November 3, 2026.
I keep myself occupied all day.
It turns out, it’s not too hard.
Having a day off and feeling anxious is the worst. You might as well be anxious at work.
But I don’t feel anxious on November 3, 2026.
Not too much.
I walk to vote, wearing a long navy flowered dress. Cross the street, down a couple of streets, into the back of the church. As many times before, I hand over my ID, go to the next table, get a ballot.
I thank the people working. They are, as always, a joy. I take my sticker.
I walk home. My neighborhood is rich in huge oaks, but leaf colors haven’t quite gotten to changing.
Change is late this year.
I do crossword puzzles while inane youtube videos play. I vacuum the living room rug and the couch.
I roast potatoes, boiling, sauteing oil and spices, into the oven for multiple cycles with spatula flips.
Roasting potatoes is like coloring a coloring book with a ballpoint pen. You can, but what are you doing?
I have to remember to mash my potatoes in the future.
I make a batch of spaghetti sauce and measure it into ziploc bags to freeze.
Come dinnertime, I start checking the internet.
I don’t know we’re supposed to watch this Steve Kornacki guy, so I watch different live streams. The news gets really, really good, and I don’t feel it. It’s too late?
I skip into work the next day, though, and crow to a friend, “KANSAS!”
The next two nights, I can’t fall over the edge of sleep. I doze, but wake. Let go, and then become aware.
I read everything the New York Times posts, because I pay for the New York Times. I miss CNN being free. I can’t waste my time there.
There isn’t much to know, just, “a historic victory.”
When your country breaks your heart, asks you back (Biden elected), then destroys you again (Trump II), how do you feel about hearing the doorbell?
I mean, come in, I guess? Come in, righteousness, dignity, manners, care. Nice to see you again, we shouldn’t kidnap people we think are immigrants and put them in camps!
What I want to move through is: a little late for that now, assholes.
It is late for that.
It’s really late for He won’t pardon those January 6th people, or But he’s good for the economy, or At least he’s different, maybe he can really make change.
Those are largely things white people say. The words of people who think most of us are good and decent, because we come from the most powerful group. The world is mostly just. Wow, do I not believe that any more.
Our souls saved by black Americans again, their votes. Though their very presence here testifies to white Americans’ ancestry of evil, they show up and do right again and again and again. Without black voters, we would all be completely fucked. I am so grateful.
I told you he was like Hitler in so many ways. I said, this is dangerous. I said, this scares me.
So many, many people weren’t interested. Hey, he’ll probably cut taxes.
The results of this election are more proof, to me, that most people have their minds on their money, not their neighbor’s well-being. If you’re getting screwed enough financially, you might stand up to a fascist.
Thank God Trump is as terrible at the economy as he is.
Good financial times and fascists are the really dangerous combination.
Still: the election is very, very good news. Systems dismantled can be rebuilt. We can have another Department of Education. And have our food properly inspected. And resume all kinds of scientific testing that the Trump administration ended. And, in unity, teach people that vaccines save lives, full stop.
My struggles are more about accepting how awful people can be. I used to have difficulty imagining my society perpetrating a genocide.
I don’t, anymore.
I set the jumps too high.
Many terrible things that could have happened under Trump didn’t happen. Many terrible things didn’t happen because of my teeny contributions added to the hard work of millions of other people who are moral and kind and passionate.
It takes me time to forgive myself for not being all-powerful. And when the world is unjust, my feelings at my parents’ divorce are triggered. My very sensitive button for It’s not fair. Unfairness lights a fire under my ass.
The first long piece I ever wrote was my first novel, entitled It’s Just Not Fair.
I’m proud of what we did, all of us who wrote and talked and marched and chanted and cheered each other up and canvassed and voted and put up signs. I’m proud of us, and by writing this, I want to marinate on that.
We were called, and we answered. There was a lot of beauty there. A lot of power and beauty.
It wasn’t up to me to save the world, and I didn’t. It was up to us to save the world, and we saved it from a lot of things, I’m sure.
This also opens a hollow in my life that used to be filled with, Oh my God I can’t.
The mornings after the election, I listened to NPR on the way to work. I used to listen every morning. When Trump was in office, I had to stop. I would arrive at work already enraged and afraid. I work with messed-up kids, and we don’t have room for more anger and fear.
I have open a whole drawer in my mind that no longer needs to be labeled Emergency Do Not Open.
It could fill up with, I didn’t do enough. I got tired. I didn’t canvass. I stopped writing to my reps. I gave up.
That will happen.
It feels impersonal, too, this victory. When Obama was voted in, I felt his personality was part of the thrill. He’s a good person. No one person is the focus of my victory this time.
It’s everyone. It’s a diffused emotional experience. There wasn’t a moment. It didn’t happen at midnight. It wasn’t a carriage turning back into a pumpkin.
I get to the end of the week, and go for my Friday coffee. I get coffee other afternoons, but on Fridays, it’s a real open-ended sit around and read and write as long as you feel.
I order my mocha and pay with my filled-up frequent-customer card.
Read, chat with an acquaintance about what happened.
Sit in the window of a place I’ve sat for years, and the light, under its new standard time regime, recesses and recesses, pale and then greyer and greyer.
