Every morning since Tuesday I wake and think it was all a terrible, awful, no-good dream. That we are poised for our first female president, not a 21st-century fuhrer. Then the reality of what our country has wrought settles like a two-ton anvil on my chest, and I can’t breathe. I can scarcely stand up.
I rely on my dreams to chart my and other people’s paths–to let me know what is and isn’t possible. Here is the dream I had last night. It is far from a balm. It is a blurt, a dive into the wreck, a finger pointed at myself. A reminder that we each have to take a hard, long look at ourselves if we’re to move forward.
I was in a huge, gas-guzzling SUV–the kind of conspicuous-consumption vehicle I would never ride in, let alone own. I was stuck on a long drive with suitors I’d rejected over the years. Some I’d rejected long ago, when I was at my most conventionally attractive and least woke. Others I’d more recently spurned, mostly for reasons like them being married or bigots or narcissistic asses. All I’d rejected too carelessly and callously. All really hated me–it was a thick cloud in the air, this hate–and one of them was at the wheel. I was in the other front seat, vulnerable and powerless. The vehicle was moving insanely rapidly and insanely recklessly. These people did not seem like they cared if they were killed. They were dead-set on killing me and didn’t mind if they took themselves down in the process.
Every morning since Tuesday I wake and think it was all a terrible, awful, no-good dream. That we are poised for our first female president, not a 21st-century fuhrer. Then the reality of what our country has wrought settles like a two-ton anvil on my chest, and I can’t breathe. I can scarcely stand up.
in the other front seat, vulnerable and powerless. The vehicle was moving insanely rapidly and insanely recklessly. These people did not seem like they cared if they were killed. They were dead-set on killing me and didn’t mind if they took themselves down in the process. 