Don't tell me not to despair
/K and I were walking our usual route on Monday, and at the entrance to one of the main cherry blossom neighborhoods in the DC area, a tiny copse of the trees were in bloom. Sprays of blossoms in variegated pinks, like so many tiny ballet slippers in flower form. Cherry blossom season is in March. When Oliver was born, on St. Patrick’s Day in 2009, my mom came to meet him, and my mother-in-law took her downtown to the Tidal Basin to see the cherries in all their ephemeral resplendence. It was chilly that day. Mom wore a scarf.
It is November right now. It is not chilly. The cherries have no business being in bloom, not least for a second time this year. We have not had rain in 35 days. In West Virginia recently, our well ran dry. Everything is brittle. I am brittle.
Don’t tell me not to despair.
On Halloween, a warm night on which we got many fewer than usual trick-or-treaters, a little cat + vampire rang our bell. She had long golden hair and shyly asked if I am Ukrainian (our flag flies next to our front door). I said no and asked if she is. “Yes,” she said. “My mom and sister and I moved here a year ago.” Gently, I asked if she still had family in Ukraine. “Yes, my daddy. We had to leave him.” Slava Ukraini, I said. Please tell him thank you and that we are with him.
Don’t tell me not to despair.
On Monday night, I went to set up my local precinct where I and the other election judges would work on Tuesday. Each precinct has two chief judges; they must be of separate political party affiliation. I made snap judgments about who was which, and I was wrong. It was a good reminder of a worthy lesson. I was enormously fond of both judges and of my fellow election workers. We were not supposed to talk politics, but people feel each other out. They need to, really, in terms of understanding and feeling safe. I cheated, late in the 15-hour day on Tuesday, and looked at the judge sign in sheet which, oddly, lists political affiliation. Out of all of us, roughly 14, one was a Republican, two were unaffiliated, and the rest were Democrats. Was I looking for comfort? Camaraderie as the anxiety of election day ending grew? I don’t know. Probably. I wonder how many of them feel like I do today. Despondent, disgusted, not surprised but very sad.
Don’t tell me not to feel any and all of that.
On Twitter yesterday—I was there because I am leaving it but first wanted to migrate all possible contacts to Bluesky—I saw Nick Fuentes, an odious far-right college drop out asshole, post this:
22,000 people “liked” that.
I despair. Don’t tell me not to.