A Granny's Guide to the Resistance
Therapy for me--and anyone else who wants it.
As I watch current events in the U.S., I’m terrified of what may be to come. I’m still reeling at the reality that almost half of the country supports a man who embodies the absolute worst of us—avarice, lust, prejudice, misogyny, homophobia, ignorance, cruelty.
But I’m just a granny. My marching days are well behind me. I don’t have a lot of money—I’m barely making my bills, and I’m terrified that what little I have may be taken away from me. I’m terrified that the world my granddaughter grows up in will be bleak and dangerous for women. I’m discouraged because many of my neighbors and people I once considered friends seem to have an entirely different set of values than I do.
But most of all, I’m angry, and maybe salvation begins in the hearts of angry grannies.
At the end of this guy’s last term, I wound up with stage 3 cancer. Was it his fault—absolutely, yes. Because I love this country and all the weirdos in it. I love the diversity, the space, the oddball way we get to think however we want to. I love the way we do things that other countries fight wars over. I love how we vote on a normal workday as if running the country fits into our lives, like dropping the kids off at school and picking up a gallon of milk and a pizza for supper. Like it’s an inalienable right or something. I like the feeling that we are all part of a big family and we can gripe and whine and laugh at each other, but, in the end, we all value the same things.
I woke up every morning wondering what kind of idiocy he and his cultists would foist on us today. Just when I thought he and they had gone as low as they could, they would find a sub-basement none of us knew existed. I brooded, I cried, and I grew a tumor that nearly killed me.
So, all the things in the coming posts are things I intend to do and keep in mind as we go through the next four years—maybe two if we can make progress in the 2026 Midterm elections. They are things I can do despite being a granny and, in many cases, BECAUSE I am a granny. Some things are good for you, no matter who, when, or where you are. Others are specific to this time and this situation.
I hope my therapy is your therapy, too, and that we all see the other side in physical and (relative) mental health and know we did everything we could to help.
As I write this introduction to A Granny’s Guide to The Resistance, I’m watching the fall of Assad in Syria and thinking about the various civil wars in progress around the globe. And my fear is that we could be next. Civil War is a terrifying prospect, but not out of the question for us. Our country seems as divided now as it did in the 1800s—money, power, and all the old excuses, along with the rise of ‘alternative facts’ and the disinformation and propaganda techniques of domestic and foreign interests.
Surely, we have time and resources and common sense enough to stop this trend toward oligarchy and authoritarianism in its tracks. Otherwise, look for my next book—A Granny’s Guide to The Revolution, in which I’ll be giving step-by-step directions for building a cannon and smelting your own ammo.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.
BTW—I’m just a little bit witchy, so you never know what kind of magic may show up here and there along the way.
