This is not about the election

But it's about a different election, 20 million years ago when I was a young mom, home with my two little kids and we didn't have cable TV and of course there was no social media to be addicted to, but still, I somewhat followed the news, and the news was that on election night, there would be a winner declared. 

I told my son this news very confidently and he believed me because my word was gospel to him and the only time he even came close to doubting me was that time he ran across the backyard barefoot and got stung by a bee and screamed at the top of his lungs, in pain, but more, I think, because he was enraged at me because I'd told him not to be afraid of bees, that bees would only hurt you if you hurt them.

While I tried to treat the bee sting, he screamed that I'd lied to him and he DID NOT HURT THAT BEE! And I told him that Okay, true, he hadn't hurt the bee on purpose, but he had, in fact, stepped on the bee and even if that was by accident, the bee didn't know it and was now dead. 

Which probably really hurt.

All was forgiven at that point and I was back in my son's good graces and a fount of trust and wisdom for him again, until--

Election Night. 

That night my son's first grade teacher had given the class a US Map so they could color the states red or blue and an assignment to create an election booklet, which would include pictures of each candidate and a little write up about each one, with the last page showing a picture of the winner.  

My son stayed up watching TV long after his bedtime and most of the states were colored in, but Florida was looking iffy, with some TV stations calling it for one candidate but then backtracking, which was all very confusing and my son was getting upset about what to do with his blue and red crayons.

We sent him to bed and he was a wreck about it. HOW WAS HE GOING TO FINISH HIS HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT? WAS FLORIDA RED OR BLUE? and WHICH MAN WAS THE PRESIDENT? 

I promised him he would know in the morning. 

Dear reader, do I need to tell you that the tears of outrage and betrayal the next day greatly surpassed those of the Bee Sting Incident? 

That problem was fairly easy for me to solve for my son: Put both of the candidate's pictures on the last page.  

But it was not easy for everyone else and twenty million years later, with many of the same people in THIS election involved in THAT election (SEE KAVANAUGH. SEE AMY CONEY BARRETT, both lawyers advising Bush's team when his BROTHER the governor of Florida and the Supreme Court stopped the recount with Bush 537 votes ahead--giving him the state and therefore the election) which at the time I wasn't as outraged about as I should've been,

probably because I was a young mom with little kids at home and it was simpler and infinitely more comforting for me to believe that the people in charge had our country's best interests at heart and would never knowingly deceive us by putting power and party over country,

but yeah, 

So I was wrong.

 

Driving in Cars with Dogs and Cats

A few days after the election, my husband and I went on a spur of the moment trip to the woods. We booked a cabin, overfed the fish, threw the dog and the cat in the car and went on our way.

The dog shivered and panted and salivated on my lap. The cat sporadically moaned in the back seat. My husband and I didn't talk much. I don't know if this is the difference between men and women in general, or specifically a difference between us, but we were reacting differently to the post election landscape.

The weekend before the two of us had tromped around town canvassing and reminding fellow Ohioans to vote. We were buoyed by the camaraderie of the canvassing group, the energy and hopefulness and excitement, the sense that we were contributing to something greater than ourselves, something important.

Now, a few days later, I was having trouble sleeping. I kept bursting into tears at random awkward moments. My husband was stoic. Sympathetic but trying to be realistic.

A few days' escape into the woods would do us all good, he decided.

The cabin was tucked away in the mountains. We couldn't get a cell signal and for most of the time we were cut off from the world. We hiked through woods and around rock formations and caves and waterfalls. The people we did run into, we didn't interact with. The dog was joyous. The cat loved prowling around an unfamiliar cabin.

At night my husband and I sat out on the deck overlooking the woods in a hot tub. I was gearing myself up to settle down. Sip wine. Listen to Norah Jones. The burbly hot water felt kinda nice. Maybe everything was going to be okay.

I looked up and there was a freaking full blown raccoon walking across the deck rail, two feet from my husband's head.

Miraculously, I kept my wine from spilling as I tore the hell out of the hot tub.

I only managed to write a few words that weekend.

All month I've been working on a new novel, pledging to write 50,000 words by the end of November for the annual NaNoWriMo. I was plugging my way slowly through a gigantic expanding mess, feeling a lot like Sisyphus, the poor sap from Greek mythology who's cursed to push a boulder up a mountain every day and then watch it roll down at the end of the day. Also, I think he got his liver pecked out by giant birds.

What was the point in writing another mess of a novel?

And then at the same time, I was revising a novel for my agent, delving back into a previous mess of a novel and trying to make it somehow less of a giant mess.

My husband and I went for another long walk. We lost the trail for a while and came out on a windy road in the middle of nowhere and stumbled onto an old church that looked like it belonged on the set of The Walking Dead. 

At night back in the cabin in the middle of the woods, my husband and I curled up on the couch with the dog and cat, cut off from the world and wondering what the hell the raccoon might be doing out there on the deck.

The drive home, we didn't talk much again. At some point our phones picked up a signal and pinged on, all of the messages and notifications and emails scrolling out on our screens if we wanted to look at them.

We didn't. The dog shivered and panted and drooled. The cat occasionally let out an unearthly yowl.

Home, and back to normal or whatever normal is.

Yesterday I reached 50,000 words on my messy NaNoWriMo novel. I "won" and they gave me a special badge.

Today, I finished up another edit for my agent. The book is clean and lovely and far from messy. It's not perfect, but it's good, I think. I hope.

Three weeks after the election and everything is the same.

Everything is different.

But as always, I do what I do. I write to find my way through.