No Britain, this isn't like Brexit

So first off to disagree with myself there are lots of reasons that the recent Presidential Election vote in the USA is similar to the slightly less recent EU Membership Referendum vote in the UK (Brexit)

But this isn't about the political similarities and about the 'climate' in the world today.

It's taken me all day to work out what it is that today feels 'more like' to me personally and it's finally surfaced.

In the UK local elections are held in some areas every year with an occasional 'fallow' year where the council remains the same and there are no changes.

In this system each 'ward' is represented by three council members and rather than being voted 'on block' as some areas do there is a rolling team of councillors for the ward... Sometimes one party, sometimes a mixture.

I once endured a bitter and horrible election campaign... For an available seat in our ward. Where the British National Party put up a candidate. All of the major parties upped their campaigning, our letterbox was under constant assault with campaign flyers and newsletters, existing councillors held extra 'surgeries' to talk about important issues in the area... Every single lamppost on the main road had one or several signs shouting the name of the candidates.

By the time the day came round we were somewhere near exhausted by it...

I went out and voted... I went out and and voted for the party I supported (Liberal Democrats), believing that it wouldn't be close and that even though I hadn't voted for the sitting candidate the ward would return another Labour member to public office and we could all go back to normal until the next year.

Everything changed that night as the count took place and the vote came in, I checked the paper (yes the paper not the Internet!) for the result... 6 votes separated the 1st and 2nd placed choices... And the councillor our ward had returned was the BNP member.

I remember crying, I remember being afraid, I was 22 and I the area I lived in had been my family home my entire life. I knew that with my Eastern European name this candidate would not be interested in representing my interests in the council chamber. I called my best friend from the bathroom floor with the paper laid out in front of me...

"Have you done the maths?" I whispered... "Did you vote Lib Dem?"

"Yes... " her voice quietly came back...

"I think my whole family did..." I said,
"If we'd all switched our votes, if we hadn't been complacent... If we'd realised what this election would mean afterwards... "

"They wouldn't have taken the seat..."

Our 8 family members between us could have elected a different candidate...

My mother told me the year later as we all went to the polls again that for the first time in her life she was going to vote "strategically" we would have to wait out the term of that councillor, but we could ensure that a long term well liked and hard working local councillor would be elected on this ballot.

No the election of Donald Trump is much more like the upsetting brush my friends and family faced with fascism on our own doorstep... It woke us up, it made us look closer, it made us think, it forced us to confront the fact that our neighbourhoods were divided against one another and think about how we could act next to create a future with more equality, more acceptance, and more love.

Terrible/Beautiful

I once wrote a blog about perspective, about seeing the light and the dark in the world and being able to hold them both in balance. About recognising something of life is about experiencing pain.

I've thought about those words I wrote a lot lately. The Decemberists last album was named after a lyric in one of their songs that subtly touches on the same theme… What a Terrible World,  What a Beautiful World.

So back on Sunday evening... I wrote this...

I'm in the Mediterranean just now, on my first holiday abroad since 2003… a holiday where I've been on my first ever flight… technology is amazing, people are amazing, the opportunities afforded to many in these modern times are just mind-boggling! And then…

Little things have niggled with me today, learning a little of the turbulent history of the Island of Cyprus… the suggestion that climate change may be responsible for the gloriously warm and sunny weather the area is experiencing just now… the thought of how close we are to those in Syria, to those crossing the rolling sea to escape from there, those trying to flee war, those who are trying to flee persecution in various African nations…

And then…

A message, from an old school friend, a young woman from our school year had just a couple of weeks ago been diagnosed with terminal metastasised cancer… and had after deteriorating very quickly died this weekend. It was expected, after the initial diagnosis and the conversations where we had all got in touch and tried to support each other, eventually we knew sooner rather than later the news would come that she was gone. And some people prayed, because they had kept their faith in a God, and some people thought of her family, and some people have no idea what to feel… and it all coexists … because it is life.

I thought that would be the saddest moment of my day, a brief moment of acknowledgement that someone who was an acquaintance mostly but was and had been a good friend and long time classmate to some of my own closest friends had died, too young, no age at all, for no good reason.

And then…

Then I saw a picture of a 14 year old boy in his school uniform… the eldest child of a friend my sister and I had in primary school. Someone who I have been back in touch with  because of the marvel that is Facebook. He had died very suddenly, a seizure had caused a brain injury that he was unable to be recovered from, despite his father's amazing bravery in putting into practice his first aid skills. His parents arranged for his baptism with a vicar of the Chaplaincy of the Children's hospital and his heart was able to be donated to help another ill child… but what on earth do you say to a mother who has lost her son?

I can say nothing, I can do nothing but love, sometimes there are no words sufficient to soothe the aching heart… the broken heart…

32 is too young to die.

32 is too young to lose a child.

32 is still a time to explore the terrible, beautiful world.

Because live is a precious opportunity, and the terrible thing is amount you get is as good as utterly random, but how you see it and spend it can be beautiful.