Do you feel that?

My dad and I took a walk yesterday, or the day before. Who knows what day it is anymore? After we fumed over the uncertainty of the election and the string of lies spewing out of the President's mouth, I decided to change the subject. I wanted to talk about anything except the ache in my throat and chest.

me: What's your favorite fall leaf color?

Dad: Red.

My 11-year old son, Sean, agreed. 

me: I really love the yellow ones. 

Which is true, just after the rain, the yellow leaves against the dark trunk of the tree are so beautiful. 

Dad: There are some leaves that start to turn, until the edges are ringed with a red-orange color, and the leaf itself is yellow. Some of them are so beautiful it almost makes me want to cry.

As much as I wanted to bypass the ache, I couldn't. The fall beauty makes me want to cry, too: trees turning radiant colors and then letting go and shedding the leaves that once adorned their branches. The falling leaves and the crunch of the already fallen under my feet, it all brings an ache to my chest. The ache of fall is both the exquisite beauty and the awareness that it's fleeting. We hold tight to the warmth of fall days knowing that the winter will push us indoors, inside, and more interior than we've been in months.

The ache is more extreme during the pandemic. I see my family and friends outside, I don't want any of the warmth and beauty to disappear. I ache, even while we're in the peak fall colors. The beauty is too much to take in and the upcoming loneliness of winter is too sad. So I'm stuck in a place of unknowing how the future will play itself out.

I also ache while listening to the news this week about the razor-thin margin of our Presidential election. I ache because I feel incredibly distant from family members who believe the opposite of what I believe. I ache because our President has encouraged an abandonment of decency, decorum, thoughtfulness and intention. We are being whipped around by a narcissist who only cares about himself, his ratings, and his power. 

I hope and pray that Joe Biden wins, but no matter who wins, we are in a precarious position. We are a bitterly divided country, and unless we find a way to unite ourselves over our common humanity, then divisions will grow, more lives will be lost to COVID-19, the Earth will continue to bear the brunt of our insatiable desire for burning fossil fuels, and we will lose sight of what makes us united in the first place. We need to critically examine our criminal justice system, policing policies, and immigration to make them fair, safe, and just. Our country needs work, but that can only happen when we have leadership who can work together, across the aisle, listening, compromising, and building forward. 

Do you feel that ache? I do, too. The trees feel it, the Earth feels it, and our fellow Americans all feel it. We are all aching. It's time to see the beauty around us, allow the dead leaves to fall away, shed the crap of 4 years of Trump and decades of racial inequality, and get to work talking to each other, no matter what political stripe you fancy.