‘Twas the Night Before the Electoral College Vote
So much is right in my life right now. After a lovely, lovely dinner at my friends’ house complete with the crazy-making happiness, riotous board games, and silly singing of Broadway show tunes. With my kids tucked in bed upstairs and my dog curled beside me on the couch. With my Christmas tree decorated, the lights twinkling on an off, and presents wrapped in ribbons and bows. With my book open on my lap, reading for next semester's class at my new university, where I am surrounded by new, necessary friends and colleagues and students. Where I am also composing lines for a new essay and shuffling images that want to break into a new story. My life, my small, blessed, light-filled life.
And yet.
On the eve of the Electoral College vote, I think: basking in this light-filled life is not enough. Has never in fact been enough. That the larger fates of my fellow citizen-families and friends rest in my never resting in this enough. My life will only be enough when there is enough justice and tolerance and righteous reckoning. When our Democracy is enough to defeat a tyrant who espouses hate and violence. When everyone who is marginalized or abused or left behind to founder in the wake of this tyrant's tide feels safe and loved enough as my own children, and yes, my rescue dog, do, too.
My little family simply goes to sleep trusting that the world and all its beautiful richness await them when they wake in the morning, a privileged position that offers them chance after chance at happiness, at lives with chosen purpose: an education equal to their ambitions and creativity, the knowledge that those who love them will foster their paths forward, and snow-filled fields open for boundless play.
Only when this is for all will my life be enough.