Reflections on films, politics, and everything else.

I still keep seething, not just about this election, but also the 2016 election. Last night I was on a webinar with other heartbroken women, who thought this time would be different. One woman mentioned that this all felt like PTSD. The meeting tried to focus on healing and giving space to mourn before getting out there again. And while I understand that need, it was not resonating for me. Just like the many ( many ) posts on my social media feed that keep spotlighting positive quotes and talk of self-care end up making me feel more angry. Instead, I find myself ruminating back to another election, not to 2016, but 1984. I came home from junior high one day to have my mother tell me that my father had registered to vote for the first time (if you know me and you’ve heard me tell this story or read a previous post about it, I’m sorry, but we all have things in our lives that get stuck). I think I hadn’t even realized he wasn’t registered to vote. It turns out he wasn’t excited to go vot...

 I’m starting to enter the next stage of grief – anger . I ended up canceling my reservation for this morning’s Pilates class because the new instructor is a man. He may be a Harris supporter and an ally to woman, but I knew I’d wonder the entire time if perhaps he really wasn’t. If perhaps he was like my now dead father who registered to vote for the first time in 1984, not to support Reagan, but to vote against Geraldine Ferraro who was Mondale’s VP running mate.  My mother made light of the situation, but I knew as a teenager that it was a crappy thing for him to do. It was certainly not the worst thing he ever did, but I remember it the clearest. My father had four daughters, and, at that time, three granddaughters, yet he couldn’t stand to have a woman, even a far more competent woman, be allowed to serve at that level.  I’ve turned off the news and haven’t been reading the papers, so am missing ( not missing ) the chatter. My guess is that my fellow white women will...

Despair doesn’t even begin to explain my current mood. I keep thinking I’ll wake up and this will be some terrible dream. Then I become more despondent wondering how this can possibly be my life now, how millions of voters could choose a convicted sexual abuser and convicted felon for the highest office in the land. It’s unlikely he’d be able to get a job at McDonald’s. Then my head fills with conspiracy theories. In normal times I wouldn’t believe them, but reality seems far too unbelievable at present.  Instead, my mind begins creating a 1970-ish political thriller. It’s bleak, yet an image of a noble and handsome man, looking much like a young Warren Beatty with great wavy shoulder length hair, who is working to figure out what happened. The plot includes a cabal of wealthy industrialists with a puppet politician at the ready who will be put in place after the more troublesome winner is disposed of. There’s fraud by various accomplices along the way. Of course, to stay true to t...