I’m typing on my device, with my thumbs, while riding an M14A bus through a neighborhood that feels like it is slipping away, in a city that stays so vital despite itself.
I loved taking my son with me to vote. I loved voting for the first female presidential candidate, even as I wish I agreed with more of what she says and has done.
(Love the pro-choice and the potential judicial appointments, and the somewhat better stand on immigration; dislike very much the capitulation to war, the lack of spine on real climate change and the support for charter schools)
I’m ashamed at what a shit-show our system remains, that it seems like some kind of miracle when you can get your teeth fixed, or a public school is regarded as great, or I can get across town on a bus.
On the way to the polls Harry said, “I wish Hillary Clinton were president, and Albert Einstein was still alive, and that Barak Obama was my grandfather.”
It’s great to move things forward but it makes me restless how long it takes.
I hope this evening I’m going to celebrate. Tomorrow I’m going back to worrying about the temperature and sea level when he gets old enough to think about what we’re leaving him, go back to critiquing from the outside, after joining the mainstream for a day now and then, like you do, from necessity.
I like the Democratic platform this year, but I don’t expect the party to follow through. I wish that to the two major parties people of color were more than vehicles for blame, or else blocks of voters; I wish someone in office would recognize the dehumanization and exploitation upon which this country’s onward march is predicated. I wish we didn’t all have to line up, even as its heartwarming to see so many people reject Trump, even as we struggle to grasp what his campaign has made visible.
There are a lot of ways to open our mouths and get fed. The movement doesn’t end.