Dreams

Friends, Past Me thought The Day After would be the day of unity and of angels inside.  Past Me thought we were evolving as humans, that we were constantly and continually moving into a higher realm of thought and deed. Past Me was a naive fool. The reality is... not only the day after, but this whole week has been one of movement through a shifting fog of grief and anger. Betrayal. My land is not what I thought it was. It has willfully elected a man who can only be described as crass, vulgar, arrogant. And those are the nice words. What stands before us is a man who has spoken and acted in ways that I have spent 15 years teaching my children not to act like. A man who has marginalized swathes of citizens. Yeah. This is gonna take more than a day to reconcile with inside. I'm sure the next stage will come to me soon enough, whether it be more anger or a plan of action. But today, still today, there is empty sadness.

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams 
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

-Langston Hughes

The Day After and The Angel Inside

I was talking with a friend today, and we rabbit-trailed around our lives, catching up and telling secrets. We joked about an impending sense of doom. It's the election, she said. It's the death of dreams, I thought. We giggled at our morbidity.

This thought of The Day After has been bubbling in me for a week. November 9th. I am eager for it, as I see the constant feed and play of vitriolic ads and shares. We are all feeling it. We are shutting down. It has been too much, for too long, and too many ugly underbellies have been shown.
Come to me, November 9th, the day we will all go back to being Americans. The powers that be will move us out of their targets, and we will cleave again to our friends and neighbors, and carry on with our lives.

This deadly divide will stop shouting at us, from every outlet and rooftop, and we will be The People again. Twenty years in this community, twenty years of shared lives and experience, striving to give our families the foundation that freedom allows. I do not choose to focus on what divides us; down that road lies constant strife. An endless soundtrack of bitter division.

My eyes are on my friends, my family, my people here in the community. My eyes are on the job at hand. The kindness that matters every day, spoken in small ways, shown in daily life. The actions that build our community and welcome each of us to share news with each other, to share our lives.

When Cole was a small boy, I had a constant mantra for him, when he was out of sorts, or when he was down. I've stopped saying it over the years, and it came to me again this week. It was my way of encouraging him to follow his birthright, find the divine inside.

Find the angel inside, buddy. The angel inside knows the way. The angel inside guides your heart and actions. You just have to let it out.

It's time for November 9th. It's time to let out the angel again.