Author: Christine

My daughter’s friend posted this picture of her daughter watching Kamala Harris on Saturday night. Stella is almost two.

It brought me back to my own life. I tell clients and customers that every person you are selling to needs to see a mirror of themself and a window into that which they aspire to be. Stella will not have the barriers my generation did in terms of what is possible for us.

When I arrived back in New York City in 1975, fresh from the University of Nebraska hinterlands, my dad summoned me to his New York apartment, where he would hold court once every month or so when he had business in the city. He flew in like the Shah on his lear jet, and I still remember pushing the button to the floor of his apartment on the upper east side with a feeling of anxious hope that we would feel good after the visit was over. Both of us. I was still on the Parent Payroll, which in fairness to him I didn’t treat with much respect or regard. It just was. On this particular day, he informed me that he had enrolled me in Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School. I was shocked.

“Why, Dad, would I do that? I have no intention of being a secretary.”

To be honest, I didn’t have much of an intention to be anything at all. Ah, to live those years over again. Seriously. It’s one of my largest regrets. Not searching for anything other than a man.

Dad replied, “Because, Christine, no matter what happens in life, you can always get a job as a secretary.” That is how he saw me. A mirror of all that he knew about where women belonged in the workplace.

“Well that may be Dad, but I’m not going.” I was so insulted. Insulted I tell you.

“If you do not go, then I will cut you off.”

“Frankly Dad,” I said with great bravado, having just finished Gone with the Wind, “I don’t give a damn.” I stood up with every ounce of unearned dignity that I could muster, and I walked out.

I was never on his payroll again. I also immediately found a job answering phones at Marymount Manhattan College. “Marymount Manhattan College, how may I direct your call?” That lasted a few days, until I simply took off the headphones and walked away from the switchboard, leaving an “I can’t do this job, but thank you” behind as I shut the door on my way out. I ended up at a financial management company, where my “clients” included Don Imus, who was in forced financial management for not paying taxes and used to yell at me on the air because the management firm wouldn’t give him all his money to spend on photography equipment, women, and drugs. Until the taxes were paid, he was on an allowance.

But I digress. The point is that I can say I have done all right for myself, and while I do not have a Katherine Gibbs certificate, I think I gained my independence, and a dose of reality that probably saved me from never really trying to earn my own way.

I am so very grateful that Stella will have so many roads from which to choose. I’m so very grateful I had the strength to stand up to the standards that were set for my generation in the early seventies. It’s a new day for us all.

You go Stella! Do whatever you see that excites and challenges you.

I have a country house in what I call “Deliverance.” There is a development not far from me in Dover Plains, New York, that is called Sherman Hill Estates, and there is a Lee’s Lane, Grant’s Road and Confederate Road as well. People in the stores don’t wear masks, nor do my fellow shoppers, and when I ask them to pull them up, they show hostility in return. Lately, more and more signs have gone up for Trump. I mean, a lot of them in every yard. Every morning, Bay, my dog, and I get in the car, and we drive to Dunkin’ Donuts, where I get a large black coffee and an old-fashioned donut for Bay. Sometimes I sneak part of it for myself. It’s the way I start my day. Last week, on Monday before the election, there was a particularly long line in the drive-thru, and I had a moment to contemplate the past four years. I had turned off “Morning Joe”; I can’t stand him or Mika, but I listened anyway because it was the way I found out about whatever horrendous thing had occurred overnight for the past four years.

But this particular morning, there was silence in the car.

I realized how much time Donald Trump has spent in my head over the past four years. I thought about how every single day I was increasingly anxious as a result of some action that he’d taken, like, I don’t know, locking up small children and never returning them to their parents, or — let’s see — mocking the body of a woman who looks just like me, or denigrating anyone who stood up to him, or using executive order to sneak through laws that jeopardizes my daughter’s ability to breathe the air, or, or, or … What’s shocking is that I could go on and on and on.

I realized how many times I clicked on an article to feel the adrenaline rush of mocking him, or the fear and loathing of reading something he did or said that wasn’t something I needed to pay attention to.

I realized how many times a day I heard the sound of his voice and the visceral response my body had to it each and every time.

