On another level, our country's history has been unfurling around us in this incredibly turbulent, troubled, and hopeful time. And, we've had the privilege of seeing it from every corner of this great country.
We started the year in California, experiencing the first seven months of the Covid-19 pandemic at home. We watched the pieces of our life fall slowly away as school, Little League, PTA meetings, church committees, and all but our closest friendships dropped one by one. In September, we finally said goodbye to our old life and launched into life on the road.
We drove steadily north and east through California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah as our country suffered through the pandemic, and we saw the diverse ways that Americans saw the world as that world, in many ways, came crashing down around them.
We also ran the political gamut as Joe Biden and Donald Trump carried out one of the most distressing, disorienting, and nerve-wracking election campaigns we'd seen in our lifetimes. We watched the first disastrous presidential debate from the shores of Lake Almanor in northern California. We watched a fly park itself on Mike Pence's head during the vice presidential debate from a cozy suburban neighborhood in Boise. Finally, we suffered through the agonizing 2020 election night while we ate pot pie in our Trump-friendly neighborhood in Montrose, Colorado.
In an amazing turn of events, fate rewarded us by giving us the amazing news of Biden's victory as we arrived in Santa Fe - one of my favorite places in the world. Then, in an unexpectedly glorious turn of events, we learned that scientists had finally developed a Covid vaccine! We celebrated with margaritas under the bright, New Mexico stars.
Even after the election was over, we watched the political temperature rise through Kansas, Indiana, and New York as Trump tried every desperate trick in the book to convince the world that he'd won an election that he'd lost by seven million votes.
The holidays in Connecticut gave us a brief moment of calm. But then, in Virginia, just an hour and a half from Washington, D.C., we watched in horror as Trump whipped up a group of domestic terrorists to storm the U.S. capitol, leaving dead or wounded not just participants and police but, for many of us, the comfortable notion that our democracy is an impenetrable fortress. The news unfolded as I sat on a work conference call in the basement, watching the news unfold on my computer screen and hearing Rachel cry in the living room upstairs.
Then, today, in Tennessee, I watched Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' inauguration with their message of hope and the promise that maybe our country can go back to something like normal. As I sit here now on the evening of the inauguration I feel alternately thrilled, horrified, saddened, and grateful for what that we've witnessed over the last few months. And, the one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that I hope the rest of the trip will be boring in comparison.
No comments:
Post a Comment