About the black square… I looked at my profile pic on Facebook, on Tumblr, on my website—the best recent picture of me, smiling, and hopeful—and I didn’t feel it.
I thought about the young trans people who committed suicide last night, convinced they’d never be safe being who they were.
I thought about the black and brown lives that matter so much but who a significant percentage of our population decided to throw under the bus last night.
I thought about how we might have to move in order to afford to live. And the fact that moving would break my middle child’s heart.
I thought about how much gaslighting has gone on in the past two years and how much we’re going to have to put up with in the coming years.
I thought about Reagan, and Bush, and Newt’s Nitwits, and Bush the second, and the obstructionist senate and house, and I thought about how much damage they did to our economy, to our people.
I thought about the water protectors.
I thought about the Supreme Court.
I thought about this idea that if people throw enough tantrums long enough they get all the power.
I don’t see the light right now. It has been clearly demonstrated that the Electoral College is a destructive force, even Trump thinks it is terrible, though I’m sure he feels differently today now that it has awarded him the presidency.
Don’t tell me to look for the light. Don’t tell me to look on the bright side.I’ve been doing grief work my whole life, and one thing I know is that when we have been hurt, and traumatized, sometimes we need some time to just sit with that feeling and be sad and angry. Grief is a process, and make no mistake, we have a lot to grieve today.
We’ll have time later to pick up our pens and our keyboards, to march in the streets and mobilize.
Right now, I need to sit in the darkness and feel what I feel. I need to mourn.
And if you don’t understand, here’s what my husband said to me years ago, when I lost a baby.
“I can’t possibly understand exactly what you’re going through right now, but it’s clear you’re devastated, and I’m here for you, and it’s okay to be sad.”
I’m a survivor. And a self-avowed sexual predator was just elected president. I don’t see the bright side right now.
That’s why the black square. I thought about all those things, and I went into Photoshop and I made a box and filled it black because it made more sense to me right now than my own smiling face. Maybe I’ll find the light again come spring. Maybe I’ll find it tomorrow. In the meantime, let me grieve.