I stopped cold. I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid. That is all on me, not him. I vowed in that moment that after the election is called, I would never click on any link containing his name ever again.

So, I made a list. Here is what I gained and lost over the four years I dedicated to being “married” to him as my country’s leader. And here is my intention for how I will live my life moving forward, to make sure no one ever again has the power I gave him.

Gained: I learned that I, like Donald, use words like “very” and “really” way too much. It’s really good. It’s very serious. Those words are not necessary, and they only exaggerate the point I’m making, and not for the better. I will never again use them in front of a verb. Never. If you follow me and read my work, and you find out I have used one of those words, email me, and I will send you a dollar.

Lost: I lost approximately 1,500 hours of my life paying attention to someone and what he did, which never once built anything, just ripped things apart. I followed suit and did the same thing in return. I will not do that anymore. It’s time to rebuild, and my thoughts and actions will be devoted toward that end. My daughter, who must be thanked for her amazing work over these past two years for building a better America, asked me to stop posting negative things. She said it just pushed the other side away. I ignored her. OK, sometimes I thought better of what I was going to post, but I sure didn’t cross over to the side of building. Please don’t think this means that I will “choose kindness” all the time. I hate that ridiculous approach. How about “ruthless fairness,” which turns me on? Sometimes “kind” is an inappropriate response, but if I’m going to criticize, I will offer a solution to fix what I’m critiquing.

Gained: I exaggerate too. Sometimes I lie. I’ve read that sometimes we lie more than twenty times a day. I realize I don’t want to do that or be known as someone who does that. My initial response, learned in childhood, to say whatever a person wants to hear or gets me off the hook — as opposed to my own truth — will be no more. I will slow down and do it right. Think before I speak. I will take the hit.

Lost: Friends. My closest one is my BFF for forty-five years, my roommate in the ’70s. I spoke to her or otherwise communicated with her daily. Our friendship lasted through one child, three divorces, four marriages, every secret you can imagine, more laughs than I can remember, and so much more. And now it’s gone, never to be resurrected. We broke up in 2016 just before the election, reconciled last year, and split for good after I read her Twitter posts and realized that we are cut from different cloth. I have deleted her account, and I will not click on it again, but regardless, there is nothing to resurrect. I told her, “It’s not about politics; it’s about core values and your humanity … or lack thereof. We are done.”

Gained: I’m a Diet Coke addict. So is Donald. I promised myself that if he lost, I would never drink another one. I don’t want to share anything with him. It’s a gain because Diet Coke is incredibly bad for us. But it’s also a loss. Diet soda has been a companion since collage (I started with Tab. Remember Tab?) — 58 years, and we have shared a lot. I will miss it. I have none in the house and do not intend to stock up. I have given up D.C. before, and then fallen off the wagon months later, but I am hopeful that this time, I will stick with it.

Gained: My sanity. I have been so tense. So sad. So angry. So afraid. One or more of these emotions has been part of my day every day for four years. Already, yes, already I feel better. Even the cable news shows I’ve been watching since they called the election for him have not made me tense. When they mention him, I can feel he has no power any longer. Maybe he still does — of course he does, actually — but he doesn’t for me anymore.

Here is what I realized today: The impeachment didn’t take him down. The Kavanaugh hearings, his asking Ukraine for help in taking Biden down, his using my fucking White House lawn for political events that are illegal, his ignoring the separation between the arms of government — all these things didn’t bring him down, although they should have. In the end, what brought him down was my vote. And yours. Wow.

It’s over. This dark, dark era is over. I turn to Lincoln. Here is what he said as he took power during a time as dark as this. I will read it every morning until my thoughts and actions mirror its intent.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

WRITTEN BYChristine Merser

I write. I hope it resonates. I move on.

My dearest daughter, Sarah,

I write this to you with the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearings going on in the background. A woman has been nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States of America to take the place of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a justice who worked so fucking hard to give everyone equal rights in our country and who will now be replaced by a woman who will do what she can to take those rights away. How could this have happened?

I found this picture of you when you were 7 years old during the Anita Hill hearings, which I guess I should call the Clarence Thomas hearings, although they really weren’t about him. They were about slandering her and diminishing her and the story she told with such dignity.

