I couldn’t move for the longest time this morning. Like, my arms and legs refused to cooperate.
I stared at the wall with the green curtain and watched the minutes tick by on my phone. I didn’t bother opening the phone again. I saw the news.
It wasn’t like 2016. I didn’t stay up all night sobbing. I didn’t come to work with a swollen face.
But the despair? Of course, I can’t say for sure, but I am pretty fucking sure the despair is far worse this time.
Far worse.
Eventually, my brain won the argument with my arms and legs and we all got out of bed.
The thought of going to work was absurd. The house is on fire. What the fuck does work even mean? And about that. Seems like my plans for retirement are gone. I don’t even want to hope that I will be able to collect social security in a few years. I’ll be working until I fucking die.
Because worrying about my personal situation allowed me to move my arms and legs again.
The anguish for all those in peril was too much to process. The fear for my sisters and brothers in marginalized groups. The terror I feel for any human with a working uterus. The profound sadness at the understanding that tens of millions of people in this country don’t consider us completely human.
How can I process this? How can there be any joy? Fucking ever?
But here’s the thing. What will happen over the next few months and years is out of our control. Our control was our vote and that moment is over. But we are here. We are still here.
We are millions. We are here.
I will work at removing as much negativity in my life as I can. I will strive to bring positivity into the universe. Because I can. Does that mean a fucking thing? I don’t know. I don’t know if it helps, but I am goddamn sure it won’t hurt.
I deactivated my Twitter account this morning. It was fun for a few years, but that stopped in 2015. I have spent nearly a decade on that app reading every single awful thing that happened in our country. I knew about small political races in states I have never even been to. I hate to brag, but I made doom scrolling my bitch. I was tenacious. Like Robert Patrick in Terminator II, but instead of being a killing machine, I doom scrolled.
I can’t be there any more. How can I even begin to be more positive if I am bathing myself in sewage every single day?
I am not suggesting we stick our heads in the sand. We will never have that luxury. And if you are sticking your head in the sand? Cut that shit out. This is life and death. We always have to be informed. We always have to stay vigilant.
But we don’t have to eat it like junk food.
I have a suggestion for for. Maybe it is more a request.
Make art.
Make a lot of art.
Sing songs and dance. Unless your knees hurt a lot like mine, then maybe not a lot of dancing.
Write stories and jokes and plays and poems. Write a funny message on your bathroom mirror.
Act or tell jokes. Draw pictures. Glue sparkly things to something dull.
Make good food. Try new things. Decorate a cake. Paint a lamp. Deconstruct something unusable and turn it into something else.
Find the art of others. Appreciate their art. Support them and celebrate them.
There is infinite room for all art.
This belongs to us. We can make all the art we want. And if I have to end up writing words in the fucking dirt with a stick, then that is what I will do.
We need art. We need it so bad.
Tell people that you love that you love them.
I love you.
Please keep posting, don’t want to lose your blog. You know how we feel and express it so well. Love you.
I will keep posting. I have been a little paralyzed for a few years now.
Now? I know I have to find a way to break out. So I will post. It might not be very good work, but I will post. Thank you so much.
I was thinking this all day yesterday. And today. The person who hosts the Zoom write in I do every day from 7-9 is a history guru. Today when I logged on, I said with a smile, “tell me about the French Resistance.” And he did. They were organized. They saved people. So that’s what I’m thinking today. Make art (to save ourselves) and help as many people on the ground as we can.
I love you, Michelle, and Randy too, and your kids and your mother. We’ve never met but you are such an amazing and funny person.
Some time back we talked about the ukulele. If you haven’t pulled out the one next to your bed it might be a good way to make your own art, sing your own songs. George Harrison said it’s one instrument you can carry everywhere and it makes everyone smile. You already make people smile, though, so you’ve got a head start.
You know what? That is a GREAT idea. I will do that. But not quite yet. Right now I need to rock back and forth in a dark room for a while. Thank you. I so much appreciatae getting to know you over the years.
I can’t even. Where were all the people who voted in 2020 and 2022? I guess I’m glad I’m old so I don’t have too long to watch my country turn into the piece of shit he already said it was. I just hope I outlast Medicare and Social Security.
I can’t even think about that yet. I just know the trajectory of my life changed overnight.
I made a heart but it didn’t show up. Maybe no words is more appropriate. Gutted! I can’t even. Your advice is spot on. Hugs
THank you, sweetness!
Michelle,
This was beautiful. You captured my feelings so well. I am also going on a huge Social Media diet, as well as cable news. I can’t look at that face or hear that voice or listen to those words any more. I’m done. Unless there’s no choice.
Like you, I’ll concentrate on the good and beauty of life, of which, thankfully, there’s an abundance. Good luck, my dear. Somehow we’ll make it. I believe that.
YOu and I have the EXACT same plan. I want to hear NOTHING unless I have to. I must do this for my mental health. It’s bad.
Good art and good trouble.
If required, I will open my home to whoever needs a safe place.
I will financially, to the extent that I can, help those in need.
I will commit as much goddamn
civil disobedience as I can.
And I will not obey the fascists in
advance.
Oh no. I will not comply in advance. I will always fight. But today? Probably tomorrow? I can barely breathe.
