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ELECTION AFTERMATH: Here’s what happened on today’s Grief/Relief Walk

By Eddie Westerman
Special to West Seattle Blog

Whether knocking on doors, writing postcards, donating money, participating in conversations, or simply being barraged by news and election ads, it would have been difficult not to experience some stress in the months leading up to Tuesday’s election.

That’s why folklorist and grief coach Tamara Kubacki led a Post-Election Grief/Relief Walk at Jack Block Park in. West Seattle this afternoon, open to people feeling either of those emotions, though the former seemed to prevail among participants. The rainy walk gave people the chance to be in nature while feeling and talking about grief or relief from the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s election. The peaceful walk also opened the door to other issues people feel they are facing in their own lives and the collective stress in the nation and world.

“We’re not meant to grieve on our own,” Kubacki says. “Being with others makes it feel less lonely.”

Participants shared their experiences through stories, poetry and conversation along the walking path. Kubacki, who runs a company called Listening to Grief, says she hopes participants of today’s walk felt a sense of community. She reminds people that it is healthy to talk about their grief.

One participant, Smith Sinclair, says he took a day off after the election and that he is still in denial.

“My grief is spilling over. I’m not participating in any media,” Sinclair says. “I was so hopeful.” He says he’s worried for immigrants and others and that he was deeply disappointed because he felt Kamala Harris ran a flawless campaign. He felt hopeful in the campaign work he did in Washington State, but despondent about what happened in the nation.

As part of the walk, Kubacki asked participants to ground themselves with breathing exercises, notice the sounds and the nature in the park and take time to genuinely listen to one another’s thoughts.

“I feel like fleeing,” Susan Holmgren says. She came on the walk, she says, to connect with her mother, who was a political activist when she was alive. Holmgren says her mother marched in countless anti-war demonstrations and that she would be so distressed to feel her children might have fewer rights than she had. While she does have dual citizenship because her mother was a United Kingdom citizen, Holmgren feels there are too many obstacles – especially financial ones — preventing her from trying to live in a different country.

Another walker at today’s event said it was heartbreaking to watch his 30-something children’s faces fall as the election results tumbled in. He was sad he couldn’t just “kiss the problem away for them.”

Kubacki says today’s walk, inspired by two Olympia-based organizations — Window Seat Media and Wild Grief – is a way for those in the community to come together when things feel awry. “Stories can be an anchor in uncertain times,” she says. The walk gave people the chance to think about what stories they were holding on to that they wanted to release.

54 Replies to "ELECTION AFTERMATH: Here's what happened on today's Grief/Relief Walk"

  • B November 9, 2024 (5:07 pm)

    The Middle needs to be found again in America.  

    • Jay November 9, 2024 (5:25 pm)

      That’s kind of the problem. Only the left can improve the economy and worker rights. Democrats shifting too far to the right has left a vacuum where regular Americans don’t have a voice in government, only corporations.

      • Question Authority November 9, 2024 (5:41 pm)

        “Democrats shifting too far to the -Left- has left a vacuum” is another way to interpret the reality, continuing denial of the overwhelming vote result is just prolonging your suffering.
        P.S. I voted Democrat

        • Orb November 9, 2024 (7:16 pm)

          Agreed. Democrats seemingly competing for who is most woke and leaning toward extremes is pushing moderate liberals to feel more conservative. I am a liberal, but the left has swung so far left it feels just as extreme as the rightwing nuts.

          • Sixbuck November 9, 2024 (8:25 pm)

            It feels that way, Orb, because it is that way. 

          • Bbron November 9, 2024 (10:48 pm)

            Yeah, sure. And what “leftist” policies was the Harris campaign running on? Continued support of Israel? Loans to start a small business? How can anyone legitimately believe that the democratic party is somehow gotten “too woke” when their presidential candidate doesn’t even run on Medicare for All which is, like, step 1 for the US to even begin shifting towards becoming “leftist”. Please enlighten me.

          • Orb November 10, 2024 (8:18 am)

            It’s more of what the democrats as a whole are standing for. FTR – I voted for Kamala. However, the left is seen as woke culture. The subscribers will have you thinking we need no police force, theft and crimes aren’t “that bad” and if the person stole it, they “probably needed it more than me” mentality. Kill the rich, etc. The irony is that a party that prides itself on making sure everyone is ‘heard’ completely dismisses the voices of working class Americans. Bernie Sanders called it and he was right.

