The taste of the apple pie could not have been more bitter. The apples were given to us on November 8, 2016, the night Donald Trump was elected president. They had been moldering away in the vegetable drawer of our refrigerator until last week. They were given new life when my husband's sister discovered them while cleaning. She was visiting from Wisconsin and could not bare the thought of wasting them. Her task was complicated by the absence of both sugar and flower in our pantry. Nevertheless, the pie was baked and we shared it after dinner. I explained to Molly, John's sister, that the very thought of eating a pie made from those apples was stirring up memories of that impossible night of the election. She was more bothered, it seemed, by the prospect of wasting the decaying apples: she did have to toss some of them. The pie is history but the memories of the presidential election still haunt me.
That day, November 8, 2016, we were with our friend Paulette who lives in Fall River Mills, California. We don't use satellite or cable so we visited for lunch and an evening of sharing election returns on TV. We had done the exact same thing four years before when President Obama won his second term. There was an air of anticipation regarding the sure election of Hillary Clinton along with the pick-up of House and Senate seats. As early returns started to trickle in, we took time out to watch the Netflix documentary, "Thirteenth." Needless to say it put us in a less than jovial mood as we were given an awesome history of the reenslavement of black Americans. When we returned to coverage of the election it began to dawn on us. The impossible was actually happening.
Our drive home to Mt. Shasta at about one in the morning was morose. There was Donald Trump announcing that he had received a call from Secretary Clinton. While watching for deer along our path home I remember having the sensation that there had been a mistake. I kept wishing I were just dreaming and waking up would vanquish the imploding reality.
I am writing about my evolution from liberal to radical. This blog contains observations along the way. This is me during my arrest at the White House on September 2, 2011 to stop Keystone XL.
