In Absentia

Dear Maria,

Ouch! Okay, okay. No matter how gently delivered, I feel your reproofs—truly, I do. Hey, I can be sensitive.

As to the first matter—no letter since the relocation—no excuses. I know you prefer opening a mailbox and tearing open an envelope as you walk back to your front door. I get that. And since the blog posts from here are fairly general, I won’t claim any kind of equivalence. All that would do is fuel more scorn from you.

Simply, then, the move turned out to be the right decision at the right time. Reconnecting with family on a weekly basis—or at least some of the 31 who are 25-35 minutes away—certainly has been good for me. Max has settled into a routine of barking at neighboring dogs and patrolling the backyard fence. Every day, nearly, is outdoors, outdoors, outdoors. My new playpen suits me—the kudzu battle, planting trees and setting gate posts, and managing the lake and dam, including the beaver dam. All good.

Several others have asked me about the election, and honestly my response was pretty muted. You know I maintained an awareness in absentia after a few mocking posts about walls and guns. For me, the tone became sort of the verbal equivalent of some minion chewing off his own hand in Penny Dreadful. I am at the point in my life of why subject myself to that stuff.

Of course I am aware of what was at stake—is at stake.

I did watch Trump’s victory speech. The man was tired, and well he should be. Our process for vetting the candidates is brutal. Otherwise, I don’t what to make of him. I read very little beyond headlines and a few lead paragraphs, and I am no psychologist, pundit, or political savant. As for the daily routine and minutiae of governing, I am guessing he will lose interest. The Republicans in Congress after assessing his tolerances for policy may have a field day legislatively—I don’t know.

I can say—and for no other reason than a sense of schadenfreude—watching Cruz et al call him Mr. President for the first time might be entertaining.

To be sure, Trump is no more than a set of ideas-elect. If he said anything to win, to make the sale, then it will interesting to see how his customers respond when he doesn’t deliver. Just don’t know.

Here’s what I suspect—based on no deep knowledge or insight, but why stop now—that 4 years from now the divisions of class and race and gender will be mostly the same, that poverty rates will be essentially unchanged, that income inequality will be more or less the same, and that the Democrats will be hard pressed to find a champion to win the day in the lists.

Short of an enormous economic breakdown that unleashes chaos in the streets, or some horrific war that tears into our country’s soul, more of the same from my perspective.

I did post on Facebook that I believed the Nation would endure. Deliberately I did not use the word Republic. You know I am at heart, in my mind, a longstreamist, and I know that aggravates the dickens out of you.

Certainly such a kerfuffle is enough to cement our friendship for an eternity. Promise to write with a holiday update. Maybe even by then the beavers and I will not have gone to war.

Best wishes to you and the family.

Always yours, srk