The Morning After

We were on a week-long trip, visiting friends in New Mexico, and celebrating my husband Ted’s birthday. His birthday is on November 8, so our trip included Election Day. We’d both voted very early by mail, just about as soon as we could after receiving ballots. I’d been wearing my Harris/Walz shirt to the farmers market on Saturdays. I’d written, stamped, addressed and sent a hefty stack of postcards. I wouldn’t say we were super confident, but we were surely hopeful. If we’d been completely confident, there would’ve been no reason for this conversation: if this doesn’t go our way, worst case scenario, would we stay in the US? If not, where would we go? But that conversation, which so many others were having, felt so hypothetical and so overly cautious, maybe even a little silly. Harris would win; Americans value their democracy. Between chaos and calm, the choice was simple. Besides, who can just pick up and go? What about the house you own? What about Medicare? What about not abandoning the ship to the bad guys?

But I don’t think I ever entertained any of that to my core. It was just talk that was going around. 

On this week-long road trip, mostly we stayed with friends in Santa Fe, Farmington, and Corrales, but on election night, we wanted it to be just us, in a small, historic hotel, a block off the square in Santa Fe. We got settled, took a nice walk along the river, ordered in pizza, and got cozy. There was anticipatory excitement, as polls closed in Eastern time zones, and results started coming in. 

We alternated between ABC and PBS on television and had The New York Times live coverage up on my laptop. I was emailing back and forth with a close friend, who happened to be in Amsterdam, and he was telling me not to freak out when the red wave happens. That would be when places that count in-person voting before mail-in ballots would begin reporting their numbers, which would be heavily skewed toward Republican turnout at first.

So at first when The New York Times “needle” began pointing way past the midpoint, I didn’t let it worry me. It would come back our way; it was just a matter of time. But then it went further. And further. Knowing I would not be able to sleep if we learned that Trump had won, I decided to go to bed while still ignorant. I told Ted not to tell me whatever he learned as he stayed awake, watching, so when Ted came to bed, he knew but he didn’t say anything. He held me and we slept. 

In the morning, I was out of bed early and looked at my laptop. It was pretty much what I expected, based on how things had looked the night before, but it was still an assault to see it in print, with photos. He had won. We had lost.

Crying would’ve probably been a relief, but tears weren’t accessible. And the feeling wasn’t sadness as much as pain—like having been kicked in the stomach. Pain and disbelief that so many people in this country have been duped, have bought into the fake news. Had we been naïve to think that good would prevail over evil? 

The feeling, as it settled into bones and veins, was akin to grief after the loss of each of my parents. It was irreversible, a thing you now bore inside you; a thing that was not going to go away; a thing you must learn to live with. And knowing that the moment you were inhabiting was only the very first moment of the next FOUR YEARS—it was incomprehensible. It was, in a word, disgusting. 

There was coffee in the lobby, and I needed some. Reluctantly, I put on clothes and got semi-presentable. FUCK. YUCK. DAY ONE OF HELL. 

Then I opened the door which led out to a small courtyard, where after a few steps, I’d reach the double doors to the lobby. The outside air hit me in the face like a beautiful, fresh wave. It had rained overnight. There were puddles. Water in the desert is always a gift; but these puddles felt miraculous. Before taking the few steps on the brick walk, I looked up, where the shape of the inn surrounding this courtyard revealed a rectangle of sky. It was more white than blue, colored by storm, but it too seemed like a miracle. Look! Rain! Look! Sky! As though it were the first firmament I’d ever gazed upon.

If I knew another better way to describe this moment, if I were a poet, I’d do it, but that was just it—simple fascination with a puddle, and with the place from whence it came. 

We still have that. We will always have that. Step outside your shelter and your disappointment and dismay and devastation, and take a big, wide breath. Make time outdoors akin to your daily vitamin—or a vaccine during a pandemic. Take it all in—the air, the trees, the smells, the birds, the sounds, the hills and rocks and textures and sky. Let this build up in you until you have no choice but to smile.

---

MELANIE BISHOP is the author of My So-Called Ruined Life and is professor emerita at Prescott College. She lives in Prescott, Arizona.

GIVE TODAY