Dear President Trump,

This morning I planned out my run so I could go by the huge Buddha head a few blocks up on a side street. Now that it’s light so early it felt safe to go ahead and run on side streets. I got to see the big Buddha as planned, but then a few blocks later there happened to be a break in the traffic on the big busy street near us so I crossed it and went in a different direction than I’d anticipated going. It was quite a mundane choice, really, but it’s been months and months since it felt possible to do something like this. As I reflected on the novelty of being flexible, I realized that the early light means that in addition to seeing the cracks in the sidewalk and being more visible to drivers, if anything bad were to happen it would feel much easier to yell for help. I know most people are still asleep and would be startled by someone outside their house yelling, but there’s something about it being light out that feels like it gives me permission to wake people up if I have to. I’d much prefer, though, not to have any of these sorts of worries come to mind at all. They probably don’t cross your mind much, do they?

What’s on your mind? Anything? Are you maybe having second thoughts about moving our embassy to Jerusalem? Is the death and injury toll giving you any pause whatsoever? How are you reconciling all the blather about this being a move that will lead to peace when Israeli forces are firing on thousands of unarmed civilians and killing dozens of them? Did you instruct your proxies to lie about Palestinian people bringing the violence being perpetrated against them on themselves so your supporters would have something to grab hold of? And how are you feeling about North Korea signaling the talks next month may be in jeopardy? What’s the plan there? Is Vladimir P going to step in and smooth Kim Jong Un’s ruffled feathers? Then there’s Scott P and the major cover-up by the EPA about dangerous levels PFOA and PFOS chemicals in the water supply. What’s the plan there? I won’t even go into what’s happening with Michael C and Mueller’s investigation. I bet you aren’t very pleasant to be around these days. You probably don’t even want to be around you.

May we all be safe to be flexible and spontaneous, not just men.
May we be happy to make detours for the heck of it.
May we exist in an environment that is healthy for and navigable by everyone.
May we not wage war and call it peace.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson