Tea and Oranges
Pissed off on election night and tea and oranges as self care.
I’m pissed off, a little numb and if I’m being honest, sick to my stomach at tonight’s election results, but I’m not surprised. He told us the president he wanted to be in 2015 when he came down the golden escalator with his fake tan and racist bluster. He’s part of an America that’s always been there, the one steeped in white supremacy, that exploits people and the planet for profit, aspiring to golden toilets and to be the *shirtless dictators who ride them (*best band name ever).
I want some Jameson, but I need tea and oranges. Tea and oranges tend to come through for me in a crisis. I walk away from the news stream playing election results and into the kitchen where the “Have a Great Day” chipped Snoopy mug I’ve had since I was eight mocks me, still sitting on the counter with the morning’s last swig of coffee. Morning feels like a lifetime of optimism and 270+ electoral votes ago. Suck it, Snoopy, flipping the mug my middle finger. I put the kettle on and sift through the tin for my last bag of Earl Grey. I peel an orange, wondering how much tariffs on Earl Grey tea will be.
Paychecks that are 66-78 cents on the dollar of those of men. Lack of constitutional protection of equal rights. Gender violence. Inequities compounded if you’re a Black woman. Unpaid home and care work. Workplace discrimination. The highest maternal death rate of any high-income country. The Dobbs decision. Lack of childcare. That’s the country that elects a racist assaulter of women, again, to be its representative to the world.
I take my tea and orange wedges to the bedroom where Evie is already crashed out and snorting as she chases rabbits in a dream, her big Black Lab paws twitching back and forth across the top of the blanket. She doesn’t care about the election; she doesn’t even care about pants. I look at the mountain of homework that’s waiting for me but I just can’t. Is the Department of Education really going to be abolished in a little over a month? I was about to take out some student loans to finish the next two years of my Bachelor’s, investing in that whole hopey changey future thing, a seemingly quaint ideal of the now past, as far back as this morning. Is loan forgiveness for public service going away? I just got accepted to the university and I’m way less certain about taking out those loans than I was a week ago. I’m not surprised or afraid. I’m angry as fuck that this is where we are as a people. I wonder when our shared humanity will catch up, when we start caring more about the quality of the water we drink than we do golden toilets.
I remember Angela Davis saying, “When one commits to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime.” My brain starts working its way through the familiar resistance checklist: Organize. Build relationships with your neighbors. Identify vulnerabilities in your community and establish care systems and action plans. Like Henry Rollins said, this is what Joe Strummer trained us for. I’m down for the revolution, but tonight, tea and oranges.