But I currently find myself obsessing over meal planning and grocery lists, keeping my calendar up-to-date and my financial accounts accounted for, deleting contacts from my email account, updating address lists for next year’s Christmas cards, setting up all the appointments I need (haircut, hair color, dentist, foot doctor, shoulder doctor, gynecologist, cardiologist, primary care physician, eye doctor, fitness trainer, physical therapist, manicurist — well in advance and even arriving early for them (for the first time in my life). I’ve been relatively well-organized in the past, but never this intent on being so.
I know why: it’s all about control. I am trying to control everything I think I still can as I confront my total impotence in the face of Trump 2.0. I am grieving the absolute loss of control over so much, even, these days, over what I say and what I write. You see, Writing is how I think, it’s how I exercise — and exorcise — my feelings, how I explain myself and develop understanding of ideas and people and Life. I have always enjoyed absolute control over my work with words.
But twice already since Trump was inaugurated, I have self-edited. Once, I wrote a letter to my grown children about Trump’s first week and how I wished we were all decades younger so that they would believe me, and I might even believe myself when I hugged them and reassured them that things would be okay. One daughter, an erstwhile government lawyer, said she’d prefer I not post it on TheThirdThird as I intended, because she couldn’t risk the association with my anti-Trump, anti-Musk views, even though she shared them. A second time, I wrote about a conversation I’d had with a friend of mine who told me she is particularly frightened by the hard-right, authoritarian tactics Trump is using because they remind her of the same fear and absence of freedom she experienced growing up in East Germany before the wall came down. Then my friend asked me not to post it because she doesn’t want to adversely affect her application for citizenship, and she’s afraid it might.
So, silenced, I cleaned out the garage. And then I cleaned out the sock drawer again (experiencing, I confess, a tiny frisson of triumph every time I threw out the lame lefts or the rigid rights that didn’t have pairs). I cook. And bake. Recipes are rational. Follow the directions and things generally turn out very well. Nothing else is working that way. Follow the rules, do your duty, remain in community, call your elected representatives, canvas door-to-door, send money, get-out-the-vote, vote, treat others as you would have . . . ., work hard, be honest, do the right thing, serve others, even eat right and exercise. We can no longer count on all of that — or any of that — counting for squat. This Administration doesn’t care what you think or value or do, even though they damn sure seem to want to control it, or at least make you think that they can, and that they might.
So yes, Impotence is taking up a lot of space in my head these days, right up there with Rage and Fear. None of the three belongs in any recipe for peace of mind, and none is nurturing the creativity required to think about what it might be possible to say or do to make a difference or, at the least, turn my anxiety into something more productive and protective.
My self-criticism for not doing something — anything — has finally, five months in, driven me back to the computer on my writing desk where I think I belong. (I don’t, on the other hand, think I belong in the streets protesting; crowds, the National Guard, and my inability to run scare me.) So I can’t make a clever sign to take to a rally, but I can make something. And I will. I still have that power. Stay tuned.
by Ann Sentilles
June 20th, 2025