Now, twenty-seven years later, you’ve graduated from Harvard Law School, worked on the Innocence Project, been awarded by the ACLU for your work, served as one of the authors of the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, worked as a volunteer legal advisor to Joe Biden’s campaign, and served as one of the founders of The Early Vote. I watched you on MSNBC last week: sure-footed, clear, and selfless in your appeal to get people to vote early and in person. I watched you transition from a little girl selling T-shirts on 84th and Broadway which was my pinacle to a force in the world of American progress, trying, always trying, to do right for those less fortunate than we are. I could not be prouder of you.

Someone once told me that he wanted to put his kids on his shoulders so they could see further than his horizon had been growing up. I think that’s a wonderful aspiration, and while I didn’t have it in my mind when you were young, it is certainly what I can see now. Oh, the horizons in front of you! If only you knew how far you have already been able to see, and what that means to your future. Please learn the lesson of looking at what you have accomplished, rather than what you haven’t. It clears the path to move forward without your getting hung up in the rearview mirror.

There are twenty-two days left until the election. I can’t conceive of anything other than success for all the things so many of us are doing to make the outcome one where we can start to build a new future for this country from the ashes of what was destroyed. I’m not just speaking of the destruction that has taken place over the past four years, but also the explosion of what had been simmering throughout all the previous years.

I hold on to the image of you when you were 7 and what you have done since. I hold on to the images of the young girls I see on social media, now reaping what you and your fabulous women friends have planted over these past months.

How can I, on behalf of my generation, thank you, apologize, and move on, recognizing that what we weren’t able to do, you are trying to clean up now?

I have a photo of you on MSNBC last week and the one from when you were 7 on my computer screen and in my heart. They will carry me through the next three weeks with hope and certainty that every single thing that can be done is being done. The future of women in America? It’s in our hands. It’s our votes that will determine the outcome.

God bless you, my dearest child. Godspeed on your journey over the next three weeks. I will be right behind you, ready to shoulder whatever you give me to help you lead the way. I love you,Mom

There is always a tipping point — that moment in time when everything changes and you “know” deep down inside that the trajectory of something has changed, and the train wreck that you thought couldn’t be stopped, can, in fact, be stopped.

Remember Howard Dean? Remember when he unexpectedly lost in Iowa, and he went on the television the night of the primary and screamed into the cameras and sent dogs and cats scurrying under couches, and Americans thought, “No way, Jose, is that guy going to get my vote. He’s not stable”? That was the end of Howard Dean. It was a split second in time, but it cost him dearly. They called it the scream that doomed Howard Dean. 

Then there was that moment in August 2008, when the markets crashed and impending mortgage crisis doom and gloom hit the stage. John McCain pulled a Howard Dean moment himself. He went in front of the cameras and in a breathless panic said he was canceling his presence at the debate a few days later and suspending his campaign to immediately return to D.C. to deal with the financial crisis. Then cool, calm, and collected Obama said he too was going to D.C. to work on the fiscal situation. He said he could do more than one thing at a time and would attend the debate to continue his campaign. “Oh, one more thing,” said Senator Obama, “don’t worry; everything will be OK.” In my mind, that was the tipping point.

I have thought things SHOULD have been tipping points with this maniac in the White House. Grabbing women. Charlottesville. Gassing people in the street to hold a bible upside down. And oh, so much more. But I’ve never FELT they were tipping points. 

Then, this outrageous human being without a semblance of shame or empathy toward others waved to a few dozen people in an SUV with two men who had to risk their lives to do that little dog and pony show sitting in the front, ostensibly holding their breaths for as much of the ride as they could manage. Combine that with his outrageous videos talking only about himself, without an ounce of empathy toward the more than 200,000 dead who didn’t have the care he is getting and presenting it all as if he has cured the virus for all by merely getting it. I FELT as though that was it. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I know that camel is as tired as I am. 

