“Take your broken heart…”

As inauguration day in the US draws nearer and nearer, my already heavy political heart grows heavier and heavier. I saw two videos today that mirror my sentiments pretty much exactly on that front.

The first video is from one of my favourite actors ever, Meryl Streep. It’s probably all over the news in the US, I haven’t watched actual TV news coverage here yet, but did come across it in a news feed on my phone. While accepting her Cecil B. DeMille award for acting at the Golden Globes last night, Meryl’s speech was heartfelt and very political, criticising Donald Trump without actually naming him…

Maybe it wasn’t the right platform to make things political but I loved this nonetheless! It touched me deeply and I love the sentiments expressed in her speech.

Another video that touched me deeply was this one called  “Yes we can” with people, famous and not so famous, summing up their favourite Obama moment.

For me, my fave Obama moments were about him embracing diversity – religious diversity including reaching out to the Muslim world, sexual diversity or cultural diversity. He talked about diversity when he first became president and it has become a theme in his whole presidency which is also a theme very close to my own heart!

Now, after 8 years, a change is coming. I always thought it couldn’t get worse than George W. Bush in the White House, but it has gotten worse – Donald Trump is almost president! That will affect the whole world in what I expect will be a very negative way. Absolutely nothing Trump has done since the election has calmed my fears in this respect. So, I mourn Obama leaving and I take heart in people like Meryl Streep who stand up to inhumanity, injustice and intolerance. She says at the end of her speech, quoting her friend Carrie Fisher/Princess Leia: “Take your broken heart, make it into art”.

My heart is broken for the state of the Western world, where isolationism is starting to take over, where tolerance and humanity are being pushed aside. I’m not sure blogging is art, but it certainly is expression and when my heart breaks like this, even over politics, I just need to express myself and create… blog posts! I really don’t want this blog to become all political but sometimes the heart overrules it all and a post like this happens…

Thank you Meryl Streep for your heartfelt speech. It makes my heart heal a little when I know there are people like you out there.

And thank you Barack Obama for being the most awesome US president in my lifetime.

I wish you could have achieved even more!