A little something about each other

Talking across the political divide in a small town parking lot

If you prefer to listen, you’ll find an original audio recording here.👆

A note before we begin: I wrote this in the lead-up to the U.S. midterm elections, jittery about how it would all go and not remotely confident I could take it in stride. By the time you read this, much of it may be known. Uncertainty is nothing new, but times like these concentrate it and demand we notice just how little control we have over what happens next. Right here. Right now. That’s all I’ve got for the time being.

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Well, I did it again. Or the universe did it again. Sometimes, it’s hard to say where I end and the rest begins. No sooner had I spent the morning thinking about how much I admire people who are good at challenging assumptions than I was met with a chance to do just that.

Maybe met with isn’t right. I could have waved it away, offered a pat answer, kept moving. Instead, I stuck my foot into the crack in the door and pushed myself right on in.

I see him once a week or so. Our exchanges are cordial, surface level, variations on small town sameness: How are you, beautiful day, town sure is busy today, or the opposite, depending. He might tell me about his latest project, I might tell him I won’t be taking up his parking space for long. This time he says my car needs washing, which is entirely true, the dark exterior spattered with riverbirch sap and bird crap like a Pollock knockoff. If you knew the state of his pickup, you’d know how laughable it is for him to mention it, but I humor him with agreement and explain it was my daughter’s car, that I’d never choose black.

He asks if she is gone again, my daughter. Not a surprising question. His adult children are similar in age, and there is a lot of knowing a little something about people in this place we both call home. What I don’t anticipate is diving headlong into how she is now living in São Paulo with her Brazilian partner, how they’d be in the U.S. except that our country won’t let him in, not even for two weeks as a tourist.

Next, in his unhurried Chesapeake dialect, he’s coaching me about open borders and how the Iranians want us dead, so it’s in our best interest to prevent them from having nuclear weapons. He’s telling me how Somalis are taking over cities and don’t want us in their neighborhoods, and I’m saying we don’t seem to mind when we’re the ones doing the excluding, I’m explaining that I don’t give any politician a full pass, that I think we have issues throughout government, but that this administration is making money off of us, siphoning billions of our hard-earned dollars to put in their own pockets.

He gets a funny kind of smile on his face and says he doesn’t care about that. Why would he not care, I press on, learning that he’s banking on the Book of Revelation, that we’re all going down, and only a few of us are going up, and that it’s all spelled out already. What we really need to do, he says, is be careful of the communists, and I say if he’s worried about communists he might want to pay attention to how our President is befriending Putin.

He never interrupts, never raises his voice. He appreciates knowing where I stand, he says. I thank him for giving me his perspective. I also tell him I think we have to look at our hearts. It seems like we’re getting our news from different stations, but no matter what, I say, we have to decide for ourselves how we’re supposed to treat people.

I hope he understands when I tell him I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to figure out what it means to be Christian, reading the same Bible he’s reading. These days, I say, it all feels like a game of Telephone. Yes, he remembers how somebody whispers a phrase at the start of a line, and by the time it comes out the other end it’s completely different. And as I step into my dirty car, groceries sweating in the back seat, making as polite an exit as I can, I wonder aloud if Jesus would be telling people they don’t measure up because they happened to be born in Iran or Somalia. He says no, with a slight laugh.

I’m a little changed, but I don’t imagine he is, or at least I don’t imagine he’s still thinking about our conversation.

The sun has been brilliant this week, so bright that at times I have to lift my hand to shield my eyes, and it makes the senescing trees look like they’re lit from within. I notice, again, the coexistence of beginning and ending. Disheartened by reality, I cling to hope. Because no matter where things land, next week I’m going to see the same people, and we’re going to know a little something about each other, and the next time I see that man, I wonder if he’ll notice that I got my car washed today.

~Elizabeth

Trying to put the finishing touches on this week’s piece while keeping an eye on election results was about as focused as you’d expect. I’m fairly sure I took the same comma out and put it back in three times. However the counting is going where you are, I wish you grace and patience for the days ahead.

If you feel like weighing in, I’d love to hear from you. Are you more of a talker or a listener? And if you could ask someone one question and be guaranteed an honest, unhurried answer, what would you ask?

I’m always grateful for your contributions here, whether they come in the form of thoughtful comments, paid subscriptions, one-time donations, or post shares. It all matters, so very much, as do you.

Afterward:
A country is made through this kind of small exchange, and each of us has some say in what they sound like. However the week unfolds, let’s keep showing up for them, raising our voices together and with care, for the kind of place we want to live in.

Try This:
Next time you see someone you only know a little, see if you can learn one new thing about them: their first name, where they grew up, what they’ve got planned for the weekend, or if they caught sight of that amazing red maple on the way out of town. Listen for the answer and see where it takes you.

See you soon!