          • CAM November 10, 2024 (2:42 pm)

            Orb, you’re calling out Bernie Sanders as your defender of the party being too progressive? I think you may want to look up what Sanders’ platform is before you go further. 

          • Jay November 10, 2024 (4:45 am)

            It’s interesting that you jumped to the party’s acceptance of minorities and not the economic policies I was speaking of. I’m talking about regulating corporations, preventing monopolies, and labor rights. Tax cuts for the rich and deregulation, hanging workers out to dry, doing nothing about price gouging, that’s why people didn’t show up. None of the polls show that accepting transgender people, Black people, and women are also people and equal to straight cis whites is the problem. That’s something coming out of the media bubble that does not want to acknowledge economic issues facing America.

          • Felix Grounds November 10, 2024 (8:23 am)

            I’m going ask, genuinely and in good faith, can you tell me what extreme left policies the Dems have enacted or proposed? because I don’t see it, but maybe that’s my fault.

          • Lisa November 10, 2024 (8:45 am)

            You took the words right out of my mouth. Thank you. 

          • K November 10, 2024 (8:11 pm)

            Orb, literally no one says those things except right-wing news and propaganda sites.  Real, everyday liberals just want to go to the doctor without worrying about bankruptcy, and to spend more money on libraries and schools, and maybe have rich people pay the same in taxes as poor people.  Real liberals are so different from what you’re watching on TV.  Try talking to your neighbors, instead of just reading about “the left”.  And look at candidates’ actual platforms.  Kamala Harris’s positions on so many issues were barely a breath away from the Republicans’.

          • WS Guy November 10, 2024 (9:07 pm)

            The irony is that a party that prides itself on making sure everyone is ‘heard’ completely dismisses the voices of working class Americans.”

            That’s because, as has been accurately stated, working class Americans are a garbage basket of deplorables.  Until they learn to accept women’s reproductive rights, trans rights, immigrant rights, oppose genocide, and drop their bigotry they have no place in our party.  

            The solution is not to accept them AS THEY ARE, but rather, to redouble our efforts to educate them until they finally accept the right side of history and come to us AS THEY SHOULD BE.

      • B November 10, 2024 (8:19 am)

        I feel The Middle of the road is only possible with all of us having empathy & listening to our fellow Americans. Acknowledging history is important. Otherwise we repeat the past. 

    • Barbara November 11, 2024 (10:20 pm)

      I feel the the Dems have no story to tell and don’t educate people about the virtues of a liberal government, especially economically. Dems are so busy sounding middle of the road they don’t identify at all with working-class people and working class people have no idea who they are. That Conservatives portray themselves as being for the working class and that there are people who buy this is insane.   Dems also spend too much time trying to shut Bernie, AOC, Elizabeth Warren and Jasmine Crockett up, when they actually should be taking notes. Why aren’t people like Jeff Jackson, James Talarico and Justin Jones better utilized? They can actually build convincing narratives.

  • Big 5 Guy November 9, 2024 (5:30 pm)

    I went on a victory/joy/relief walk. What great time to be an American.

    • A November 9, 2024 (6:03 pm)

      Poor attention to grammar in making one’s smug point is pretty American. 

    • Pete November 9, 2024 (6:13 pm)

      You just elected a rapist, in his own words and according to the courts. That’s not anything to be proud of. 

      • Big 5 Guy November 9, 2024 (7:11 pm)

        Pete, 75+ million voters said otherwise. That’s the world’s largest jury.

        • Zipda November 9, 2024 (8:32 pm)

          And yet people also voted for Hitler.

        • Pete November 10, 2024 (9:20 am)

          Erm… and? 75m people also have a complete lack of morals. That’s really sad. 

          • Big 5 Guy November 10, 2024 (3:22 pm)

            “I’m not going to hate half if my country just because they voted differently than me” – Bill Maher 

          • mjc November 10, 2024 (7:07 pm)

            Pete, I didn’t vote for the guy and I don’t see any redeeming values in him either, but just because some people did vote for him doesn’t mean they also don’t see much in him. This is indicative of a bigger problem. The problem, IMO, is we have a two-party system. One or the other. There’s no real third-party option, you don’t get a left, center, right option or a small, medium, or large fries with that shake. I believe many people didn’t feel the incumbent administration, Harris/Waltz, would do anything much different from what Biden has done.  Kamala didn’t differentiate herself enough to show a clear contrast from her boss. 

