Thread by @ECMcLaughlin

I went to bed last night really distraught. Maybe moreso than I’ve ever been under this administration.

This is what happened next.

I dreamt that I was back in NYC, in what felt like my earliest days there after 9/11, and I ended up at the famous bookstore, The Strand.

1/x

I was invited into a back room by the owner, who said, sit down, you’re going to want to be here.

I was a mess, carrying a huge annual calendar, and I’d lost a shoe or something on the subway.

When I looked up, I realized I was sitting next to @lilytomlin.

2/x

Music began to play and I looked around. I was in a room with dozens of people, known and unknown, folks like Patti Smith and Billy Joel and Robert Mapplethorpe— some still living, some long past.

The owner got up and said this:

3/x

“Some of you used to play here. Some of you used to make art here.”

I started to cry.

And he gestured to me, and said “some of you cry for what you used to do here, and what’s been lost.”

Lily looked at me and said, “what did you used to do here?”

4/x

And I said, “write poetry, among other things.”

The owner kept going. He talked about art, and books, and knowledge, and times gone by.

And then the music started (Billy Joel, Piano Man, the song my parents played for me 100s of times as a kid), and Lily Tomlin leaned in.

5/x

I was wiping away tears for all that we’d lost and silently sobbing.

Lily put her arm around me, gave my shoulder a squeeze, and said this:

“You know, I can’t promise you that you’re going to be all right. I can’t promise you that WE are all going to be all right.”

6/x

“But what I can tell you is that you are here, and I am here, and we have done *the best we can,* and we have each other.”

“At least we all have each other. At least there is that,” she said.

And then she hugged me.

I woke up and promptly burst into tears.

7/x

Today is the day after we found out the President was in on a conspiracy to harm the US ambassador to Ukraine.

Today’s the day the articles of impeachment go to the Senate.

So much has been lost.

And I can’t tell you that we’re going to be ok.

8/x

All I can tell you is that you’re here, and I’m here, and we’ve got each other.

And we must continue to do the very best we can.

Wednesday in America, January 15, 2020, under Donald Trump.

/end