Dear President Trump,

At about 8:45 last night when I let our old dog out to pee for what I hoped would be the last time until morning (it was) I saw a single star in the sky to the West and realized it had been months and months since I thought to look for any constellations. To be fair to myself, it’s only now starting to get dark before bedtime here in the far upper left of the US, but it still gave me something of a jolt when I put together that it had been a long, long time since I did something so basic, something I always find calming and grounding. It’s not as though I’ve completely lost my capacity to notice nature and beauty, but this is a solid reminder that I can’t take that capacity for granted – it could pretty easily slip away if I’m not careful. It would be awful to be bereft of the changing light or the wind in the trees or feeling small under the night sky because I’m too worried, distracted, and tired to get out of my head.

Are you following me? Do you have half a clue what I’m talking about? Are you already inured to the charms and wonders of the natural world? Is this why you appear to think nothing of selling the rights to the wild world to the highest bidder? It’s not a new idea that we need to be out in nature and experiencing it so that we know it and are willing to take care of it, but I hadn’t realized how susceptible I am to letting this capacity be slowly deprived of oxygen and how necessary it is to actively counter this.

Fortunately it’s all there all the time and this morning I saw the lovely crescent moon fairly high up in the Eastern sky; it was clear enough that the entire face of the moon was visible. Orion’s Belt was the only constellation I could see, but I’ll take it, so to speak.

Yesterday I wrote to you about various pictures I saw on Sunday, but I held one out to write to you about separately. It’s the picture of the crowd at Elizabeth Warren’s rally here at the Seattle Center. You’ve probably never been to SC so you almost certainly can’t imagine what it would look like completely full of people, but I’ll tell you, it’s a pretty impressive sight. No, it’s not the Washington Mall so don’t start preening and getting defensive about bogus crowd sizes. She’s not at the Mall, yet, and assuming she does get there, I doubt she’ll stoop to arguing with you about such dumb ass stuff. The crowd here was estimated to have been around 15,000 and everyone looked awesome in all their colorfulness and excitement. I already told you we were up in Everett visiting family that afternoon so we couldn’t attend the rally, but we were there in spirit and there were plenty of other people there in body so she got a really nice welcome from this part of the world.

None of us has a crystal ball so we don’t know who is going to get either the Democratic presidential nomination or who will win in 2020, but oh my would I love to see either Warren or Harris win it all and get to fill the Washington Mall with people happy to witness our country finally making the long (long, long) needed course correction away from the patriarchy’s stranglehold on the US presidency. What a day that will be. And I want it be January 20, 2021. In addition to the fact that I want a woman to win (and strongly feel we need a woman to win), I think both Warren and Harris are well qualified. I think in their own ways, they each have the capacity to wade into the breach we’ve created and help us begin to mend it without just papering over real, important differences and disagreements. We need someone who is not going to dig their heels in and engage in nasty retributions and more partisan bullshit (we’ve had way too much of that the last 949 days). We need someone who is going to help us come to our senses and see that negotiation and compromise for the greater good are necessary, are even honorable.

Yes, we need a leader who is charismatic, someone with star qualities. For sure. We need someone whose light is warming and illuminating. We need someone who doesn’t feel the need to bedazzle or blind or eclipse everyone around them. We need someone focused on helping everyone shine. In short, we need a down to earth star.

May we be safe as we make our way through this dark, swampy, uncharted territory.
May we be willing to figure out how to be lights to one another.
May we remember to look up and out, to get some fresh air.
May we all make peace with strength based in care and kindness.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson