Notes From A Good Morning

Reflections on relief, hope, and an unexpected election, from Central Mexico

The election results surprised me. I had prepared for a national nervous breakdown and had to make do with a good morning.

Of course I’m happy. Two years ago, I learned how much distance there can be between what I believe about the land of my birth and what happens when it votes. This time, I kept my expectations low enough that they couldn’t injure themselves falling.

I prepared for a long night, a close count, and another exhausting fight over whether Americans could accept what other Americans had decided. Then the returns came in, and it wasn’t close. I sat in Mexico looking at the screen and felt something I haven’t felt much lately when thinking about the United States.

Relief.

My shoulders dropped. I could read the news without wishing I hadn’t. The future felt more open than it had the day before. At last, a chance to put restraints on the ignorance and stupidity that had acquired federal offices, government vehicles, and the authority to make everybody else miserable.

Last Friday, I wrote about the morning after the 2024 election, when I refreshed the results with the grim dedication of a laboratory animal pressing a lever that had stopped dispensing food.

I was angry. Underneath the anger was a sadness I didn’t know what to do with. I had treated progress as something history would provide, mistaking other people’s courage for the natural direction of things. When the country failed to meet my expectations, I questioned the country. My expectations were apparently above review.

It took time to recognize that my disappointment didn’t make me an authority on anyone else’s life. Mexico helped. People here offered me kindness without first asking for evidence that I’d earned it. In ordinary conversations, I began to notice how quickly I formed judgments and how much those judgments kept me from hearing.

Now comes victory, and I can feel my confidence returning a little ahead of the evidence. America has awakened. Decency has prevailed. Perhaps the country would like my advice on a few other matters.

Friday, I was learning humility. Apparently, I had signed up for the weekend course. The temptation is to take millions of individual decisions and convert them into one enormous compliment to myself: They finally understood what I understood.

I’m pleased with that sentence about ignorance and stupidity, too. A little too pleased.

This is how I could end up celebrating an essay about listening by explaining why everyone should have listened to me.

Somewhere this morning, Americans looked at these returns and felt what I felt two years ago. They saw their country moving in a direction they feared. I don’t know their individual reasons for voting as they did. I won’t learn much by assuming I do. The man on television operating a map large enough to coordinate an invasion can tell me where they live. The rest will require listening.

If Friday’s essay meant anything, it has to mean something on the morning I’m not the one grieving. That said, I don’t want to strangle every decent feeling with a cautionary footnote.

Something I wanted badly has happened. It happened because people worked for it without knowing whether they would succeed. People knocked on doors after work. They called strangers, helped neighbors register, drove someone to the polls. They had every reason to feel discouraged and kept going. They gave the rest of us this morning. I hope they’re enjoying it.

I’m especially glad for those who spent the past two years wondering whether their country still had room for them, or whether anyone with power cared what happened to them.

An election cannot answer every fear. It can give people evidence that others care enough to act. Sometimes that is where hope begins.

Trump remains president. This detail will interfere with the victory party. The divisions remain, and so do the bills, the illnesses, the insecure jobs, and the private worries that never make the election coverage.

The new Congress has an opportunity to make those lives easier. There’s a group of dynamic and intelligent people headed to Washington. I want them to succeed, and I want its members to understand how much hope they will be carrying into their offices.

A person postponing medical care does not need another video of a senator walking purposefully down a hallway. We know he can get to the meeting. We need to know what happens afterward.

Over the next two years, I’ll be looking for fewer people choosing between the rent and the doctor. More people able to plan beyond the next paycheck. Some reason for a young person to believe that working hard might lead to a life they want. Those changes would give this morning’s relief somewhere to go.

Here in Mexico, I can put down the phone. Many people have no such distance from the consequences. Still, the United States is where most of my life took place. It gave me friendships, work, music, and experiences that made me who I am. My disappointment has always lived alongside that attachment.

This morning, the affection comes easier. I’m glad to discover how much of it is still there. Anger can occupy so much space that you forget what you wanted to protect in the first place.

At my age, I’ve learned that a good day deserves your attention while you’re living it. You can miss plenty of them insisting on guarantees about the next one. So I’m going to enjoy this one. Call a few people. Take a walk. Let myself imagine things getting better without immediately correcting myself.

Last Friday, I wrote that somebody would still need help on Wednesday. That’s still true.

Today, I’m putting down the phone with a little more faith in humanity. I should probably go outside before I check it again.