WHAT NOW? new Time: I’m joining @ 1pm. Emergency Lighthouse: All-patron open webchat today

Hello.

**update 10:31: the CHAT IS OPEN…I just changed the live time for me to join at 1pm…I can almost def make it by then. Sorry – today is a crazy family juggle.* KEEP CHATTING OVER THERE

**update 8:46 am . I may be a little late for the webchat. I’ll try my best. Take care of one another.**

I love you. I didn’t expect to be up at 6am today, but I am. Ash isn’t up yet.

Comment here, but also, emergency webchat time. It’s on NOW. Use it. I will circle back.

They called it.

I am in shock and so so so so sad.

I woke up early to all my friends in Australia and New Zealand sending outpourings of sympathy and grief. Send it. We need it. I put up an d emergency webchat that is live NOW for all patrons, free level including. It’s open…….go chat, go gather, go grieve: https://www.crowdcast.io/c/7arac61201y0

I’ll be there and join the grief-fest from 12-1.

…….

I mean…..

Grief.

Disbelief.

A rapist.

A convicted felon.

A fucking bully.

A classic insecure bully, with no room for growth, set on revenge.

We are in for the fight of our lives.

I am thinking about what I can possibly say today.

Just to stabilize: I’ll hold a free, all-patron webchat, just so we have a place to be together.

You can all head there anytime today, I just opened it up.

It’s an easier way to hang and chat in real-time than using a post like this throughout the day. We need community. This will hopefully kick my ass to start to the discord. We need….together-tools.

I am thinking about what I can offer.

Community. Art. Haven.

A place to gather, to mourn, to find solace.

Arms for my sisters, literally and figuratively.

What else can I do? We do?

This, I guess. Just……gather.

https://www.crowdcast.io/c/7arac61201y0

Emergency lighthouse.

I will cry.

 I will raise my son to fight.

I will take to my piano.

I will try to make light.

I will try to make light.

I will connect the dots.

I will ask.

While searching the internet for crying pictures of The Statue of Liberty, I came upon this:

Did you know that the Statue of Liberty was a lighthouse for 16 years?

When the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in 1886, President Grover Cleveland placed the statue under the administration of the United States Lighthouse Board. The torch was electrified in hopes that it would be a beacon for ships in New York harbor. Small glass windows were cut into the copper flame in order to better see the lights illuminating from inside the torch. However, the results were underwhelming.

The light was barely visible, making it a poor navigational aid for ships.

The administration of the Statue of Liberty was later transferred to the U.S. Department of War and the statue ceased functioning as a lighthouse in 1902.

Header Image: Historic print of a sailboat passing the Statue of Liberty, 1887 (Library of Congress)

………………..

All I can think of is:

SHE NEEDED A BRIGHTER LIGHT.

SHE NEEDED BETTER TECHNOLOGY.

I will remind you all I love you.  I will know I tried like hell to keep this man out of office.

I will rest.

Then…….I will keep fighting. I will try to make light.

See you on the webchat. I have to get up and take my kid to school.

He just woke up.

He needs me. He needs all of us.

He needs YOU.

Fuuuuuuuuucccckkkkkkkkkk

xxx

A

P.S. Please, please: if you’re not already subscribed to Heather Cox Richardson’s substack – “Letters from an American”, which is a NEAR-DAILY post about the deeper context of American News and some nice calming pictures of Maine on her off says….PLEASE SUBSCRIBE. She is the news and information Lighthouse we all need. I’ll be leaning on her heavily for information and comfort, and you should too.

IT IS FREE TO SUBSCRIBE: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/

About Letters from an American:

Historians are fond of saying that the past doesn’t repeat itself; it rhymes.

To understand the present, we have to understand how we got here.

That’s where this newsletter comes in.

I’m a professor of American history. This is a chronicle of today’s political landscape, but because you can’t get a grip on today’s politics without an outline of America’s Constitution, and laws, and the economy, and social customs, this newsletter explores what it means, and what it has meant, to be an American.

These were the same questions a famous observer asked in a book of letters he published in 1782, the year before the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War.

Hector St. John de Crevecoeur called his book “Letters from an American Farmer.”

Like I say, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure rhymes.