Finding Comfort
Next Tuesday is Election Day. Campaign signs have popped up along roads and in yards like weeds as local and state candidates vie for votes. The deluge of daily donation requests from political candidates that flood our emails leaves us feeling like we are drowning and guilty that we haven’t done enough to save our democracy. As election day grows near, the noise of today’s angry political discourse and volume of disinformation have become intolerable. Indeed, the collective weight of this election’s importance has voters across the country anxious and emotionally exhausted.
“I just want peace,” one friend said to me. To which I add my wish for a return to sanity. An end to division and the assault on democracy that has spread like a cancer in America and parts of Europe. Where compromise is once again possible among members of opposing political parties. Where civility replaces hostility. Where casting one’s vote is not a cause for fear. Where the families of candidates are safe from verbal and physical attacks. Where election outcomes are no longer denied, even before ballots are cast.
As I’ve done for the past two years, I begin my day by reading Heather Cox Richardson’s insightful blog “Letters From an American” aloud to Kit. As dire as the news from the day before is, there is always a glimmer of hope in her message that comes from her deep understanding of history and her balanced writing. After a coffee by the fire, our day gets underway with what we must do. Get up and get moving. Exercise our minds and bodies. Deal with the nature of the season that lies ahead. Carry on as best we can.
Come November, there is an urgency in the air to focus on preparing our home and grounds for the changing season. We learned there was a need to replace our aging AC unit. Finding the right company to fix the problem took time but has had a good outcome. Some shaggy cedar branches in our forested yard need to be trimmed and a few pines thinned. Friends on our road shared the name of a trusted tree man whose family has deep roots in the neighborhood. He is a fireman as well with a good sense of how to keep the forest healthy. Recently I had a chance to see him at work. Impressed, I took him a loaf of homemade banana bread, exchanged contact information, and left knowing I’ve found the right guy to get the job done.
Kit continues to show positive signs of regaining some of the strength, mobility, and balance that he lost following a fall last winter. There’s now a sense of light at the end of the dark tunnel we’ve been in for months. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve made progress on this hard road to recovery with the support of friends and family. Through it all, we’ve worked as a team because that is what love makes possible. The completion and July publication of Kit’s memoir, Episodes in a Life, brought purpose back into Kit’s life where darkness and confusion had been after brain trauma. Letters have poured in from friends and family touched by his bright spirit and positive approach to life. That reconnection means the world to him.
This week, Kit and I finished Gilbert M. Grosvenor’s recently published memoir A Man of the World: My Life at National Geographic. Our friendship with Gil goes back to an event almost four decades ago when he shared with us his mission to promote the diffusion of geographic education in America. That conversation over dinner at our tiny home up a canyon in Los Angeles changed our lives. The richly recalled episodes shared by both Gil and Kit in their memoirs are a gift to readers at this time when honesty and humility are in short supply.
Last Saturday, I prepared a dinner for two local couples we love. While a cake was in the oven, I cleared our oak harvest table of the stuff of life that threatened to overwhelm its true purpose. I then covered it with a tablecloth I purchased years ago in Provence and arranged six place settings with china and amber wine glasses that once belonged to my grandmother. For Halloween table decorations, I added small pumpkins, candles, a white owl, a wooden cat, and a bottle of Cabernet Franc wine.
In the kitchen, a pot roast simmered slowly in broth and red wine in a copper pot that lived for decades in my mother’s kitchen. Small potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, onions, and finally green cabbage wedges steamed on top of the meat and vegetables. Crusty bread, butter and a salad were provided by our friends. For dessert, there was spice cake with a mystery ingredient topped with a scoop of pumpkin ice cream. (Joy of Cooking, p. 680)
Comfort food shared with good friends. A recipe for hope in turbulent times.