We are nearly three weeks post-election. The results still feel impossible, improbable, and incredibly sad. Here is what I am doing to keep myself together:
Reading more news, as Woolf would, because knowledge is power.
Thinking about the importance of creativity, as Woolf argues in “Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid” (1940).
Eating more chocolate. Leonard and Virginia were thrilled to find chocolate creams in a local shop after the Great War.
Drinking more wine. Cecil Woolf once told me he remembered the Woolfs enjoying their wine outdoors in Tavistock Square.
Spending time with like-minded friends, as the Woolfs did with the Bloomsbury group.
Collecting memes that make me think, give me hope, or make me laugh. Here are a few of my favorites:
As a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world. – Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (1938)
I once wrote that famous Virginia Woolf quote on the wall of my office because it resonated with me. However, it has never resonated with me as strongly as it does today, the day after a U.S. presidential election that will allow a fascist to lead our country for the next four years.
Along with many others in the United States who value freedom, justice, truth, peace, kindness, and love — I find it devastating to face the reality of four years with a president who values none of those things.
But like Woolf — and like countless other women throughout this country and the world — I will not give up the fight. I will never surrender.
Instead, I will continue to fight for all the things I value. I will look to the words and actions of Woolf and others to guide my thinking and my life as we move forward to keep light alive in this dark, dark time. I will do my best to create a close community like the Bloomsbury group that I and my friends can count on for support.
If you have additional advice for me — and others — please do share it in the comments section below.
Virginia Woolf’s advice for defeating fascist thinking
Back in 2017, after Democrat Hilary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election to the most horrible of Republican candidates, I — like many people around the globe — was deeply concerned about the future of our country and our world. So I turned to Woolf for wisdom.
I never thought that essay would have a long shelf life. But as things have turned out, it still applies today — perhaps more than ever — as we grieve the defeat of yet another woman, Democrat Kamala Harris, who brought such brilliance and joy to the campaign trail.
Now, thanks to a Facebook reminder from Woolf friend, Emily MacQuarrie Hinnov, I will add a quote she shared from Woolf’s 1940 essay, “Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid,” as we move towards a frightening four years with a man who admires dictators holding the highest office in our land.
Who is Hitler? What is he? Aggressiveness, tyranny, the insane love of power made manifest, they reply. Destroy that, and you will be free…Let us try to drag up into consciousness the subconscious Hitlerism that holds us down. It is the desire for aggression; the desire to dominate and enslave. Even in the darkness we can see that made visible. We can see shop windows blazing; and women gazing; painted women; dressed-up women; women with crimson lips and crimson fingernails. They are slaves who are trying to enslave. If we could free ourselves from slavery we should free men from tyranny. Hitlers are bred by slaves…We must create more honourable activities for those who try to conquer in themselves their fighting instinct, their subconsicous Hitlerism…Therefore if we are to compensate the young man for the loss of his glory and of his gun, we must give him access to the creative feelings. We must make happiness. We must free him from the machine. We must bring him out of his prison into the open air. But what is the use of freeing the young Englishman if the young German and the young Italian remain slaves?
Post-It notes written by visitors and added to a display at the “People Power Fighting for Peace” exhibit at the Imperial War Museum in London in July 2017.
