Today is a day of mourning for Native Americans. It has been so for fifty years. As our country awakens again to the tragedies that have dogged us at every stage of our history, it’s difficult to find a holiday that can be celebrated without mixed feelings.
Truthfully, what holiday was ever free of baggage? These days were already burdened with the small and large issues we have with them, wrapped up in financial woes, boundaries with family members, or our own dark personal struggles.
If you go back to my very first blog post, I talked about the pressure of trying to make all the holiday magic by myself. In the couple of years since then, I’ve realized that I don’t have to do it alone.
After yesterday’s post I felt like I had to follow up because today was so different from the past several weeks.
I woke up this morning and had finished molting.
The night before the election just a week ago, I was anxious, but resigned. Soon, we would have an answer and we could move on with our lives having a sense of what the next four years would be like.
I wanted to write about how I was feeling at that moment, a written time capsule that I could look back on. But I didn’t.
I used to feel pretty isolated in our neighborhood. It’s not that anyone was openly unfriendly, we just didn’t talk to each other very much.
We aren’t the type of neighborhood that has block parties and drinks beer together while we listen to good music, shouting at our kids and our dogs, and contemplating the trajectory of the universe as the sun goes down.
We prefer to do those activities separately.
Every year in California, there is a big thing called Costume College. It’s a weekend where costumers, especially historical costumers, get together to dress up, geek out, and learn how to better their craft. Even though I was terrified and felt ill prepared, I signed up to go this year.
