State of the Re-Union

From Enclave to Shining Enclave

From the restroom wall at Terrible’s Road House, the largest gas station in Nevada. Photo MPM.

Dear readers,

Recently, I applauded not only Kathleen Devanney’s brilliant Citizen State of the Union Address, but also her invitation to ALL of us to write a State of the Union address in July.

It’s genius, really. Why should we be content to listen only to the ramblings of the dude at the tippy-top of the pyramid who has little to no clue what’s going on in our real, actual, in-person country?

That might sound like a dig at Biden, and while I do think he’s the most clueless inhabitant of the oval office we’ve had since Reagan, it’s actually a dig at all U.S. presidents since, say, Coolidge.

Despite the founding fathers’ attempts to de-monarchize the presidency, we can all agree that over the past 100 years it’s morphed into something far more royal than plebeian.

Increasingly sequestered in their privilege, presidents don’t live normal lives. Haven’t we all seen the footage of George H.W. Bush, wide-eyed and mystified by the grocery store scanner? No? Here it is.

How could any president speak knowledgeably about the Union? Unless he’s been forced to drive from one coast to the other on surface roads in a rental car — and I mean DRIVE, not sit in the back and do the crosswords — multiple times per year, he has no concept of what this country is, let alone how it’s doing.

With that in mind, here’s my very personal SOTU address born from a month of traveling.

80mph down Highway 95S. Photo MPM.

My dear Americans:

The word “Union” is an optimistic term, but I’ll use it since I am, at heart, an optimist.

I’m also a self-professed bridge-builder, so using that term to describe what I see as profound “dis-union” pains me.

We are as disjointed as a nation, as disconnected from our fellow Americans as we have ever been, with the possible exception of the times leading up to our Civil War.

At that time, we took sides over a few clearly defined issues (which could be boiled down to secession, slavery, and state’s rights). Now, family members square off on just about everything you can think of, including issues that are ill-defined and thoroughly confusing.

But I’ll come back to those in a minute.

During the past 30 days, I’ve driven close to a thousand miles, stayed in homes and hotels on both coasts, and talked to all sorts of people.

One of my favorite Substackers,

Chris Bray

, exhorts his readers to get out on the open road if you really want to understand America, and he’s entirely correct. What I learned in those 30 days far surpasses anything I could glean from hearing others tell me what’s real, what’s important, or what’s true.

I’ll cut to the chase. What I learned is this: at this stage of our development, we are a nation of enclaves. An enclave is defined as “a distinct territorial, cultural, or social unit enclosed within or as if within foreign territory.”

Here are quick snapshots of three distinct territorial enclaves:

• Cape Cod, MA: Sitting on a not-public beach, I watch as tan, relaxed moms with lovely teeth shepherd their toddlers in and out of the water, wave to the friends they’ve grown up with every summer here, and chat amiably together under large umbrellas. Later in the day, their sliding-toward-paunchy husbands arrive looking harried, as though they’ve just driven down from Boston’s financial district where they earn enough to maintain the grey-shingled cape they’re in the process of renovating. Life is good. No one plays loud music; egg salad sandwiches abound.

• Reno, NV: We stay here to recover from the flu. Our hotel sits within a newly-developed industrial park, where all the landscaping is neatly trimmed and identical: evenly spaced short shrubs, carpets of green turf, carefully placed trees — all of which can withstand the furnace of the Nevada sun. There are three thriving hotels in this idyllic little complex, and a few chain restaurants. Each building, occupied by a plastic surgeon or dentistry office or pilates studio, looks like the one next to it. Parking is plentiful. The clean streets curve through the development pleasingly, and culminate in one main street leading out to a “real” road, where buses roar by and trash accumulates along the curb… and a black man at the bus stop yells to himself and repeatedly punches the bench’s back with his fist.

• Sedona, AZ: It’s gorgeous, with its iconic red sandstone formations and clear, starry skies. Expensive restaurants and crystal shops line the tasteful, orderly streets. There’s a Whole Foods even though the population of Sedona is only 10,000. Town developers made sure that all the roofs are low and don’t mar the views; earth-toned new houses blend into the landscape. Bachelorette parties get massages and psychic readings, then hire out hot pink Jeeps to go off-roading.

What knits all these enclaves together is their distinct separation from the reality of their surrounding environments. Oases of order and prosperity, they have a fantasy-like quality.

Contrast that with the drive on 95S from Reno toward Sedona, where all we saw were military installations and endless testing grounds, along with a few abandoned mining towns littered amongst the desolate, empty scrub that stretches for hundreds of miles in all directions.

Every town was a lost cause, with the exception of Tonopah, NV, home of a once-booming silver mine. It’s now a one-street town struggling to revive, depending on its clown motel and two recently-renovated historic inns to get the oxygen flowing.

It reminded me of driving across New York State — from one enclave to another — through sad town after sad town, villages of broken sidewalks and For Sale signs, their communities barely able to support a grocery store after their manufacturing bases were shipped overseas.

In the enclaves, though, everything is wonderful. People eat ice cream on warm evenings; children ride their bikes; moms don’t worry. Hope is very much alive. The biggest complaint enclave residents have is “finding good help.” Of course.

