If This Isn't Nice, What Is?
coping with election anxiety, pretty pics from Istria, and a meditation on smallness
Hi friends,
I’ve yet to find a single place on earth that isn’t beautiful in October, and Amman, I’m thrilled to find, is no exception. Nick and I came home from the Balkans to find that the city is having a proper autumn (a welcome change from our time in Cairo, where it would be 85 degrees well into November, and then suddenly the atmosphere would turn gritty and smoggy and it would be winter). The air has a bite to it. It gives me a reason to put my ridiculous collection of knitwear back into rotation, and it makes me feel awake, like a splash of cool water on my face in the morning.
Though maybe that feeling of awake-ness has less to do with the weather and more to do with my former job no longer draining me—I’m finding I suddenly have the life force to do things like work on a novel, bake chocolate babka (this recipe is surprisingly easy, if you have a little patience!), and plan décor for the holiday season. And by “holiday season,” I mean Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’m more or less skipping Halloween this year. I have always secretly disliked Halloween (party pooper, I know, sorry), and I’m kind of relieved to be in a country that doesn’t celebrate.
Also, the end of the month means the U.S. presidential election is nearly upon us…and that is more than scary enough for me. I hope you are coping better than I am, but in case you’re in the same boat, I want to share some thoughts about waking up on election day—and the day after, and the day after—without losing our collective minds.
on watching the U.S. election from abroad
Part of me misses being in D.C. in an election year. The bar specials, the debate watch parties…the whole city has a vibrant energy. But to be honest with you, it’s been refreshing to be removed from it all. I haven’t felt compelled to see the debates live (they happen in the wee hours of our morning), and Americans here are skittish about bringing up the election, lest it reveal ideological divisions in the expat community that could quickly turn uncomfortable. And while that’s a clear indicator of the poor health of American civil society, I really, really don’t miss talking politics. I’d even go so far as to say that being away from the U.S. is the only thing keeping my mental health in check right now.
I’m feeling deep anxiety about this election, and about the civil unrest I fear might follow it. I’m upset that we’ve already seen violence against poll workers; that the electorate isn’t being given a real choice on whether to continue military support to Israel—which I see as one of the defining moral issues of our time—because Trump’s and Harris’ positions are effectively the same; and that the candidate who has vowed to end democracy has a very real chance of winning. One thing at the top of my mind is Donald Trump’s promise to gut the civil service, starting with the State Department. Should he win, it’s not impossible that Nick and I could be sent packing (unlikely, but not impossible). If that day comes, we might have to return to a country that no longer seems like home—something I meditated on in this poem.
I’m feeling like this could be the end of the world as I know it. I’m guessing many of you are, too. For my part, I’ve done what I can in this election cycle by voting, donating, and speaking my mind. And if the stakes were lower, that might be enough for me to feel at peace. But considering, ya know, (*gesticulating wildly at the air*) this big ol’ mess, I am still a bundle of nerves.
I find myself turning to Kurt Vonnegut in times like these. Vonnegut was clear-eyed about how cruel and unfair the world could be, yet he never lost hope for humanity, or stopped believing in goodness. In his 1994 commencement address at Syracuse University, Vonnegut said a few things I think are worth remembering in this moment:
On devoting yourself to the things you can control: “The teacher whose name I mentioned when we all remembered good teachers asked me one time, ‘What is it artists do?’ And I mumbled something. ‘They do two things,’ he said. ‘First, they admit they can’t straighten out the whole universe. And then second, they make at least one little part of it exactly as it should be. A blob of clay, a square of canvas, a piece of paper, or whatever.’”
On noticing when life is beautiful: “…I had a good uncle named Alex, who said, when life was most agreeable—and it could be just a pitcher of lemonade in the shade—he would say, ‘If this isn’t nice, what is?’ So I say that about what we have achieved here right now. If he hadn’t said that so regularly, maybe five or six times a month, we might not have paused to notice how rewarding life can be sometimes.”
On being decent in the face of indecency: “I got a letter from a sappy woman a while back—she knew I was sappy too, which is to say a lifelong Democrat. She was pregnant, and she wanted to know if I thought it was a mistake to bring a little baby into a world as troubled as this one is. And I replied, what made being alive almost worthwhile for me was the saints I met. They could be almost anywhere. By saints I meant people who behaved decently and honorably in societies which were so often obscene. Perhaps many of us here, regardless of our ages or power or wealth, can be saints for her child to meet.”
This week, I am remembering Vonnegut’s words as I savor steaming cups of tea on our windy porch. I’m focusing on small things that I can make exactly as they should be—like a line of knitting, and a personal essay or two—and I am resolving to stay decent no matter what happens. Meanwhile, I’ll keep hoping for the best.
Sending you all love and strength for the days to come.
Are you feeling election anxiety? How are you coping? And if you’re a fellow American abroad, what has it been like for you to watch it from afar?
a love letter to Motovun, Croatia
I think a palate cleanser is in order after all that election talk.