Elections and Creativity

I've been feeling my creativity seep back in again, and it feels really good. Rusty, but good. I have no illusions that I will reach any sort of regular posting here (have I ever?), but resurrecting a place to occasionally be able to share thoughts feels like a good baby step towards feeding my literary creativity again.

So, to start us off, a poem. A poem that started writing itself on November 6, 2024, the day after the presidential election, and solidified itself over the next couple of days.

November 6

I wake up
And the world is exactly the same.
 
I eat, I breathe, I cook, I read
I work, I parent
I make lists, I cross things off my lists
I hug my children
I kiss my husband
I pet the dog
 
Sometimes I cry
 
I wake up
And the world is completely different.
 
A fundamentality of difference
A bifurcation of realities
Deeper than opinion
Wider than understanding
Longer than lifetimes
More broken than the hands that are supposed to hold us
 
I eat comfort
My breath hastens
I bake cookies
I read poetry that is trying to grasp for explanations, 
        or if not explanations then at least a way forward, 
        some way forward, 
        can we even still imagine a forward?
I work until my head hurts
I parent with as much gentleness as I can muster
I don’t make lists, but I cross some things off
I hug my family because I need to, 
        because family is what we make it, 
        because when our world breaks, 
        family is where we start telling the new story
 
I cry more often
 
I wake up
And my hands look old
Cracks splintering along the skin
Small brown spots proliferating across the decades
I wonder if this is the new reality,
        or one of multiple realities, 
        or just a reality for today, 
        and if my hands will be strong enough for the work that lies ahead
 
I wake up
And the world is exactly the same.
And the world is completely different.
And my family hugs me.
And I reach out to you.
And I hope.

— cmb 11/8/24