Autumn in Happy Valley

Autumn in Happy Valley, Oregon.

I woke up to a beautiful morning today. After a couple of days of rain and grey skies, the sun has returned. A stretch of white fog is rapidly dissipating over the green hills. In our garden, few juncos and towhees gaily jumped between the fence, the branches of our red maple trees and our bird bath, while flocks of black birds frolicked between the roof tops and young ash trees in our new neighborhood. High in the blue sky, geese in orderly V-formations are quacking a chorus of cheers, as they flap their wings migrating to warmer places. Mount Hood was visible between two houses across the street, covered with snow, a symbol of calm majesty and permanence.

 Nature is putting out her best show, seemingly unconcerned about the follies and the fate of man. She knows that seasons come and go, and on a day like this, she reminds me that we can and will eventually recover from any storm, any wild fire, any flood. Eventually.

 It doesn’t mean that today my heart is not heavy and my soul is not desperate. Like many other Americans, I was longing for a new kind of leadership where what counts the most is integrity, honesty, and community values. I am not going to do an analysis of Kamala Harris defeat on this post-election day, there will be plenty of pundits with a multitude of opinions, the most prevalent being the sour mood of the popular mass still dealing with the high cost of living since the Covid pandemic. Beyond that, not many would say out loud what I have feared all along. That many Americans are not ready to be represented and led by a colored woman, no matter how far we think we have come from the days when women could not vote (just some 100 years ago) and from the civil right protests of the 1960’s. No, America is not ready for her. What a shame!

My deep disappointment goes beyond the politics of the day or the promises of policy changes in a recycled, chaotic administration. To me, character matters most, and if a person’s character is not trustworthy, how can I trust his/her words and promises? And I don’t understand how many Americans feel they trust their future in the hands of a former TV-reality show man who is incoherent, erratic, and vulgar? By choosing such a man as its leader, America has shown that she has set aside all norms of social decency and moral conscience. And when Donald Trump – a self-adoring, self-serving bully and a convicted felon gets the most support from young male voters, he projects a model of “ a strongman” for our youth that makes me fear for the future of our country. My head hangs low.

Even as the world today will think less of us, America’s role and influence in the world continues to be strong, if not overbearing. For better and/or for worse, other nations see what we do as a justification for their own current and future directions and paths. I remind myself that America still has a lot of potential for goodness. Our sciences will continue to advance, and our liberal institutions, our freedom of expression through our press and our arts will not be easily beaten down. I also remind myself that all scenarios and matters in this world hang like pendulums. The pendulum has swung left to right, away from us now, but then will swingagain from right to left, back our way. Pendulums have swung back and forth for centuries and generations, and will swing after we have come and gone. Pendulums. Pulled by the gravity of life. Just like us.

As I see clouds of white flying in a sky of blue this morning, I remind myself that Mother Nature is resilient and will survive our recklessness. So let the sun shine through as we heal from our self-inflicted wounds and we will emerge from the coming winter of our follies and our discontent, someday soon, flying high again.

Happy Valley, Oregon, Wednesday Nov 6, 2024