While Amanda is getting some well deserved 40th birthday cheer, frolicking about the Portuguese countryside, I've begun to get questions from our Thanksgiving guests. What can we bring? Where are the holes in the menu? Are all the regulars coming? I really don't have many answers for them and haven't even begun to wrap my mind around that impending situation yet. I've been focusing on the next meal, the next ride and getting the homestead ready for a long winters rest. And, honestly, I know I'm not alone with my serious case of post-election trauma.
I must admit to being just a bit jealous of Amanda's perfect timing while fleeing the country. The tense 18 months that lead up to election day, with its never ending cycle of news, analysis and (un)social media discourse did not ease up after the election. That tension has turned into a flurry of action and protest by those that feel the system has failed them in the worst way. That Donald Trump's promise to 'Make America Great Again' will mean a stripping away of everything that has already made America great, if not perfect. Surely, if Hillary had won, there would be similar unease among those that didn't want her to be president albeit for an entirely different set of reasons. So, as the holidays approach and I've started to field Thanksgiving questions that I am not prepared to answer, it dawned on me that the holiday parties might be a little more tense this year as well. If your family is anything like mine then you have a great sampling of the political spectrum without even leaving the bloodline. This year was no different. My conservative leaning relatives landed on the opposite side of the ballot, per usual, and despite the fact that I found Trump to be a particularly abhorrent choice...they didn't.
I've spent the past week trying to figure out what kind of action that I want to take. Do I march in the streets and yell to the world with like minded citizens that this man does not represent me? Do I retreat to the basement and concoct clever, shockingly delightful memes to post and float amongst the sea of memes? Do I retreat deeper into the woods or to another country where my values are more accurately mirrored by the culture? I must admit that the last option is very enticing and, from time to time, I think that raising children in a more loving society or further away from a hostile society, would be the most responsible choice to make...But America is home. America is family.
Soon we'll gather for the holiday parties with all of our kids and all of their cousins and all the aunts, uncles, grammies and grampies. The American family to which Amanda and I belong hail from all over Europe, Africa, China, the Phillipines, Haiti and back again. We had the first same sex marriage in our family last year (it also happens to be multi-racial) and I'm sure it will not be the last. We are a family of strong and diverse and loving people.
When we get together we will laugh and play and wrestle and hold hands and act silly and be how we always are.
We come together this year as family with a divided country. More than ever in my life, we are a divided country.
It's a scary and uncertain time, indeed, but one thing that I will not do is give up on these kids. On this family. If it means marching in the streets to protest the loss of personal freedoms of choice then I will do that. If it means putting my money where my mouth is and making personal sacrifices to heal a fragile ecosystem then I will continue to do that. If it means finding common ground with my conservative uncle at the family holiday party so that we can have a little more understanding of each others needs...well, I can do that too. I have to do that.
Maybe if there is less digital vitriol from our individual cells into an anonymous web and a little more human contact... Maybe it will be easier to touch somebody that is otherwise out of reach.
{Blake family with Nana circa 2014}
The day after the election Amanda and I were taking serious stock of our situation. She wanted to take some kind of immediate action, to get right into the fray.
Should we bag the Portugal trip and go to Standing Rock instead, she wondered?
I encouraged her to get out of town and find a peaceful place to recharge. The fray will be here waiting, I'm sure. Be sure to bring back all that good love.
Maybe that's what I'll tell our Thanksgiving guests - bring whatever you like for food and go heavy on the love. We need that most of all.
