“You’re an interesting species. An interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.” ~ Carl Sagan.
It was hard to get out the words, "I'm going to go cry in my bathtub," because I was already crying on the phone with Judy. Then I got a text from Suzanne about how, at least we have each other. Within minutes I was crying in the tub and talking with Suzanne on the phone.
This is the morning of tears for many of us, whether we woke up to the news after dreaming it would all turn out alright or whether we barely slept at all. Whether we checked on our phones or laptops incessantly in the wee hours, courting devastation and heartbreak until it climbed into bed with us and wouldn't let us sleep or whether, when we understood what was happening or had happened, we raced to our bathrooms to throw up.
I don't have the words for this although the big abstractions circle around: grief, heartbreak, shock, rage, despair, incredulity, devastation, fear, hopelessness, terror, and all language we might invoke to point to hurt beyond measure.
This is beyond words for many of us. This is beyond other elections we feared or survived too. This is not politics as usual or any kind of throwing of the dice across the known table of the game (it's more like throwing the dice into outer space). Whether we saw it coming like some of my dear friends or couldn't fathom its possibility like me. Whether we feel full of broken shards or empty of any emotion or sensation. Whether we can or can't even imagine something to look forward to, believe in, commit to, find solace in.
If you're reading this as someone who voted for him, thanks for being willing to read this, and please, no explanations or platitudes or anything else right now.
All I know about now is what Carl Sagan says. We are an interesting -- aka so complicated, unpredictable, mixed up, and chaotic -- species and yes, "so capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares." He also said that we had the capacity to be at our best when things are that their worst.
What holds and holds us is love. What remains is how we look at each other, listen, speak, wait together in such vast uncertainty and pain.
So that's what I'm going with today -- talking, texting, taking a walk with, thinking of, and reaching out people I love. Letting them love me. Realizing that the sounds of our voices trying to explain or understand is part of this, but the most of it is just being together in real time one way or another.
All that and a nap with my cat, some strong tea, and looking out the window at the startlingly clear light filling the last green leaves on the cottonwood while bird song carries us from this moment to the next.
