In the aftermath of the election, my brain was ablaze with all sorts of sensations, lighting up my neurons with varying combinations of rage, sadness, anger and disgust. On the second or third day after I awoke in Trump’s America, I turned to the guy I was dating at the time and asked what, he suspected, became of Hillary Clinton’s election night confetti. Where did it all go?
“I don’t wonder that at all,” he said flatly, and I felt silly for allowing my thoughts to be occupied by something so trivial in a time so dire. Still, the idea of all those little papers just sitting there, awaiting their moment that would never come, made me unspeakably sad.
In retrospect, I shouldn’t have felt silly. In the face of such enormous upheaval, it’s normal for the human psyche to grasp at questions it feels it can tackle; questions that have clear answers as opposed to unsatisfying conjecture and wispy half-guesses. In the days and weeks that followed, I pondered at length about what would happen to us under a Trump regime. I do it now, still.
I don’t know how to answer that question, and I never will. But at least now I no longer have to wonder what happened to the confetti. All 200 pounds of it has been bought by Missouri-based artist Bunny Burson, who created with it a giant, perpetually-blowing snow globe that will live in the window of Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis. Its exterior is emblazoned with the words “And Still I Rise,” borrowed from Maya Angelou.
“I just feel whether it’s running for office or breaking their own glass ceiling in some other way, now’s a time not to give up,” Burson said.
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Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
