Why we fight

Well, today’s the day. It’s going to be hard for me to spend my day on the computer without trying to look at the news every three minutes, so every time I’m tempted, I’m going to have to instead do a yoga pose.

I really have no words for you today, so let me instead give you some pictures of America to remind you what’s at stake and what we can be when we really try.

I shot this photo while visiting my BFF in Oregon one autumn. It reminds me of the natural beauty of this land, and of the years of friendship we shared:

This one’s from the Great River Road on the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota—which is hardly great, rather far from the (Mississippi) River and not much of a road. But still. For many, many people, this is the heartland—it was and maybe it still is, I dunno:

To me, this commercial mashup epitomizes the strength and richness of the American experience; I shot it in Glendale, Calif., in the last century, but these days it could be in a lot of cities:

Technically speaking, this isn’t America. Well, actually speaking, it’s not America. I took it on my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. But it’s always reminded me that poco a poco, se va lejos, and in times like these, even incremental shifts toward the good are to be valued:

This one’s from the Renaissance Pleasure Faire and Maymarket, back in the Old Days in Agoura (now nothing but housing tracts and strip malls; progress, man). But it’s always made me smile. I took the French language assistant (a Parisian) to the Faire one year, and she marveled at seeing Americans dress up in costumes (many rather lame, tbh, but efforts all the same)—the French would never do that, she said. Yeah, prolly not:

Two photos from Arlington National Cemetery, to remind us of the cost of bringing us to where we stand. The second one is from Memorial Day 2016, in Section 60, where the most recent dead are joining comrades from the past. These are not losers or suckers; they are men and women who paid for our way of life with their lives. Imagine that:

This is from two weeks ago: Fairfax County Public Library adjusting to the reality of being eight months into a pandemic without national leadership:

And finally—tonight I light candles for hope. And courage. And  faith in America.