The Doors of My Heart
Entries from election week: the dread, the heartbreak, and my reason to continue moving forward.
November 5, 2024 / Tuesday
I woke up with a hurting heart. A slight ache within my chest and tears prickling my eyes. I slept well but I woke up feeling very saddened and vulnerable. I feel as though no one talks about the dread that comes with election week, the deep pits that are constantly in your stomach, the sporadic headaches and migraines, and in my case: tender heartaches.
I needed to go outside, or the feeling would linger all day. Now that I know myself a lot better, I’ve caught on to the fact that if I feel like I need to go outside that actually means I need to have a good, strong sob under the sun’s ray. Which I promptly did the second my sock-covered feet sunk into the damp grass. Standing around the trees I trust most, I let myself break for a moment. I cried and sobbed and tried to suck in as much breath as I did so.
Devastation has sunk so far into my soul over the course of this election. There has not been a time in my life in which I realized how deep hatred runs in America. At the guise of being religious and holy, evil has masqueraded and spread like a virus throughout this country. And it breaks my heart. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nothing I didn’t expect. Yet, it’s still so devastating to see.
I’m a woman of color within the working class that cares deeply about the Earth and the people around me (whether I know and love them or not) more than I will ever care about the price of things. So, you already know who I voted for.
I’ve been learning how to deal with my heart. Frequently tender from empathy and a sadness I’ve been trying to uproot for about a year now. After crying, I knew I would have to love on myself a little extra today. My heart was still tender, but it wasn’t hurting as much anymore. I watered my garden and admired my growing greens and a peculiar white flower cluster growing in the bed.
I’m convinced the flower is Chamomile and is growing from the remnants of my uprooted Calendula plant. I’m not entirely sure if that’s possible but I’ve learned to not put rules on nature’s possibilities. In the bed, I also have Kale, Mustards, Collards, and Mealycup Sage all growing very greenly.
As I watered the garden, the fog dispersed a little and the sun started to peak brightly through the clouds, giving the garden a heavenly appearance. I went inside to grab my bouquet of flowers I bought from the farmer’s market this Saturday. I’ve been trying to keep them lively for as long as possible. The flowers drink the water so quickly I have to change the water every day. Today they were looking quite droopy, so I placed them outside in direct sunlight. I know how much the sun can help sad-looking things.
They sat in a vase in my yard for about an hour while I made lunch in silence. The kitchen was lit by the open door that led to the garden and the overhead, dim light connected to the oven, and all you could hear in the kitchen was the knife against the cutting board, the lighting of the gas stove, and butter sizzling on a pan. I chopped some eggplant, tomato, onion, and garlic and placed it all on a dish to roast. As it finished, I seared some grilled cheese sandwiches to eat with it.
Part of this heaviness on my heart is extremely familiar. The other layer —which I feel is a root to this dread— I haven’t computed just yet.
November 6, 2024 / Wednesday
I woke up drenched in sweat and trembling. In my spirit, I already knew who won. I made my breakfast, feeling absolutely gutted.
This is a devastation I am incredibly unfamiliar with. The subtle dread has taken root in multiple places in my body today: the pit of my stomach, the right side of my head, and (of course) comfortably sitting on my heart.
The truth is, I don’t have the privilege to assume I am being dramatic. I don’t have the privilege to assume that what has been promised by politicians won’t come to pass.
I could talk to anyone around me about how it feels being a woman seeing the outcome of this election. I can talk to anyone around me about being a Black person and seeing it. But what is indescribable and eating at my heart is being an Earth-lover and seeing the results. What is unspeakable is this inherit alliance to everything growing and living within nature and seeing the results.
The sobbing today was much stronger and left me much emptier than yesterday’s. The feeling that my core being, what is the root to my soul and tethered to my —and all of our— existence (nature) is being threatened is a feeling I don’t think I’ll ever have the words to describe. Yes, nearly everything about my physical appearance adds to the feeling. But what hurts the most is the feeling that all of who I am is on the brink of being destroyed.
In a non-depressive way, I asked myself over and over why is life worth living? Why should I continue on as if everything I have learned to love is not on the brink of crumbling beneath my feet?
Here is my why:
A family of Great Horned Owls took up a home in local trees during mid-October. A strong, cold gust of wind blew through the town the other night. It was chilly for days. My house —which at times seemed like a living being— creaked and sighed with the efforts of the wind as the owls hooted deeply.
Owls are my favorite animals. The hollows of trees which they live in are formed by the everyday occurrences of the Earth (wind, the falling of branches, fires, etc.) as well as the business of other creatures. Specifically, woodpeckers who are going about their life unknowingly or knowingly aiding in creating the habitat for the owls while on a quest for food. It’s one of my favorite facts about the owl and its life. So much on this Earth provides so much for something —someone— else by simply existing.
So much within nature is so unintentionally loving.
That love is what controls and propels so much of what I do, so many aspects of my daily life, and nearly everything I write and read. That love, an emotion that burns as strongly as anger and hate, is my why.
That love is what wakes me up in the morning. It’s why I do more than stay alive: I keep myself living and deeply enjoying every moment on this Earth. It’s why I keep finding joy within those small victories and mundanities. Why I allow the thrill of loving to be within my life on a daily basis. Why I beckon for romance. Why I keep fighting for what makes my soul soft.
What I know is this:
The only life worth living for me is a loving one.
If I let the circumstances of it all harden my heart, I am absolutely worthless.
If I let myself sit aside, watch it all burn down, and ignore the blind wish I am filled with1, I have failed. Tremendously.
And.
If the doors of my heart ever close, I’m as good as dead.2
- Yulani Sann
A reference to a fragment of “The Turtle”, a poem in Mary Oliver’s Dream Work collection: “…and you think / of her patience, her fortitude, / her determination to complete what she was born to do — / and then you realize a greater thing — / she doesn’t consider / what she was born to do. / She’s only filled / with an old blind wish. / It isn’t even hers but came to her / in the rain or the soft wind…” (pg. 55).
“If the doors of my heart / ever close, I am as good as dead,” Mary Oliver, Dream Work.(pg. 66)
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