I am so happy! It’s been a rare emotion these past dark weeks and month and even years--as I read somewhere recently, the Harris-Walz campaign could be called “MALA” (Make America Laugh Again). How apt. Charles Blow had a great column in the NYT today (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/opinion/kamala-harris-walz-democrats.html?smid=em-share) on the campaign’s “politics of joy.” I and so many of my friends are laughing and smiling again, excited and enthusiastic as we could not be for the Biden campaign.
I love Joe, and so thankful for the great job he’s done as president, but so grateful he’s made room for the next generation, as so many of us had hoped.
So, I thought I’d repost this old piece, written in joy when Kamala was chosen as Joe’s VP. When I looked it up to see if it had currency for the present moment--the whole piece seems like a “deja-vu” experience, in light of the current amazing emotional turnaround everyone I know has been feeling. And especially because of the Dobbs decision and Project 2025 (every page a horror), which display perfectly how the Republicans want to take us women back to the time in which I grew up.
What relief!
I believe she picked the ideal running mate and will win the election. We have to work hard, contribute what we can, to make that happen, and as Joe said in his poignant speech, to save democracy.
Here’s the post from four years ago:
I’ve felt so depleted for the last few weeks that I’ve not been able to summon the energy to write a new blog post. I had wanted to write about John Lewis and his challenge to all of us to build what he called the “Beloved Community,” to get into “good trouble,” and the need for us to stand up for what we really believe. How important it is to tell the truth. Bush and Clinton, as well as the others who spoke at his funeral were so eloquent and inspiring, and I cried to hear and see Obama, to know so deeply what I’ve been missing. I wanted to hang on to that feeling of inspiration and yes, love. And to share it. But then the funeral was over, and we were back to gratuitous bullying, idiotic tweets, deadlocked Congress, Qanon-believing potential Congress people.
I finally began a post calling my feeling by its name--- “Depleted,” ---finished yesterday. Here’s how it began:
When my labs were puppies, I would buy them adorable stuffed toys—monkeys, squirrels, pheasants, even fish. The toys always had squeakers inside, and the first thing the pups would do (when I wasn’t looking) was to try to tear the toy apart, rip out its stuffing to get to the squeaker they, for some reason, seemed to prize. I would carefully put the squeaker and stuffing back into the squirrel or monkey and get out the ancient sewing kit my mother made for me when I got married. Needle threaded, I would sew the rent fabric back up as tight as I could.
Of course, the pup would do it all over again.
I wrote that I felt my stuffing was being torn out—by the pandemic and its stripping of options from our lives, by the fascist monster in the White House and
his minions, their cruel travesties against the American people and the stream of lies that pour forth from their mouths daily, by the swelling underbelly of racism in this country that is now becoming mainstream. Then came storm Isaias, which hit my state especially hard and knocked out power and internet for more than a week.
It all seemed like too much. I feared for my squeaker—the stuffing rippers were almost there.
Then came Biden’s announcement of his VP.
I had been hoping he would choose her. I love Susan Rice, but she had too much exploitable baggage. All the rest of them were great too but each had issues that could easily be abused by the Trump campaign and Trump himself, Abuser-In–Chief.
Kamala. A woman! A woman of color! Of course, we’d known about the woman part, but to actually have it confirmed, to see them together, to hear her fabulous speech, feel her vitality, her energy, beauty, and skill with words—her woman-ness--it filled me up again.
I grew up in the forties and fifties, in a traditional family, a very Catholic and conservative one. Women were chattel, owned by men, children were seen and not heard, girls were “less-than.” We knew boys had and would grow up to have more power than we did—all we had to do was look at the world, ruled by men—priests and bishops, doctors and lawyers, bus drivers and store clerks, presidents of colleges, principals of schools full of female teachers, Congress, judges, and of course, the president, vice-president, and entire cabinet. After college, I taught in an inner-city girls’ Catholic high school of 6,000—6 orders of nuns, 11 female lay teachers, and who was the principal? Father Friel. Same in my grammar school, Father Colton, although my high school and college were led by woman—in the case of college, a very strong and brilliant woman, Sister Margaret. But they were the exception.
In my world, fathers ruled our households while most of our mothers scrubbed and cleaned, vacuumed, did all the childcare, and prepared meals that were seated only when the man of the house arrived home. Women could hope for marriage as a future, borrowing power from a man’s prestige and standing, especially if they were pretty. Nurse, nun, or teacher were the available options for women’s work, if in fact husbands even allowed the wife to work outside the home.
The texts and poems we read in school were all written by white men. We call them dead white males now, and laugh, but it was my reality then.
It was a grim world for girls in many ways, but we knew no other, as there were no female role models in positions of power.
I was aware even then, I did not want a future like my mother’s life, though I married young to a man I loved. We had been equals in every way when we met and dated, but the labels of husband and wife, as well as the birth of two sons in quick succession and his nascent medical career thrust us into similar traditional roles. I did teach until I was let go for being pregnant (in a Catholic school!) but then opted to stay home with my boys, not wanting the influence of a caretaker to replace my own.
So there I was, in my mother’s life--- sort of, anyway. The difference was of course that my husband was not the autocrat my father had been, though his studies left little time for sharing housework, cooking and child-care.
I railed against it all, in love with my two boys and my husband, yes, but yearning to see women in positions of power and to feel some of my own. Then came the women’s movement of the seventies---I was a charter subscriber to MS. Magazine, and avidly embraced the tenets it espoused. Finally, shreds of hope.
But as we all know, change has been much too slow. I’ve devoted my entire professional career to creating women’s community, supporting women’s voices and belief in women’s strength and power, trying to achieve it in my own life as well as in those of other women. And I’m proud of all whose lives I have touched and those who have touched mine.
So. All this backstory underlies my pure joy in Kamala’s elevation to the VP-elect. To see a woman my son’s age, full of brilliance, vitality, authenticity, and beauty, that radiant smile, partner with a man I respect to seek the two highest offices in the land, gives me such hope. The thought that they might be able to unseat the illegitimate monster who soils the Oval office with his presence is enthralling and energizing.
A woman in the White House! Yes!
Those of you who have read I Am Not A Juvenile Delinquent know I speak of hope as dangerous, and it is. Wishing or dreaming or praying does not make a thing happen, expectation is risky and foolish---but I’m going to indulge for a bit, let myself be inspired by this glorious possibility.
For now, my squeaker is safe, in this nest of fresh new stuffing.
************
Thanks to all who wrote with concern about my vertigo. For now, it is gone, thanks to something called the Epley maneuver. And interestingly enough, the day I started the maneuver was the day after Joe left the campaign. Coincidence?