Welp, that happened…again.
Buckle up, folks, it’s Thinks&Feels™️ Time!
I have rather a lot of feels, and I’m not going to try to make them coherent or progress in any remotely insightful, relavatory way. Imma lay ‘em out as they come to me.
Firstly, I am hurting for my friends and beloveds who now face such massively increased existential threats. I hurt for you, I grieve with you, and I will damned will stand beside you or in front of you when that’s needful.
We are slogging through times we wished had never happened, but I won’t leave you to slog it alone. That’s a promise.
Not saying I’ll be any good at support, but I will (continue) to do my damnedest. I’m crap at protests or marches or any loud, crowded event, at but I am grand at making signs and making sure people eat & hydrate, and I actively enjoy being a dragon to assholes who say hateful things in my earshot. A small, twitchy dragon, but grr.
I want to bundle up all my non-white, non-cis, non-heteronormative friends up in cozy blankets and feed you cookies and hide you away from the hard things on the horizon. Which isn’t helpful, really, but that’s my feel. I protec.
On the other hand I have big, hard, prickly angry feels about the very many other people I know who I know are quietly or not-so-quietly celebrating the election results today.
Some are racist, misogynist, phobic assholes, some are willfully ignorant of the underlying realities that make “single-issue’ votes, “faith votes” and “protest voting” a collection of obscenities. To all of them, I would say, “I see you. I saw your Trump signs. I hear you make your remarks that you think are clever. I’ve known people like you all my life. And I know you think we’re friends, but come the apocalypse, I would slam the shelter door shut in your face and sleep with a clean conscience.”
I’m avoiding the media for at least another day because I know it’s all dissection and post-mortem analysis, and I think most political analysts are full of shit. My hot take is that a lot of people voted for Trump against their own best interests — people he has explicitly threatened and said on the record time and again that he (and those he puts in power) will work to put them down voted for him. They despise him, but think he’s got good ideas/would do a better job than Harris would’ve done.
Which says a hell of a lot about how deep the misogyny runs.
To men who feel that way, I would say, “Do you realize you are the reason women pick the bear?” And to the women—because damnit, I just know trump-loving white cis women had to tip the scales, I would say, “What the FUCK is wrong with you?”
Only I wouldn’t really say that. I’d ask questions. I’d “try to understand.” I’d get them to talk themselves in circles until they contradict themselves and get angry and stomp off….and then think about it hard, later.
Because that’s a lot more effective at changing people’s minds, and its damned satisfying to me. It’s a cat person thing, I think.
Anyway, I suspect most of the misguided souls who voted for him did it because they’re already scared and tired and worn out, and it’s nigh-instinctive for humans to trust leaders who blame other people for all the problems and confidently promise big solutions. I mean, there’s a reason swindlers are called CON men.
Anyway. I’d like to think those voters will feel betrayed when the Christofascist courts get around to declaring something about their existence illegal, or a family member gets shot by cops whose powers will keep expanding now, or when the laws Congress passes make them indentured servants of their employers, but they won’t. They’ll blame someone else.
And, ya know, I’ll still be blaming them. I’m all-in on blame-placing. This one is not on me.
That feel isn’t going to go away or get better, and I don’t want it to.
So anyway, I’m outta time for today’s write, so I’m wrapping up. I did warn you I didn’t have a coherent point to all this. Just…feels.
If feels are all you have, too, that’s okay. All the big bad feelings are legit valid. We can have feels together. Grief is a burden easier carried by everyone together. That’s why coffins get whole mobs of pallbearers.
Let’s take it all one breath at a time, one tick of the clock after another.
Chop wood. Carry water. Just keep swimming. All those things.
That’s all I’ve got for now.
Or! OR! if you like your local library, you could request a purchase. Free for you, sale for me, everyone wins.
Most libraries need the following info for ordering print books:
Title: Relics From A Traveling Show
Author: K. M. Herkes
ISBN: 9781945745201 (paperback)
Every library system does things a little differently, but most want their collections to serve their communities, so most of them are very responsive to patron requests.
If you like novels more than short stories, I recommend my series The Rollover Files for hopepunk tales of about an alternate world where moms with midlife crisis superpowers have been saving the world and making the military nervous since 1943.
I also have a completed, quirky slow-burn science fiction thriller duology with a romance chaser: The Stories Of The Restoration.
All my titles are available from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Hoopla, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Overdrive and many other fine booksellers.
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