For the Record

History is written by the victors.

A year from now...
Four years from now...
A decade out...

I don't know who will be the victors writing history. I only know what I experienced today.

I canceled my account on X, née Twitter. I joined Twitter in 2009 when the site was young. I amassed a decent following and shared ideas about teaching and parenting and (eventually) politics. When Elon Musk bought the app a few years ago, I lightened my foot traffic, but still hung on. It is now a bridge too far. I really can't support anything--even using the free version of X--connected to Musk. I moved to Bluesky. Join me there.

I'm gobsmacked to see Musk glued to Trump's hip as the president-elect taps choices for appointments even The Onion didn't imagine.

My thoughts vacillate between two poles:

Pole 1) We'll get through this. Much of America understands checks and balances and the value of a shared understanding of freedom, democracy, and common decency. 

and

Pole 2) The boulder is rolling down the hill. We cannot stop it. Trump has made it clear he disdains the mores and civility that gave politicians guardrails in the past. He is ready to use recess appointments to people his power with yes-men (and god help me, yes-women).

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I mentioned in yesterday's post that I'm now reading/teaching Animal Farm and In Cold Blood. As it goes for English teachers, I'm also reading Our Town with my AP lit kids, Catcher in the Rye alongside a precocious freshman, and The Bell Jar (because I haven't read it before). Plus I have a slim volume of On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder deskside.

But what I really need to re-read right now is The Handmaid's Tale. I have forgotten too much since I read it--rather late--a few years ago. What I do remember, what I've been thinking hard about, and what I now need to revisit is the blind-sided dismay experienced by Offred as the life she knows is sucked so swiftly into the unimaginable.

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I hope I can look back on these posts with a chuckle. Oh, how dramatic! What a worrywort you were! What a waste of emotional energy!

And that reminds me of what I tell my children when they come to me with anxious thoughts. In our anxiety, we experience the sensations of dread and hurt even if the events have not, actually, transpired. 

Let's not give our anxieties control of our guts.

But let's also not turn blindly away from the history now in the making.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison