Going Gaga

I’ve had to repost yesterday’s text today as the post was taken down and the entry for that date is now playing silly beggars. I think being impertinent about using a screenshot of Kamala Harris was a step too far for blip management. Sorry for those of you who had commented as I can’t see anything now.

///

I dreamt about getting back to my apartment in Maputo but when I arrived, it was a luxury apartment in Cambodia - and definitely not one in which I ever lived when I was there.

I don’t think blip allows us to screenshot images from the TV where there may be copyright issues, but today is historic and unprecedented, so it has to be done. Whilst working away a colleague asked whether I was going to tune into the inauguration of Joe Biden. Stick it on in the background and multi-task, they said. That proved impossible as I was almost immediately a blubbering mess, generally whenever Kamala Harris was in the frame and when Lady Gaga belted out the national anthem. Who knew I was a patriot. Of a country of which I’m not a citizen. I’ll revisit her belting it out when I need some uplifting.

For representation, today is important. We could very well find Kamala Harris as President in the coming years, and I’m so excited by that prospect.

I think my tears were of relief and hope. Relief that the Trump era is over and that he should recede into the shadows, and hope that the new administration is well positioned to actually enact some disruptive policies to address inequality, police reform and the power of corporations in the US.

I wonder how much of an unquantifiable toll it takes on all of us to have a person like Trump in that position, undermining trust and faith in democracy and progress, both insidiously and sometimes in frightening leaps. It has probably weighed heavily on anyone who closely follows the news. Get rid and good riddance to absolutely deluded trash, and usher in a period of optimism and inspirational leadership.