“He loved mountains, or he had loved the thought of them marching on the edge of stories brought from far away; but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire.”
― J R R Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Eleven days since the last post, we're back in Corning this Remembrance Day morning. The Brits do this day right; literally three quarters of the people one sees on a street in London or Cambridge, whether as white as me or of south Asian origin, wear the red poppy, the symbol of remembrance of that eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, so long ago, and of "all of those men who stood without fear in the service of the King," to quote the Clash. I think they were being ironic, but whatever. No one stands without fear in those moments; trust me on this one.
A week ago I figured this blog post would be the first of our return to the States, which it is, but also a travelogue filled with stories of how we spent our week bobbing around in the Aegean and tramping around in the English hills where my grandfather fought the Germans eighty years ago. I planned to describe how much we'd fallen in love with Greece, more for the grace of the Greek people than the arid landscapes. I was going to tell you about the fine Greek wines, the wonderful food, the azure blue sea stretched out below a cobalt blue sky. All magical.
Then we awoke Wednesday morning, still Tuesday night back here, to the news that democracy had ended in America with a national self-immolation, realizing we'd spent our days in the cradle of democracy while ours died back home.
We can't treat DJT as an aberration anymore; he's us. That's what my neighbors want, the 86% in Taylor County and 72% in Bay County and 69% in Steuben County. It's an orgy of misogyny and racism, of betraying our friends and giving aid and comfort to Mordor. I never thought I'd see it, and now can't stand in a grocery store checkout line without feeling a dripping disdain for everyone around me.
Peg and I reacted predictably to the disappointment (is that even remotely a strong enough word for what we were feeling? Maybe "shock" or "horror" or "revulsion"?). We rented a car at the Athens Airport, drove to the Temple of Poseidon and hiked to its windy promontory on the very tip of the peninsula jutting out into the Aegean, then found a cafe with a passable Cretan red wine. We drank the whole bottle.
Then we drove a couple miles down the coast to another cafe, where we ordered and consumed another bottle, enjoying the lagniappe of anchovies and cheese that every Greek restauranteur offers as a token of hospitality. This one even took me back to their wine pantry to explain the merits of Thessalonian versus Cretan reds.
Then we wove a few miles further down the coast towards Athens, found a cafe with a beautiful view of the harbor, and sampled their vin du pays.
This took us into the mid-afternoon, after which we made our way back to the airport and to our room so I could deal with difficult clients back home from the comfort of our quite fancy hotel suite, then we fell dead asleep.
We've slept a lot since the election. I reckon it's a sign of depression. Ten hours last night. Twelve hours two nights ago. I haven't slept like this since I was a teenager, or maybe when I first got home from the war.
But there's good here as well. P and I have grown closer together, realized there's discernment in the fact that we spent literally every waking and sleeping hour together for over two weeks, enjoying each other's company pretty much the whole time.
And it's made us get serious about what's next, now that the country's gone full fasc ("fash") and we're too old and powerless to do anything about it. Time to move closer to the kids, to start thinking about where we want to spend the last few good years we have left, and who we want to spend that time around. Time to go "full Montaigne", as Peg describes it, and climb the ladder into our tower, pull that ladder up behind us, and let the world go on murdering each other and finding someone to hate while we read great books, drink good wine, and work just enough to keep the wolves from the door. It's all about self-care now.
Of course, we won't do anything rash just yet. My inner fighter pilot reminds me to wind the clock and think for a spell, and not make things worse than they already are.
But there's no missing the fact that we woke up in a different America Wednesday morning, and it's time to think seriously about where we fit in that new milieu. Not at all, I reckon.
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