Dear World, I love you but you're crazy

I have a few drafted posts that I've been meaning to polish up and post for a few weeks.

You won't be seeing them today.

Instead I just wanted to share an e-mail exchange I had with my mother, who called on the evening of the election just so she could talk to me because she was scared. My mother who described herself the next morning as a "miserable mess of protoplasm". The following is my response to her very broken-sounding message she sent my yesterday morning. I wonder which of us was more scared. I felt like she needed more comforting than I did, but in sending her a message to re-assure her, I wound up making myself feel a whole lot better too.

Mom,

I haven't watched any coverage since I heard the news online. I can't. It's blasting all over social media and I can't.

And it's okay. The more love and gratitude I pour into the world, the less room there will be for hate and fear, right? I keep telling myself that, though I'm very unsure of it's validity. Historically these times of great adversity provide an exceptional background for making some incredible art, so that in the very least excites me, though it doesn't make it any less scary. Him being president sucks. It sucks so much more that a whole country that I was pretty sure I liked a lot elected him. I heard your voice echo in my head several times last night, "But I don't know anyone who voted for him." I guess there's a lot of people I don't know.

I'm scared for my friends. For people who aren't white. Who aren't heterosexual. Who are weirdos. Who aren't men. But I still oddly find faith and joy in people everywhere. Something I find as satisfying as I do confusing, being a woman of no religious association. I do believe in people. They're awesome. I've seen it.

I'm including a picture I took on a walk over the Ben Franklin bridge that I tweeted today. This city speaks to me through graffiti regularly. Sometimes in scary-accurate ways. I love it.

I love you. Don't apologize for anything. You and Dad have given me ambition, intelligence and a moral compass that cannot be swayed. Those things will serve me so well over the next four years, and I hope I'll be able to serve others with them too.

One little foot in front of the other, even if everyone else seems to be stumbling backwards.

Sarah

I don't know why I'm sharing this. I really don't. I just want to throw a voice out in the dark in case someone needs to hear it. I just want to keep sharing things that are important to me.

I have the next few days off from school and while holing up in my apartment and being sad sounds a little tempting, instead I intend to make stuff. And love people. And laugh loudly.

I Just Needed A Few Things

The following is a true story. Something that I just recently put to paper, though have recounted several times since it occurred. I'll likely continue working on it. It struck me. It has stuck to my guts. I think it's important to keep sharing it, even though I don't take a lot of joy in the role I played nor the events that unfolded.

It's also part of my "making other" portion of my contract. I'm sharing a work in progress:

I was at the grocery store, I just needed a few things. The one down the street from my house. The one that I always complain about the produce selection.

I stood in the check out line with my few items and waited patiently behind a mother/daughter/granddaughter checking out. I'm good at waiting patiently. I glazed over a bit, as I often do when waiting, pretending to read the cover of tabloids and gum labels. The youngest generation of the trio in front of me was 1 1/2, 2? 3? Maybe 5? I'm bad with ages, particularly of children. She was sitting in the shopping cart seat, specifically designed with children such as herself in mind, chewing on her tiny, soft and undoubtedly mushy, finger nails mindlessly, with a glazed-over look I could relate to, as the cashier rang up her family's groceries. 

No one was smiling, though grandma seemed pleasant enough, relatively speaking.

Mom said to the little girl, "Stop biting your nails."

The child looked at her with her hands stuffed into her face. Not indignant, just blank. Chewing away.

"Stop biting your nails." Second verse. Same as the first. 

Child, with appropriate-for-her-age child-eyes stares at mom, unmoved.

"Stop biting your nails." With a little more sternness. Not yelling.

Child still stares at mom. Still chews.

Then swiftly, as though something may happen to her precious offspring had she not done something immediately, Mom raises her had and smacks the girl's, nails, hand, mouth, face and all and said loudly and with the authority of using all three names, "Stop biting your nails you little bitch!"

.

And Grandma didn't say anything. And the Cashier didn't say anything. And I didn't say anything.