      • Seattlite November 9, 2024 (7:17 pm)

        Pete…When was he convicted of rape?  Which court of law convicted him?  Since you did use his name I am assuming you are speaking of the President elect.  

    • T Rex November 9, 2024 (6:30 pm)

      Funniest statement I have read this entire election season!! 

    • WsGal November 9, 2024 (7:43 pm)

      Same Big5 – you arent alone.

    • Live in a blue state November 9, 2024 (10:33 pm)

      You live in a blue city and blue state. It’s really hard to take you seriously. 

  • Plf November 9, 2024 (5:52 pm)

    I’m sorry I missed this event, I have felt so depressed, sad, angry.  I wish I understood how the character of this man did not matter to 1/2 of our citizens I am a child of the 60s active in civil rights and womens movement and to see us sliding backwards is heart breaking My foreign adopted child asked me if she could be at jeopardy for deportation.  She isn’t since she was naturalized as a toddler, but ask me how angry I am that she even had the concern, thought and articulated the questionI have never “hated” a politician, but I hate him and don’t understand the citizens who support him.  

    • AR November 9, 2024 (7:19 pm)

      This video is eye-opening. Apparently many people didn’t understand what they were voting for–they didn’t understand how tariffs work or understand how mass deportations will affect the country. Too late now.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI_3aZxvrEk

    • Marcus November 9, 2024 (7:39 pm)

      That is heartbreaking for a child to know enough to ask that question. I am sad. 

      • K November 10, 2024 (7:34 am)

        Under the last administration, teachers in grades all the way down to kindergarten were having tough conversations with their students, guiding them through the trauma of parents and other close family members being deported, many times without cause (legal immigrants got caught in the raids too).  When you read the stories on WSB of teenagers committing crimes and heading down the wrong path, behavior like that starts with trauma in childhood.  Mass deportations don’t make the country safer, they destabilize families and give those kids a hundred reasons to rebel against the US and its values.

        • K November 10, 2024 (9:12 am)

          Clarifying that I’m talking about the last Trump administration.

  • M November 9, 2024 (6:00 pm)

    So lovely to see people showing up for each other during difficult times. 

  • Rob November 9, 2024 (6:44 pm)

    Well as a senior  I be glad when he signs the no tax on social security bill. 

    • CAM November 9, 2024 (7:26 pm)

      It won’t matter if it’s taxed or not when they vote to eliminate the program. 

    • Orb November 9, 2024 (7:46 pm)

      You will likely never see that happen. You would have to have bipartisan buy-in to do that and that will likely not happen. 

    • WestSider November 9, 2024 (8:15 pm)

      You won’t need to worry about the taxes on your benefits because you’ll probably lose them under Republican plans for programs like Social Security,  Medicaid and Medicare. Per the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget via CBS News: “Under Trump’s plans, Social Security’s trust fund would become insolvent in 2031, which is three years earlier than currently projected by the Congressional Budget Office. At that point, the program would need to cut benefits by 33%, a steeper decrease than the 23% reduction forecast by the CBO in August.A cut of that size would mean that the typical monthly benefit check of $1,907 in 2024 would be reduced by $629 per month, leaving recipients with average payments of $1,278. “

      • Daniel November 10, 2024 (8:36 am)

        Of all the things in Republican policy, this is the one I’m maybe least worried about.  Because I don’t think it will take many years after that point to get the vast majority of retired people who rely on their social security to support e.g. removing the wage cap on social security taxes, which would more or less immediately solve that problem. Maybe I’m being foolishly optimistic there, idk.

    • Darren November 10, 2024 (9:25 am)

      Won’t ever happen, listening to his colleagues it’s clear this is not feasible unfortunately folks voted for him based on lies of goodies they think they will receive but won’t 

  • WSCurmudgeon November 9, 2024 (7:26 pm)

    Don’t get emotionally involved with either so-called party.  Gore Vidal said this shortly after the Watergate scandal ( ca. 1974):

    There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.Gore Vidal

  • Seattlite November 9, 2024 (7:30 pm)

    I would like to say how proud I am of the majority of American voters aka WE THE PEOPLE doing the right thing in voting for common sense.  312 electoral votes plus the popular vote shows that the majority of Americans understand that America is on the wrong path.  I cannot think of any rights under the USA’s Constitution that I will lose under the next administration.  I will be so relieved when the wars will cease around the world.  No wars during the 45th President’s watch and the same effective foreign policies and negotiations will be in place during the 47th President’s watch to prevent wars.  Decreasing inflation will help the middle class stabilize…lower grocery, gas, clothing, etc., costs are a plus.  Unity can be found in lower inflation and the cost of living and ending wars.

