This is not a drill

In elementary school during the Cold War years, air raid drills were a bi-monthly exercise. We students single-filed it into the dark hallway to sit on the linoleum floor long enough for me to feel tragic and, if I really considered it, ridiculous.

As a bookworm daughter of bookworms, our house contained age-appropriate and you are way too young to be reading that books, which explains why in third grade I was reading, concurrently, Heidi and Hiroshima. Ergo, the pathetic absurdity of our civil defense protocol was not lost on me, but in those days, kids pledged allegiance and played along.

On January 20^th I felt the same stupid way, that I was being forced by slightly more than half of my fellow citizens to follow them out into a metaphorical dark hallway, but this time I put up a stink. I’ve told everyone I know and complete strangers that we are falling backwards into some abnormal and frankly fucking dangerous bullshit and I’m not on board. Both the rabidly Stockholmed and newly capitulated lemmings are about to find out how cliffs work.

Anyway, this is just to say I’m not budging. I’ll sit here at my desk with the blinds raised exposing my vulnerable presence and allow truth to break my heart while I write about it.

But know, please, that even in this Hiroshima moment, I’m still me, and I’ll never let go of Heidi.