The easiest way people get from one enclave to the next is either to fly, or to take an Interstate. That way, they skip all of the depressing in-between-enclave space that does indeed feel like “foreign territory” surrounding the enclaves. This is where the “good help” resides, by the way.

That’s what we did when we flew from Logan Airport in Boston to Tahoe-Reno, to attend a family reunion in Lake Tahoe.

This seems like a good place to pause and reflect on what I mentioned earlier, about family members squaring off on just about every cultural issue you can think of.

Here’s a representative sampling of battling ideological enclaves:

Eat only plants! Eat only meat!
Gender is defined at birth! You can choose your own gender!
Trust science! Science is inherently fallible!
Abortion is murder! Abortion is a right!
Illegal immigration is humane! Illegal immigration is ruining our country!
Corporations are people! Corporations are evil!
The New York Times prints lies! The New York Times is a beacon of truth!
We are causing Climate Change! Climate Change is a hoax!
Vaccines are dangerous! Vaccines have eradicated illnesses!
Wear sunscreen at all times! Sunscreen is dangerous to your health!
Racism that rights inequality is necessary! Racism in any form is abhorrent!
War in certain cases is necessary! War is always wrong!
Children should be allowed to be children! Children are just small adults!
Donald Trump is literally Hitler! Donald Trump is literally a Savior!

Need I go on?

At Lake Tahoe, my immediate family, cousins, sisters, and most of my nieces and nephews gathered for five days. On the first day, we decided it would be good to have a What’sApp group to communicate with everyone. My daughter volunteered to set it up.

Seemingly incapable of writing what she considers “boring” titles, she eschewed “Reunion 2024” in favor of calling the group “Let’s Talk Politics!”

I still don’t know how anyone except my immediate family felt about that title, but the five of us found it pretty hilarious — particularly those of us who were nervous about showing up to this event knowing that most of our opinions were in the minority. Naming the elephant in the room straight away turned out to be an incantation that knocked down some of the fear. Laughter is good that way.

Why should we be afraid to disagree? Do we sense something now present in the zeitgeist that is unusually dangerous? Or have those with unpopular opinions always felt that they were just a hop, skip, and a jump away from full-blown ostracism?

I can’t know for sure.

The reunion lasted five days, and during that time, there was a lot of laughter. We made and ate dinners together, went out on boats, walked among the tall pines, or sat in conversation one-on-one on the shores of the lake. I had opportunities to hear my relatives and be heard. We shared personal insecurities, triumphs, and struggles.

My husband, son, and nephew-in-law talked late into the night about divisive issues — some of them I just listed, some of them philosophical differences that undergird their opinions — and always parted at the end with hugs.

On those nights, my husband tumbled into bed happy and hopeful.

On the second-to-last night, I led the group in theatre improv games, and we bonded through absurdities and sheer playfulness, cheering one another on. How can you not feel close to someone who has the courage to pretend to be a pole dancer in a strip club? Or the pole itself?

After the improv, my niece offered us all the opportunity to create a sharing circle — which almost everyone participated in. Our ages ran from 23 to 85. It was simply beautiful to hear what has been a challenge for them, how they’re meeting those challenges, what the joys of their lives are.

The circle felt intimate and safe, and filled with tremendous love. Tears come even as I remember how I felt. Surrounded by family, I spoke haltingly about the difficulty of being shut out for my choices of the past few years, the pain of almost-divorce, the delight at finding my way back to wholeness in my marriage, and the happiness at watching my children thrive.

The night ended in hugs, just as the late-night discussions had. Why? Because each one of us was more interested in listening and understanding than in blaming and proselytizing.

And therein lies the intentional divide in this country.

At a much higher level than the one each of us stands upon, sit those who profit from our dis-union. They are not just fomenting our radicalism, our disconnection, our hatred… they are banking on it.

It’s a cliché that what unites is far, far greater than what divides us, and it’s a cliché for the simple reason that it’s true.

We all want the same things, ultimately:

Health, safety, freedom.
Clean air and water.
Food that nourishes.
A roof over our heads.
Purpose. Meaningful work.
Time with family and friends.
Connection.
Love.

I know there are nuances to all of the things we human beings want. We disagree on the definitions of some of those, or how those things are achieved.

But we’re being told that we do not want the same things. That we are fundamentally different, and that the other side actively wants our destruction. We are constantly backed into corners and told the only way out is to fight.

It’s not. Every one of us is capable of listening and understanding. Every one of us is capable of building a bridge. Every one of us is capable of not drinking from the faucet of lies that streams into our consciousness every single day.

Better yet: turn off the faucet itself and go find an actual stream that runs clean and clear. Throw yourself down on its bank and drink deep. Then find someone outside your enclave — or within one, if you exist within “foreign territory” — and ask them what really matters. Listen. Find common ground.

Will that solve all the problems America faces right now? No. But it’s one place to start. It might even be the only place.

I’m sure some will consider this address to be naive and idealistic. I’m okay with that. I told you at the beginning: I’m an optimist.

And now, I’m a big believer in re-unions.

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Big gratitude to Kathleen Devanney for the concept, and to you, dear reader, for being here.

Do you have thoughts about my SOTU? Please share them! And add your own SOTU — even if it’s only a sentence or two. Or twelve.

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As always, keep your light shining bright.
xox
M