The inauguration was one week ago, but it feels like ages.

Last week the sub-zero cold kept me pinned to the house, unwilling to go outside except to feed the wild birds or check on the ducks. The ducks\’ water bowl kept freezing to the floor of the duck house, even with their little heater running on high. The duck house door froze shut, and I had to get a crowbar to pry it open. The ducks were lethargic and miserable.

Brutal. Oppressive. Life-threatening. That\’s how the cold felt, and that\’s how the new administration felt, too. When you\’re out in the kind of temperatures that could kill you, your body knows. It slips into survival mode. I was in survival mode all last week, even indoors under blankets. I knew the new presidential administration was going to move quickly to harm queer and trans people — to make life hard or impossible for us — but knowing it\’s coming, and then actually feeling or watching it happen, are two different things. It did not help that, here in Ohio, SB1 — the anti-higher-education bill — was reintroduced, with all of its associated threats to the things I care about at my university.

I credit the communities of activists and queer and trans folks that I know, for keeping me from total despair. Everyone sharing information about the executive orders, everyone sharing strategies for making it through this regime. Most specifically: We cannot be legislated out of existence. We exist. We can build community. We are resisting. We will not obey in advance.

This morning the sun is rising fast, sending prisms of yellow light through the pine trees, illuminating an icy-sparkle world. The rarest of beautiful mornings, just dazzling. The cold snap we\’ve had since the new year is finally loosening its grip; it\’s going to be above freezing today. I am writing again. I will leave soon for campus, where I\’ll teach Queer Theory and Queer Fiction Writing. My students are powerhouses of inspiration.

I don\’t know what\’s coming for me or for us. But today I have this beauty, and these things to do — and I feel okay. Dare I say: lucky, even.