Post-Election Reflections

I hate politics – or at least what politics has become in the US.

I don’t talk about who I voted for often and don’t typically ask others. Some would think that means I don’t think it’s important. I do. But instead of talking about politicians, I’d rather talk about issues. I’d rather talk about people.

Some would call me a liberal. That’s probably accurate with today’s way of thinking.

I don’t really think in those terms. I’m just me. I love people and embrace the way we are the same – and the way we are different. My love of travel is actually a love of cultures. I’m curious as to how people live in different places – what they enjoy and what they create.

I’ve struggled through this political season. I watch political commercials and they make me angry. I want to get into a discussion and say “But you’re missing something important…”

It seems no one cares, however.

I have friends who I love, but don’t always like. How can they take certain positions on a given issue, wanting everyone to conform to their beliefs?

I admit that I decided at one point I was going to give up one friendship. This friend is one from my early 20s. He is quite outspoken with his views and they are quite contradictory to my own. If I felt the heart I know he has when he spoke of such things, I think I could handle it much better. But my soul pleads, “Where is that beautiful, caring heart I know you had?”

After much thought I realized I don’t want to give up the friendship. I want to repair it. I want to create times like we shared in the past, when politics was not in the picture at all. We need to have fun together again. That’s go8mg to be my goal.

I got a harsh message yesterday about my stance on illegal immigrants. I understand the fears, but I don’t have those. Instead I want our country to be a haven of the downtrodden. That’s an old-fashioned word that fits.

I remember talking to a woman that lived in my apartment complex years ago. She had come here young to escape a country where life was not safe for young women. How did she get here? I have no idea. I never asked. But it was a country where people had a difficult time getting immigration status at that time, so she didn’t try, lest she get rejected and deported. The experience of some people is such that they expect rejection always.

I speak a lot about how we see things through our own experience, our own point of view. We can’t see life the way anyone else does, because we don’t live life the exact way others do. Even with my siblings, who grew up with the same parents in the same house – yet we are all so unique. Our experience doesn’t match perfectly. Some is the differences in age, some is the different way we processed our experiences or the people who surrounded us.

Anyway, back to that woman. She had raised three kids – all born in this country,. She had worked and supported herself and her children and paid taxes. Yet when she told me she was illegal and I said I would walk through the process of becoming a citizen.

“I can’t until my children are grown,” she said.

And that is what she did. How lucky we are to now have her as a legal citizen of our country. She wasn’t living near me at that point, but I know there was a relief fr stress she probably didn’t even know she has.

The friend who doesn’t think illegals should be in our country focuses on all those who have come into our country and committed crimea. I focus on my friend.

Should you be illegal for simply moving to a new place? Oh yes, that’s how it has already been done, but I struggle with the humanity of it all.

When a friend posted something this week about getting over our differences and trying to become unified as a country again,, another friend out into her. Her perspective is how can we tolerate people who support others who display abhorrent behaviors?

I certainly understand, but how does our country get behind politics if we don’t accept that we are a country of different thoughts, beliefs, and opinions, and often those are going to clash. So we build bridges by shunning people? I don’t think so.

I’m going to try to tell the stories of people I admire, sometimes caught in impossible situations. We need to be people who accept humanity and try to find good things to be the cornerstone on which we build the next version of our country.

It’s been a crazy week. I’m still working (either five or eight more days and I’ll be done) and I believe I was struck with carpal tunnel syndrome last week. I woke in such pain at 4:30 a.m. one morning and couldn’t even write with , my right hand that day. My job requires I write.

I have iced it and taken anti-inflammatories and my darling sister gave me a parcel of braces and such for my hand, along with some cream that is supposed to help. It’s feeling much better now. I’ll keep attacking it until this job is done and I hope I can keep it at bay.

And I interviewed another musician for the monthly profile I write for a local magazine and lined up my next two interviews. One interview I’ll do next weekend, for our January edition. I leave for my Antarctica trip December 14th and it will feel good making sure I don’t miss doing one article. I do love getting to know our local musicians better.

Some of my young friends, in particular, have broken my heart this week in their despondancy. One thing I have learned though my 64-years is to wait with expectancy for the good and know even I can make a small difference in the world by loving others well. I will stand beside those who are considered “less than” and will always fight for the United States to be a country of true freedom – even for those who aren’t like us.

As a plaque at our Statue of Liberty proclaims,

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

—-“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazurus