The Sound of Silence

When I walk in my classrooms this morning, I'm greeted with the sound of silence. A few people skim through their phone screens, but most students seem stunned, staring ahead vacantly. Some have swollen eyes that they didn't bother covering with makeup.
"It's going to be okay," I tell them.
I have to be the grownup, even though they are all technically adults.
In our county, we voted overwhelmingly for the first female president 60% for her and 34% for Trump. That means we're surrounded by people who feel the same that we do.
But Trump won the electoral votes. Trump will be the 45th president, and that scares many of my students.
Most of my students haven't had soft lives in the suburbs. They attended urban schools or they came to Columbus from Somalia or Palestine or Mexico. Some of them wear head scarves. Some of them are gay or lesbian. They're going to a community college so they can afford to pay class by class to earn their degree. They thought they were part of America.
Last night's vote convinced them that they'll never be accepted here.
"We've had bad presidents before," I encourage them.
I say things like, "He's probably more moderate than we think."
I make them feel a little better. Maybe this won't affect their lives, but truthfully, it probably will.
It will affect them in the laws that are enacted by Congress and the Supreme Court justices who will be appointed for life.
"We are all responsible for protecting each other," I remind my students. "We're all Americans and we have the same civil liberties. Our work is just starting."
We can't joke about it yet -- maybe never.

Maybe listening to Hilary Clinton will provide some closure.

National Anxiety

I went to bed Sunday night after the entire Presidential debate. That's fairly late for me since I usually get up at 5 a.m. But as I lay my head on my pillow, I felt a buzzing  in my chest, in my stomach. I couldn't settle the agitation. I turned on Pandora nature sounds, setting it to go off within half an hour, but I was still awake when it went off. What was going on with me? Why was I so unsettled?
My daughter called me for the third day in a row. She wanted to talk while she was driving. She felt on the edge of an anxiety attack. She couldn't understand why they were happening; she hadn't experienced them for awhile.
Then she stopped. "I think it was the tape that came out on Friday," she said, making a connection with her anxiousness and the bragging of a powerful man that he can force himself on women any time he wants.
That kick started the nausea that she feels, the racing of her heart, that feeling of metal in her mouth.
I don't think she and I are alone in this kick-in-the-gut feeling.
Women have known men like this all our lives. Sometimes we're strong enough to fight back, sometimes we wonder did we do something to lead them on, and sometimes we swallow the uncomfortableness and never tell anyone.
When I was a girl, 11 or so,  I went with my cousin to visit her grandparents on her father's side. They were a lovely old couple. I sat on the porch swing with the grandfather while my cousin went with her grandmother to the garden. The man's arm resting on the back swing reached over and snapped my bra strap.
Thwack. I felt the elastic and heard the twang.
I was shocked. I sat still, wondering what I should do. I let a minute go by before I slid off the swing, saying I was going to find my cousin. He laughed.
I never told anyone that happened. I felt ashamed that a nice old man would have done that to me. He obviously didn't see me as a little girl but as a sexual object, even at that age. I never went with my cousin to her grandparents' house again.
Of course, it's different when it was boys my age who would pull my bra strap. The power makes a huge disparity in how women feel -- like we have no way out. We only have to grit our teeth and take it.
So as we both dealt with uncomfortable sensations this week, I suggested to my daughter that she might  tamp down the anxiety if she stopped listening to political news and if she went to the early polling place to vote.
"Once you vote, maybe you'll feel some sense of resolution, knowing you've done what you can to prevent him from winning," I said.
She hasn't gone to vote yet and she called today after retching over the toilet at work. I don't think she'll be able to make it to early voting during the week since the polls are open 8-6 and she works 9-5. So she'll have to wait until Oct. 29 when the polls stay open on the weekends.
I hope both of us can turn our attention away from the ugliness that has invaded our society, until we can put it to rest on November 8.

Ignorance is Bliss

Yes, I know that the title is a cliche, but I've found that I wish I were ignorant about some things during this political season.
Whether you're liberal or conservative, don't you wish you didn't know the politics of the companies you buy food and laundry detergent from?
Recently, company leaders have been coming out in support of one politician or another.
The owner of Papa Johns pizza complained that under the new health care law, he would have to charge 12 to 14 cents more per pizza. (To me, that seems a small price to pay for health care. It sure wouldn't dissuade me from buying a pizza.) But truthfully, I'd rather not know Papa Johns' politics. I enjoyed their pizzas. Notice that is past tense. Now I feel like I don't want to support a company that automatically plans to push any costs onto the customers rather than the shareholders and doesn't see its employees worth insuring.
Same thing with Chick Fil A. They have delicious chicken sandwiches, but I don't feel like I should go to a restaurant that openly discriminates against gay people. There are no laws they are being forced to follow, so why did the owner share his feelings on it? Religious beliefs? Plenty of people in the 60s thought it was antiChristian for blacks and whites to marry. Would we have supported them? Taking a stand pro-discrimination is always the wrong side of history.
So now I'm getting hungry just because of politics.
Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, makes no secret of his politics either. He thinks he and other rich people should pay more taxes. If people are conservative, are they taking their business away from Geico and Fruit of the Loom and other companies owned by Berkshire Hathaway?
Companies should be smarter. They may want to complain about taxes or regulation or policies, but speaking out can lose them 50 percent of their customers, which seems like its a greater financial hardship.
Keep your politics to yourself, companies, and let me keep eating your delicious food.