Fright

Here are the choices for today. I can play a recently discovered version of online Mahjong until this evening when I meet with friends and maybe play some music. I wrote a couple of new songs and want to try them out. I can go back to bed, huddle under the covers with a flashlight and read comic books. I can launder a heaping hamper full of dirty clothes. I can watch the frolics of my two hamsters, Milou and Archie, except this morning they’re strangely quiet and depressed too.

     It’s not that there’s a lack of things to do. I have two articles due for Canadian magazines, and a book to finish. I have a short story to write for Montparnasse Magazine. I am working on a few one-act plays (writing plays is a new avocation and I’ve been told I should keep trying.) There are bills to pay, and lentils to cook, and stuff to sell on eBay. I have to organize a yard sale, and paint the ceiling in my dining room. I have to call a friend whose health is failing, and I really, really, should go to the gym.

     It’s odd to waken to a world that is physically the same as it was seventy-hours ago and yet where everything has changed. A Parisian friend emailed me very early this morning and asked, “Tu reviens?” No, I told her, I’m not returning to France. This country is and has been my home for decades and I love it here. The US remains the land of opportunities, but I have to tell you, honestly, that for the very first time, I am frightened by the future.

I am not a marginalized person, but I am an immigrant, and I recently came to realize that I am Jewish by birth (a long story there). I am a naturalized citizen, but I am not at all sure that if worse comes to worse this will matter.  There is a long history, worldwide, of non-native citizens being dispossessed by ultra-right demagogue leaders.

The President-elect prides himself on never having finished reading a book. I happen to think the written word is humankind’s greatest invention. The Vice-President-elect has openly stated that he is anti-LBGT, anti-women’s right, anti-abortion, and that he will work to overturn marriage equality. I fail to even comprehend how such reactionary thoughts and actions can benefit anyone.

I’ve read that the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is going to take a serious hit, and that censorship in museums is likely to rule once again as it did in the 1950s. As a side note, it’s interesting to me that when Trump took over the lease of the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue, just blocks from the White House, he threw out two occupants, the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities.       

I don’t want to think about the environment. I shudder at what will happen to scientific research I am terrified by the thought that know-nothings have taken over.

I recently discovered a term, kakistocracy, which means government by the least qualified or most unprincipled. Is this where we are going?

 I am hoping is that this country has enough momentum to keep going in the right direction in spite of a new leadership that looks down upon everything I hold dear. I am hoping, but I am not sure it will.