A new day in the best way

Yesterday, I felt hopeful for the first time in months, years really. Almost giddy, I watched the inauguration. I cheered for Harris, clapped and raised my arms in joy at Biden's honest sincerity and cried when Amanda Gorman spoke her beautiful poem, The Hills We Climb". 

It felt so real. So true. Years of the surreal and manufactured realities has made me appreciate truth. It has made me appreciate bipartisanship and civility.

On January 6th, insurrectionists tried to take our democracy away. They tried to break us with their fury. But we won. We won.

There is still a lot to do. As someone who sees the broken criminal system firsthand (I try and no longer call it the criminal "justice" system), there is so much change that must happen. Systemic changes. Changes aimed at the very foundations of a criminal system that is based on retribution, and perpetuated by racism and denial of its inequities. Poverty is taking over and home and food insecurity is rampant. Mental health issues are on the rise. And the pandemic has made the problems even worse.

Where do we go from here? Here's what we do. We push our leaders to do more. We ask for a true democracy. Where everyone is treated equally and with compassion for all. 

Messy days

I'm a mess. I'm wearing inside out pajama bottoms and a torn punk rock tee. My hair is ratted and matted, and my curly locks are jumbled together like my thoughts. I am sans shoes and bra and have a leopard handkerchief around my hair to hide the gray.

It's a county holiday but I'm underwater at work. I have to put in at least a few hours to get ahead for the week. I go through my calendar, and start documenting files and reading reports. 

The pandemic has created a backlog and this week I will pay the price. I started working on this mammoth week on Friday. I had anxiety all weekend about it so decided to work today to alleviate the stress. I have a new tactic where I put emails in drafts to send out later. It allows me to prep without seeming like I'm too far ahead.

I decide to go for a drive to my favorite coffee shop to get coffee and avocado toast. Blasting Sledford Mods, I roll down the windows and sing along. Speeding down Glen Helen Parkway, I feel alive and free.

The traffic light turns green and I make a right on Sierra. Pulling into Klatch Coffee's drive-thru, I look in my rear view mirror and it's worse than I thought. I look a fright. 

But fuck it. We're in a damn pandemic and I need coffee more than I need to impress anyone. Embrace the mess, I think to myself. And I promise myself to brush my hair later. 

I guess the point of all this is to show that I, like many of you, are struggling to keep it together. But I am keeping it together. One day and one espresso at a time.

Strange days

The limits of written discourse are clear here. There is really no effective way to convey how I feel typing this out in tiny characters on my phone at 5 am.

The house is quiet. All I can hear is the dripping of the faucet.  This has been a strange week and I am in a strange mood. I've had a rock made up of anxiety and fear in my stomach all week. I feel as if I am in a nightmare of a fairy tale and swallowed a poison apple whole.

When things happen of a historic nature, I don't think we can always process them as historic. All of the shocking and horrifying moments on Wednesday, January 6th, felt surreal. They felt like the plot of a bad Netflix show. Yet, they were our moments. History in the making to use a cliche. And us, all of us, sat staring at our televisions in our small pandemic lockdown worlds. You might have even ordered a pizza or downed a beer. I just sat there. Mute. Transfixed.

It's hard, even days later, to reconcile the events. They seem not quite real. Did that really happen is a question we might even ask ourselves in the future. 

Yes, it did. It really happened.

Everything still just seems so unsettled. With the transition looming, I still worry for our country. 

The one thing I realized this morning is that this last year since March has been a long car ride of worries. It's as if we are on a train to somewhere unknown. And as I lay here, I think to myself, I hope everything goes OK. By everything I mean the transition and inauguration as well as the pandemic and vaccine.

I'm sure that I, like all of us, just want this mess all to be over. I want to go back to the days pre-pandemic and pre Capitol riots when the world felt less chaotic and scary and not so tumultuous and unnerving. 

But I also realize that for many, especially for those less privileged than I, the world has always been this way. 

A day of infamy

Yesterday was an unbelievable and historic (in the worst way) kind of day. There are really no words. I was working from home when I finished prepping my calendar for court the next day. I had celebrated the Dems winning in Georgia. Then, taking a break, I saw a news alert that a mob had attacked the Capitol.

The rest of the afternoon, I was transfixed to the news. I couldn't tear myself away. I texted my husband who had no idea what was going on. When he got home we watched the news together. All night.

I had never watched a live certification before. It was tedious and also fascinating. I admired the senators who withdrew their objections and shook my head at those who persisted. I listened to the speeches. Some Senators had the courage to make impassioned statements defending liberty. And I marveled at the fact that, mere hours after an attack on democracy, our democracy was back at work.

Can you believe it? Our Capitol was overrun with insurgents and domestic terrorists. The security and police just fell apart and did nothing. It must be said, this was not protest. These people were armed and had an agenda. Where was the security? How did these people get in the halls? That will be an ongoing question.

But really, is it that surprising that this occurred? The President fanned the flames just hours before. He told them to go to the Capitol as did Giuliani who told them to engage in "trial by combat". As a lawyer in criminal defense, I see their conduct as incendiary. They instigated this riot. They should be held culpable.

I do not trust that this all ends here. We need to protect our democracy. 

I believe in laws and the Constitution so let's implicate them and Vice-President Pence should invoke the 25th Amendment at this point and take over. Even if the outgoing President objects, which he almost certainly will, Congress can delay a vote and leave VP Pence to oversee a peaceful transition. 

This needs to happen and fast.

 

Let love rule

Finally, we have put 2020 behind us. It was a year of chaos and unimaginable upheaval. It was a year of sadness. But as in most dark days, there were unexpected moments of joy and light.

The question really remains, where do we go from here? After months of this pandemic, who are we as a nation? After the protests highlighting police brutality and social injustice, has anything changed? After the defeat of a tyrannical leader, what will the next administration bring?

I think what I have realized this last year is that I, and by extension we, can achieve anything we put our minds to. And I mean anything!

My live podcast is something I never could have imagined doing before the pandemic. Years ago, really decades ago, I considered a career in broadcasting journalism, but was too insecure with my speaking abilities and weight issues to really go for it. But now, as an almost fifty year old woman, I don't give a fuck anymore what people think. 

I am me. In all my voluptuousness. In all my loudness. In all my volume and my laughter. In all my assertiveness. In all of myself. 

I love myself dammit, as exactly who I am.

That is my last thought and resolution for us all. 

No matter what 2021 brings our way, let's love ourselves and others.

Let love rule my friends.