And I love you back! Yes we will weather this…just take shelter when needed. And do art! B
Thank you! XOXOXXO
Watching in horror and disbelief from the other side of the pond. It’s good to be reminded not all Americans are so sexist and racist to make that choice. Politics is broken. Focusing on what we can do and being positive is the perfect message. Wishing strength and love and safety to you all…
No. No we are not all that. Millions of us are not.
Surround yourself with positive, uplifting stuff that make you feel good, life will go one even through the rough unknown waters ahead, it is easy to feel you are drowning in negative shit but eventually it should be flushed away and hopefully what is left isn’t a permanent stain.
That is my goal. xoxox
I fucking love you too. And Randy, your sons and your mom. How is she, by the way? It’s been a long time, and your presence has made it better.
After the 2016 election, my homegirl Sara Bareilles co-hosted the Tony awards and sang these memorable words: “In a world that is scary and hard to endure, if you make art at all you’re a part of the cure.”
I have never had a Facebook or Twitter account, and since Elmo took it over, us no-accounts can’t even read anyone’s feed. There is a workaround called Nitter, but these days if you can get it to load more than one feed a day, you’re lucky.
Which is kind of OK anyway since about half of the people whose feeds I used to enjoy reading have fled the platform, and the rest rarely post.
People kept asking me how the election was gonna go, and I kept telling them that it depends on what kind of night we have, and boy was that ever the case.
I refuse to believe that the country is as fucked in the head as these results are. I will forego the rant that my brain has staged up on that subject.
I already carefully curate my news consumption, and engage in a lot of translation to get at the information through the bias.
Here’s hoping that Fergus and Elmo don’t bollix Social Security and Medicare and thus my income and health insurance. I feel like we have a fair chance of holding onto them because even the MAGAs depend on them, and upholding them is somewhat of a job requirement for even the wingnuttiest of legislators.
And of course this comes in the middle of a round of personal chaos; Briana is getting the car we haven’t paid for yet smogged today so she can register it, what we hope are the last round of documents are on their way here from the title company in Trinity County, and my lab work came back pre-diabetic, meaning that a major change in my diet is in the works.
But, god damn it, we’ve seen real hard times, and (for us, at least) these ain’t them.
It was November of 2021 when Zsuzs brought my Les Paul down to this room to “get it out of the way of some work” she was doing. While trying to figure out where in this tiny-ass space to store it, I opened the case and thus sprang the trap I had set years before when I packed it away for our move from the Foundry building: a cable with a 90 degree end (for playing while sitting down) and a stomp box with a headphone jack.
I can count the nights I haven’t played it since then on one hand.
My friend Sara in Huntsville texted me last night at what was after 1AM her time, because she thought I might need cheering up, and the cat has jumped up on my lap and demanded pets five times already today. Some of that may just be that his other servant has been gone for a few days, but I’ll take it.
Hang in there, it’s about to get weird.
Yes, yes it is about to get weird. Thank you, Doug. I have so enjoyed getting to know you over the years.
I HATE DONALD TRUMP! And that is the sign that’s going to stand in my front yard.
You are right, Michelle, about the art, about taking care of ourselves. But what we can’t do is stop fighting. Because authoritarianism takes hold when it sees an easy path. We can’t give it that easy path. We must join hands & fight for our Democracy, just as our forefathers did.
Of course. I would never suggest otherwise. I have fought in every way I can. But that doesn’t mean I have to fight with people online because that affects nothing. And I don’t have to keep all of this in my face all the time. If I don’t take care of my mental health, I won’t be able to do anything. But of course we can never stop fighting. I certainly didn’t mean this post as waving a white flag. While we are fighting we have to protect art. We have to make art. Without art, we die.
I feel this so much. It feels like I have a broken heart. I thought there were more of us, less of him. I don’t feel the cold shock I did in 2016. In 2016, I called in and didn’t leave my house for 3 days. This time around I got up on Wednesday morning, put on my brave face and went out in the world. I haven’t posted on Twitter since the election, but (like you) have found myself doom-scrolling, so probably will deactivate my account as well. I went on my FB account and made a public statement of how I feel about all this, because I just needed to say something.
There will be no more obsessive TV news viewing for me. I’m going to read more and take longer walks. Yes, art! I’m going to finally finish that blanket I’ve been crocheting for a while now. Then I’ll start another project.
I’m not giving up. I’m resting up. Storing my energy.
Peace to all.
Yes!!
Getting hold of some yarn and knitting it is very reassuring for me. Maybe I’ll dig out one of my old WIPs and knit a bit this weekend when I’m resting from all the housecleaning I need to do! Best to you, Christine.
Michelle, I gave up Twitter after Elmo bought it (and thanks for ‘Elmo,’ I hadn’t heard of that before). I was on Mastodon for a year, but realized that my mental health was being kept ragged partly by waiting to see what reaction I got to my posts, so a year back I stopped posting there, too. I’m no artist, but I’ve been studying the ‘art’ of making chairs and stools from wood using hand tools and I’m about to go downstairs on this long weekend I have and clean up my workshop so that I can actually start carving wood. Getting away from my computer, away from power tools… I’ve no coherent explanation for why that’s important, but it feels important. Maybe building simple furniture is going to be my version of what painting, dancing, and singing is for more outgoing folk…
Jorah! Of course you are an artist. Wood carving is and building furniture is art! I make art all the time. My painted art is not good. I have no talent, but I do it anyway because it’s fun. I’m an artist! I’m just not a great artist. And I don’t care! I would love to see pictures of your furniture. I really would.