And here we are…
I watched some footage of Michelle Obama taking her last walk through the White House. Insta-tears.
I told my husband this morning that even if Hillary had won, I would still be mourning the loss of MY President.
Regardless, here we are. So where are we?
Well we did a little protesting this weekend. My Brooklyn neighborhood is incredibly diverse (like nearly every New York City neighborhood) and predominately Arabic. I love my neighborhood. So when I saw that they were holding a pro-Immigration rally and march, I headed over.
Seriously this family wins twice – one for the Not My Tsar and the other for the kid’s finger painting protest poster.
This isn’t the best example of the magnitude of the crowd but you get the gist. The whole time cars were honking and people were cheering because….
Not this time, indeed. This was a nice primer for Saturday, The Women’s March on Washington which, in all honesty, I think might be the most historically important thing I have ever done in my life. I’m proud to be there, with my friends, to stand up and be counted.
It’s going to be a long four years. We need to protest. We need to call our reps. We need to be vigilant. And we need to keep making art because Art Is Resistance.
As many of you know, my husband, John Grochalski kept a poetry blog posting a poem a day for nearly a decade. He retired that blog this fall but then, when Trump was elected, decided to bring it back only this time it wasn’t just his writing – it was for all of us.
He’s going to be posting something every day of the Trump Administration (read: Trumpocalypse). That’s 1, 460 days. So, my artist friends – please submit to winedrunksidewalk@gmail.com
Also it doesn’t have to be Trump specific but could also be observations on our life in these terrifying times. Any kind of art accepted – poems, stories, rants, novel excerpts, music, photos, paintings, digital art, stuff your cat does at night, whatever you consider to be art, is what you send.
We’re going to work together to RESIST what is happening.
Artists, get on your motherfucking marks.
Get set.
Go!
So to kick off this blog, today John posted his first piece. It’s very dear to my heart and penned by a man in my life who taught me the power of empathy, the importance of listening instead of speaking, and, as an immigrant, the lasting impact of courage.
Here is the letter that my father, or as we like to call him, Big Ron, wrote to me on my sisters days after the election, when everything felt so raw and helpless. Thank you for being there for us. Thank you for being you. And I too hope you get to see a Madam President.
(And congrats on your first publication!)
And to hear more about what John is doing with his blog, check out his interview on Talk with ME and his artist’s statement on his blog. Again if you want to submit, (winedrunksidewalk@gmail.com) do it! We need to stick together.
Remember that scene in Apollo 13 where they had to slingshot around the moon and they were going to go radio dark and no one in Houston knew if they would make it?
Yeah.
Yeah…..
See you kids on the other side.
Peace, love and starbursts,
Ally
Ally Malinenko 