Ever since the election of Donald Trump three months ago, it's like I can't get my feet underneath me. I’m not even sure what I
mean by that – just that it’s like having firm ground that you’ve always stood
on suddenly rocking beneath you, shaking up everything you thought you knew.
On top of that, my mother died Jan. 7. The impact was
something the same. Both things amounted to the painful destruction of fundamental
beliefs that I built my life on.
In the case of Trump, I realized with his election that contrary
to what I’d thought, we weren’t getting better as a society - that all the
positive social and cultural changes I’ve seen in my lifetime in North American
society aren’t real changes at all, because a frightening percentage of the
public is just aching to hate somebody as a stand-in for all the things that
haven’t gone right in their own lives.
In the case of my mother, I lost the one person who could
always be counted on to show up for me my entire life. Between her and Trump,
it ended up being a one-two combination that has really knocked me off my game.
I think it’s a type of broken heart, this feeling. I feel it
like a psychic illness, making me huddle into myself and minimize contact with
the outside world. All the things I cared about passionately just three short months
ago now feel pointless, because the solid ground that I thought we were
building on for social change turned out to be shifting sand.
I’m aware that I have to get through this slump. Otherwise, I
risk becoming one of those people who end up bitter and chronically sad. I
don’t yet know what “getting well” will entail, but figure I’ll know it when I
feel it. I’m counting on spring.
I was bound to enter a period of mourning after Mom died,
but I’m pretty sure the Trump election has actually been the bigger blow to my
psyche. My mother’s death was sad but inevitable, after all, while the
ascendancy of Trump is a horrifying development of global magnitude.
It would be handy at times like this to be able to
disconnect from the world and just shut the door on all the bits of news and
“alternate facts” contributing to this paralyzing state of low-level despair. Could
I just turn away from it all and live in happy ignorance?
Alas, not only would my inner journalist never tolerate such
a thing, I am a mother and grandmother, with an extended family of people I
care about. If nothing else, I must find hope again so I can continue the fight
and not just crumple to the ground under the weight of all the ugliness. I did
not have children so that they could live on a planet in which a man like
Donald Trump runs a major civilized nation.
One of the things I liked best about living and working in
Central America is the feeling of being in countries that were on their way up.
They’re not there yet, but they’re working on it. There was always such a sense
of possibility.
In the U.S., and at times in Canada, it feels to me like
we’ve peaked and are on our way down. Our laws and fancy declarations still
make us appear like we’re committed, but a lot of times it feels like we’re
devolving. And while people like me have been thinking that the goal
was to build an ever more inclusive, tolerant and equal society, it’s clear now
that there are a whole lot of people who aren’t like me.
This is particularly true in the United States, though not
exclusively. (We will not soon forget the former Harper government’s promise of
a “Barbaric Cultural Practices” hotline.) I do understand the righteous rage
that fuelled the U.S. election upset, if not the dangerous clown that the
populace wrongly thought would be their saviour. There has been a big price to
pay for these last 30 or so years of political drift toward global markets,
fewer taxes, and increasingly self-interested governments that aren’t concerned
with growing inequality because they’re always the ones on top no matter what.
Anyway. I have nothing but words at the moment, and we all
know now that all the words in the world don’t count for much in the grand
scheme of things. These days I feel like I have nothing more to say, and that
I’d be better off to just go bird-watching or for long walks with somebody’s
dog or small child, talking about nothing more than the seaweed at the
shoreline or the snow in the trees. But I think that’s probably just a part of
this grief.
I know there are many other people out there who are as
affected by Trump’s election as I am. I feel sure our energies are going to
find each other one day soon and lift us out of this ennui. I think I need a
good old-fashioned protest – a sign in my hand, a whole lot of people in the
street to remind me that yes, we stand up for ourselves when challenged.
Two things I know: I won’t always be sad; and I am a hopeless
optimist, a genetic characteristic that can’t be beaten out of me even by the
likes of Trump. This too shall pass.
