Dear President Trump,

Even though there are so very many troubling things going on right now, I am sticking with sending you messages that focus on something positive because it is helping me deal better with all the negativity and chaos coming from your administration.

Normally my commute to work in the morning is not especially positive. It is only 11 miles but I have to go through downtown Seattle to get to the VA from my house and that 11 miles can take anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes. Our freeway system was not designed for high volume traffic and it gets bogged down very easily even when there are not stalls or accidents. The upside of crawling along in traffic is I get to see a lot more than I would if we were all going more normal freeway speeds. Yesterday as we inched down the on-ramp I noticed that the daffodils that bloom every year about this time had been joined by some tulips, which I’m quite sure are new. Most of the vegetation on the side of the road there is weedy and scruffy so the flowers really stand out. I also saw two pretty amazing characters in cars behind me. The first was a young white woman with librarian glasses, talking animatedly with two kids and another adult. I couldn’t figure out her hair initially because it looked like it was standing up and ending in curls but it turned out she was wearing a bright pink princess birthday crown. Because of the way we all have to zipper into merging traffic the birthday crown lady was replaced by an African American young woman with neon green nails who was gesticulating so intensely that I thought she was angry with something about the traffic. It turns out, though, that she was dancing and singing. She ended up passing me and her windows were down so I could hear her. She was having an awesome time in the interminably slow traffic. And so, by all appearances, was birthday lady. The final thing from yesterday’s commute to share with you is that when I was at the high point on the ship canal bridge I got to see a crow do a twisting free fall dive straight down. It looked like she was having a great time too.

Although on balance I prefer commutes that move along more quickly, it was wonderful to see so much joy bubbling up. It reminds me that the fundamentals are still solid and worth holding up.

May you be safe.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy and strong.
May your life unfold and intersect peacefully and joyfully.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson