ARE THESE THE WINDS OF CHANGE?

I never expected things to go this way.  I’m scared.  I’m always wary but usually of things like a bad winter or even a rise in sea level due to a warming north pole — two things that are evidently connected.  I say “evidently” because that’s what the evidence tells us.  But that’s not really what is disturbing my sleep now.

It’s Trump.

I agree with Ken Olbermann www.gq.com/story/watch-the-closer-keith-olbermann  He is evidence-based and sums it up accurately.  Even the local Flat Earth Society, even the people who keep their tin hats handy in case the aliens kill another cow, are feeling uncertain now.  They thought that, once elected, Trump would drop his disguise and become rational.  

NOT.

The most thoughtful people in town (women) defended Trump, mostly because they despised Hilary and her pant suits (they wear jeans).  Now they’re trying not to think, binging on housework and holding family close, using medicinal chocolate.  I don’t bring up the subject.

We have met the enemy and he looks like a kewpie doll and has the mentality of Clem Kadiddlehopper.  I have two thoughts:  one is gratitude for my neighbor who almost secretly shoveled out my snowed-in driveway — never asking for gratitude but going ahead as the people here have always done to help each other.  The other is that Trump has got to be the dorsal fin of the shark to have gotten to this position of President Elect.  There must be a lot more holding him up than some kind of neurotic compulsion of the population.  

I don’t think the choice ever was change versus the status quo.  Change was murdered in its cradle by the global Status Quo Board of Directors.  And something is fiddling with my internet connection.

This time of year people make lists of blogs in Montana.  They are always political, always from the high-pop mountain cities, and often written by people under forty who didn't grow up here.  When I first came back in 1999 I was writing under the radar because everyone thought of me as an historical extension of Bob Scriver.  Then I got his biography written.  (Which was ignored because as one veteran told me, books are only bought by distributors if a salesman comes and tells them what is important, and anyway this book was published in Canada and I only wanted people to read it because I’m a bitter old woman.)  At least I’ve never worn a pantsuit. Amazon shows the covers of my other published books.

Then came blogging.  Wheeee!  Amazon links to my main blog.  But I’m still under the radar.  Rather glad of it, actually.  Because I write scary.  I’m not bitter: I’m reckless.  And I’m reckless because there is less and less to lose by speaking out, joining “The Resistance.”  I wish Olbermann weren’t sponsored by a men’s magazine focused on style.  It’s too easy to brush him off.  (He wears pantsuits but at least they're not three-piece.)

But I should stop defining people by their choices of identification.  For instance, one of the most intelligent and connected-to-reality publications on the Internet is called VICE and came to my attention because of an exposé of “law and order” on the rez at its worst.  The report was accurate and a reporter came here to see, instead of depending on second hand stuff.  But it also prints material that matches its title.

The wind is rising, as was forecast, and the work of my neighbor in shoveling my driveway out is being erased by larger forces, the global east-flow jet stream among them.  So do I go see if I have mail, bundled up in my down rancher coat, or shall I just hunker down and wait until tomorrow?  At the moment I vote for hunkering.

But when it comes to Trump, I think that’s the wrong choice.

This is less than my self-imposed quota of a thousand words, but I need to go dig around to see if I can find some chocolate, since I won’t be making it to the store until tomorrow.