I have spent the last few years saddened whenever I have seen my flag, the American flag. I have felt no pride of late when I’ve come across it. I have even felt shame or embarrassment; I’m not sure which. It was a first for me in all my years of being a citizen of what I thought was already a great country. This morning after I got my coffee, I saw this flag that is always there, but which I’ve avoided. I turned around, came back, and took a picture. I think I will begin to have pride in America again. I believe for the first time in four years that we will get through this, and that Trump will no longer have a platform from which to do what he calls leading and I call destroying.

I have learned a lot. I realize that a good number of my fellow citizens are disenfranchised and don’t believe in their own future or that of their children. I realize now that we have not come as far as I thought we had in our race relations, and that it’s my own personal responsibility to work toward getting there myself. I have learned that I have to watch and evaluate my country’s leaders and pay closer attention to those who get my precious vote. I have learned that I have a larger responsibility in what happens in this country than I’d realized, or wanted, actually. I have heard the wake-up call, and I will do better. 

We do the best we can, and when we know better, we do better. That’s Maya Angelou’s sentiment and my new responsibility.

I was 15 when I watched Ted Kennedy eulogize his brother Bobby, and I was struck to the core when he said, “My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.” I remember thinking that one day a woman will die, and she will mean so much to me and others of my gender that words like this will be written about her. 

And so tonight, 52 years later, it has come to pass. Ruth Bader Ginsberg has died, and one of her final acts was to send a message to her lawyer granddaughter, saying, “My most fervent wish is that I not be replaced until a new president is installed.” She always chose words carefully, our RBG, and I wonder if it was not lost on her that she might be asking for four years of not being replaced.

I have no idea what comes next. My phone is buzzing with text messages. But I’m not answering any of them tonight. For me, tonight is a moment in the midst of the chaos, fear, and loathing that make up my days of following politics, when I stop and look at my gender’s supreme of all Supremes. 

My mind is running, running, running. 

With a new baby and a husband fighting cancer, she attended Harvard Law School, doing her homework and writing research papers, taking care of her child, and typing her husband’s papers. And she still managed to get the top grades in her class. But mostly what I thought when I read about that was that she didn’t complain; she just did it. I marveled at the fact that she didn’t just give up law school and switch to writing books on time management, because she was an expert. 

Then they screwed her. If she’d been endowed like a man, she would have been sought after by the top firms, and the clerkship she applied for would have been a no brainer. She didn’t complain. Not our RBG. She stayed the course. She had to wait a long, long time before she got on the road leading to the Supreme Court of the United States.

She had a great love. Marty. A successful marriage. A love of Opera. Children. Grandchildren. She cooked Passover Seder herself. She loved movies. And, she was funny.

Her humor was often laced with verbal brilliance. Here’s an anecdote from her granddaughter, Clara Spera, as quoted on glamour.com in 2018: “Once, though, I had to email her about her opinion in a voting rights case, Evenwel v. Abbott, because I thought the strong language in her analysis did not match up with the eventual, more reserved, holding. I was frustrated that she seemed to be holding back. I won’t reveal her response here, except to report that she told me, ‘I once spoke to you about not being queen when one writes for the Court.’”

Mostly, though, I will never forget the on-screen reenactment of her closing arguments in front of the Supreme Court during Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue. I wonder if she could have seen herself on that bench with nine white men who looked and acted nothing like her. I hope you will watch it, even if you have seen it before.

You see, as women, we haven’t had the opportunity to lead in a game where gender has no role. Eleanor Roosevelt was beloved, but she got her leg up from being the wife of a beloved president. Our road to greatness in this country has never been a direct line based on our own attributes. Women in other countries have managed to accomplish quite a bit without a male connection. Golda Meir comes to mind. But in this country, white men seem to have center stage, and our access to that stage has mostly been walking next to them, not in front of them.

So my beloved Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who I never saw in person (how could I have let that happen?), is now gone. Her white-lace-collared robes, which showed humor, femininity, and a bit of FU, have shown me the way. Her total commitment to excellence, incredible time-management skills, and brilliant mind made her our hero. She gave us (women) the map, if you will, to staying the course and committing to not giving up, no matter how far on the horizon. 

She is my Bobby Kennedy, my JFK, my MLK, and if anyone, anywhere even thinks of not erecting statues of her wherever women roam, I will finally take up arms.