    • Interested Party November 9, 2024 (10:28 pm)

      I’m bookmarking this page to come back to this comment regularly. I’d really like for it to be true, but I don’t think it will. Time will tell. I highly doubt there will be an end to wars. Again, time will tell. 

    • You live in a blue city November 9, 2024 (10:39 pm)

      You live in a blue city. You benefit from one of the most vibrant city economies in this planet right now. On top of that our democratic leaders will do everything in their power to protect your constitutional rights and freedoms you currently enjoy. If you don’t like that, please feel free to move to Alabama or Rural Georgia. The fact that you haven’t done so says everything I need to know. Enjoy the next four years and the protections we all work hard to provide you. 

      • Scarlett November 10, 2024 (7:17 am)

        Blue? We live in a blue “company town” dictated by companies such as Amazon that aggregate wealth into the pockets of the asset class at the expense of broader economic liberty.  There is no real difference between the asset class on both sides of the political spectrum, as WSCurmugeon has correctly pointed out, and both lecture the poor from their lofty financial perch.    You’re all the same in my book. 

      • Canton November 10, 2024 (7:44 am)

        Regional boundaries do not dictate political opinions. Everyone has the RIGHT to vote how they want, regardless of area. Telling people you disagree with to MOVE, because YOU don’t agree with them is childish.

    • Matt November 9, 2024 (10:47 pm)

      Trump didn’t get any more votes than he got in 2020 when 7 million more people voted for Biden. So this doesn’t say “the popular vote shows that the majority of Americans understand that America is on the wrong path” it just shows more liberal voters stayed home and didn’t vote. It’s hard to argue your point when he gained no new support.

      “I cannot think of any rights under the USA’s Constitution that I will lose under the next administration.” — yes, sadly this is how most conservatives vote. If it doesn’t affect them they don’t care. It’s a selfish attitude and one that ignores the struggles of the classes of people who built this country.

    • Plf November 9, 2024 (11:03 pm)

      Common sense?  Character and morals are critical in leaders, it reflects valuesconvicted felonguilty of sexual assultrefused To transfer power peacefully racist to rent to minorities has spoken about women ( grab them in their privates) in the most disquisting wayaffair with porn starhow do you explain this individual to your children especially the females in your lifecharacter matters and foreshadowing of future behaviors and valuesspoken disrespectful of military ( suckers and losers)What didn’t folks hear and see,  and incredibly sad they don’t believe what he showed of himself, behaviors, comments and actionshistory will not be kind to the moment in time

    • Orb November 9, 2024 (11:36 pm)

      Spoken like a real privileged white man. You may not lose any rights, but millions of Americans will. Women’s personal choices for their own bodies. Ring a bell? You mentioned the word “I” in your comment about 5x…maybe start thinking about the collective whole if you actually say you care about unity.

    • Guy November 10, 2024 (8:13 am)

      The trope that there were no wars during Trump’s first term is simply propagandistic historical revision. During his presidency there were wars in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, the Republic of Congo, and Nigeria, among several other conflicts. Anyone repeating this trope as truth has either been lied to or is lying.

    • Actually Mike November 10, 2024 (12:01 pm)

      And all your dreams will come true! Oh, except then you’ll wake up to discover that actually what happened was that a desperate con man running from the law flim-flammed you and about 70 million other Useful Idiots into giving him and his billionaire buddies your votes and your wallets. Make America Guillable Again, yes indeed.

  • Pinky November 9, 2024 (8:01 pm)

    Over 60 million people were cool with voting for a guy that said he keeps a copy of ‘Mein Kampf’ at his bedside and has been quoted by his ex-Chief of Staff as saying “Hitler did a lot of good things”.

  • Lauren November 10, 2024 (7:27 am)

    For anyone who’s wondering where we go from here: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2024/11/10-things-to-do-if-trump-wins/

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