Dogwood Thursday: November 10

Like everyone I know, the events of election day have found me stunned and upset.  I’d say that I’m angry, but that emotion doesn’t really plumb the depths of my disappointment and anxiety about Tuesday’s outcome.  Like so many other people, I was convinced that Hillary would win on Tuesday.  As the electoral college map began to fill with support for Donald Trump, I spent at least a few hours simply not believing what I was seeing.  It wasn’t just that Hillary was losing (even typing that word hurts), it’s that she was losing to Donald Trump.  He’s hateful, ignorant, unprepared, undeserving…there is no end to the ways this man is not suited for the responsibilities of the presidency.  To watch a woman candidate whom I admire and respect lose to Donald Trump. It’s painful.  And, as Hillary said on Wednesday, it’s going to hurt for a while.

On Wednesday, having stayed up half the night to watch the disaster unfold, T and I headed to work and then numbly texted one another.  At one point she noted that the squirrels didn’t look any different.  I thought of that this morning as I stepped outside to make a picture of the dogwood tree.

All the leaves are now gone, so it looks different than last week.  But the trunk stands sturdy and the empty branches are ready for winter.  There’s a strength in that kind of endurance.  Like the squirrels, the dogwood is doing what needs to be done.  

I think there’s a lesson in that for me.  I can’t change the fact that Donald Trump is the president-elect.  But winning the electoral college as he did doesn’t change the fact that Hillary won the popular vote.   As of this writing, she has the edge by more than 330,000 votes.  It’s not going to make a difference about who is in power, but it makes a difference to me.  More of us voted for unity and being stronger together than the reverse. That’s a glimmer of hope in a very grey landscape.

But it is hope; sturdy, solid, I’ll be-here-tomorrow hope.  I always say that I live in hope and I mean it.  And should hope prove elusive, the dogwood is just outside the window, reminding me that sturdy hope trumps hate.