Take the long view

A US election day reminder from the Earth

They say southern California has no seasons. Just hot and not hot. Those of us who reside here know this is false. It is true that we have an abundantly epic summer that sometimes has us in sandals on Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day. And our months of mild sunny winter weather can be downright delightful.

Yet our winters can also be surprisingly cold. Last December, a New York visitor borrowed my ski jacket claiming the biting evening cold too much. And sometimes our summers can be drenched in a chilly fog that has us in beanies and Uggs on Independence Day.

Right now, in November, tomatoes are growing while the leaves are shedding.

In spring we can get so much rain; or none.

But one thing’s for sure every year. We will have fire season.

And we will have Santa Ana wind season.

Photo by Meduana on Unsplash

Today, the US presidential election day, will be one of those windy days. Kicking up allergies and anger. You can feel it coming on, the air thinning, drying, evaporating humidity. The lips and fingers chapping. No amount of hydration helps. When the wind kicks up, Californians can’t partake in our brag-worthy outdoor activities. One friend tried to jog in Golden Gate Park on a windy day and was knocked out cold by a flying Eucalyptus branch.

So we retreat inside and marvel at the wind bending the palms, snapping nascent trees, littering the yard with debris. We hold our breath, hoping that wind’s destructive collaborator, fire, does not hitch a ride. The force of a spark carried on the wind can torch a forest, a town, a dream.

But a wind can also carry a change. Pave a new path. A wind can be a force for good rather than destruction. It can clear pollution or carry a hurricane. It can swirl like a tornado or curate the perfect blue wave.

Before the wind arrived, we took our dog on a walk in our neighborhood. Halloween and Dia De Los Muertos remnants clung to modest houses. Zombies, spider webs, skeletal hands emerging from the earth.

It was unavoidable that a soft wind switched our talk of soccer to that of the election. My older son Kai’s eleventh grade history teacher had assigned them to research pros and cons of each candidate and proposition. With a hint of apology, or maybe confusion, Kai admitted that while he knew the upcoming presidential election was a big deal, he just didn’t feel nervous about it.

“I can’t see where who wins directly impacts me right now,” he admitted.

He’s 17. Hell, when I was 17 all I cared about was dancing and boys and my friends and who dissed who on Days of Our Lives. I couldn’t see beyond the seasons of my So-Cal life. When I told him as much, not giving him a pass, but acknowledging the near-sightedness of youth, my husband Eddie argued about the issues that were at stake that would impact him—what if he got his girlfriend pregnant? What about a possible draft? What about climate?

“Maybe things will get so bad that we must return to our caveman days,” Kai said. “We’ll just do it all again. The tribalism, the exploration, the religious wars and persecution, the building of cities.”

There are times in life when your children remind you how to see.

He was taking the long view. Just like the geologists taught me to show him.

Ice Ages, asteroids, dinosaurs, plagues, Mom jeans. Nothing is permanent. None of us will survive any of this.

Last year a therapist specializing in climate grief told me to stop being overly optimistic. She told me that when we sit with the darkness or the angst, or the fear, we can live richer, more present lives. But she made it very clear that we cannot allow the darkness around us to overtake our emotional selves. We are to give ourselves timed sittings with the fear, with the dread.

Then when the timer chimes, we are to locate life.

Today, I woke with a nervous anxious energy. Probably like most of you.

So I will allow myself to sit with the dread of what the wind will blow in this evening. But only for five minutes. Then when the alarm rings, I will thank the survivalist angst for existing in my body then send it off into the wind, with the hope that we will avoid an asteroid today.

Or maybe we will simply be reminded of that really matters to us, to all of us, is really the same thing.