The Morning After

This is no "morning in America." This is more the way you feel when you learn that someone you love has been hurting more than you possibly thought they were. Why didn't you tell me, I feel like saying. How could things have been this bad, to produce this end?

But they were telling me, telling us, and we wouldn't, couldn't listen. Because listening across party lines is not something we do much anymore.

The great rift exposed by this election has been a long time coming, and it will take a while to repair. I'm not a politician, but it seems to me that the best way — maybe the only way — out of this is to pull together. Unfortunately, the campaign has eroded our ability to do the very thing we need to do for our recovery.

In my office now there is much gallows humor, talk of relocating to Canada or some tropical isle. It's a good time to leave for Indonesia and Myanmar (which I do on Friday). But I'll be back soon. How much will this have sunk in by then? How inured will we be to this new reality?