still cannot understand what they were thinking November 8. I talk with them, all the while feeling like I know their "dirty little secret" and can't utter a word, as though I notice a booger on their face and am not brave enough to tell them about it.
For many others, the hatred that apparently was hidden is showing. I've had many African American friends, many female, tell me that racism exists. I see it. I feel it, as a female. But as one of my friends once told me, I will never understand what it is like to be African American. She was right. She said that I could pretend to be someone else while she could not even if she tried.
We've come a long way since then, and I was encouraged with the Obamas in the White House. It was not just the presidency: it was Michelle's fight for children, for healthy eating and exercise, for introducing me to J. Crew, it was having the same dress she owned but in a different color. It was belonging. It was Barack fooling around with the young children who visited the White House, shooting hoops, singing and dropping the mic. Being on "Ellen". It was US. It did not matter that we are different colors; I once dreamt they came over to my house for dinner. They are the people next door, with a little girl around my son's age.
It is not shocking to hear that some of my co-workers voted for Trump. It is shocking to hear my son tell me that one of his classmates called Martin Luther King Jr. day, "White Supremacy Day". It is shocking that my three-year-old daughter does not yet understand what is going on, and what will I say when she asks me why the president hated cats?
And as one of the signs of one of the marchers at the Seneca Falls Women March Jan. 21 said, "I'm 71 and I can't believe I still have to protest this f-in s-!"
The conversations, the heated moments, among friends and family. "Why didn't you march when you were at the forefront of all this in the sixties?" I ask my husband. He felt he was sheltered, did not know he could make a difference. But it's never too late.
I would look out the window of our tiny Greenwich Village apartment and see protesters, hear music, listen to speeches. Washington Square Park, not far from our apartment, filled with Vietnam War protesters, civil rights and women's rights activists.
Why haven't we come that far? I thought we were making progress, to the point where my friend did not have to consider pretending to be something she isn't?
Where is that moment? What happened that it slipped away?
What kind of future will my 13-year-old son and 3-year-old girl have? What happened that I feel like turning in my Sophie Theallet Michelle Obama dress for self defense lessons?
Why do I feel like I should be even more protective of my children at the times when they should be spreading their wings?
Why do we have to feel afraid of being different, and if a woman is outspoken she automatically must be on her period or be called "nasty"?
And it's NOT normal to have temperatures in the high fifties in January in Central New York, followed by a snowstorm!
Why are we so divided? Where are we headed?
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