Dear President Trump,

Just now I was reading Michael Gerhardt’s (WP) editorial laying out the absurdity of your claims that the impeachment inquiry is illegitimate. His argument boils down to the simple idea that you are insisting you should be treated as an untouchable King who gets to do whatever he wants for as long as he wants, to include any and all manner of illegal, unethical things.

In the middle of reading the various quotes from various illustrious Founding Fathers (note: I bet if the Founding Mothers had been allowed to go on record there would have been some even pithier quotes to choose from) that bat down the stupid arguments your attorney, Pat Cipollone, laid out in his lame letter, Laura told me that in a couple of weeks, cranes will be arriving at the Bosque del Apache.

Maybe it was because I was reading about your Highness-aspirations or maybe because I’m still addled and tired from my trip, but I got tearful and very upset thinking that heavy machinery was going into the wildlife refuge. Actually, for a second I confused the Bosque del Apache with Alaska’s Arctic National Refuge where you’ve managed to get a green light to wreak havoc so I thought she was telling me that the cranes of destruction were set to arrive there in a couple of weeks.

Laura was being sweet in telling me about the bird-cranes’ projected migration timeline and instead I immediately think that a sacred, incredible place is doomed because construction-cranes are bearing down on it.

I am so f*cking tired of being so f*cking on edge.

My poor brain’s associative net is getting so jumbled. Even though I know that bird-cranes go with the Bosque del Apache, if I’m upset by something about you, I can’t keep shit straight and I conflate one place with another and mistake one type of thing with another type of thing and come up with something horrible.

Have you ever been to either the Arctic Refuge or the Bosque? I can’t imagine that you’ve been to any wild place, so really it’s absurd to even ask you this question. I’ve not been to Alaska, but when we lived in New Mexico, Laura and I drove the hour and half from Albuquerque to the Bosque and attempted to take a bike ride during crane migration time. Unfortunately, our ride was very, very short – we didn’t make it the equivalent of a city block because there are thousands (millions?) of nasty little “goatheads,” which are super spiky seed pods that will flat a tire in no time, even if said tire is of the beefy mountain-bike variety and is filled with “goo” that’s supposed to immediately seal any puncture. Bike ride abandoned, we walked and we stood and we sat and we watched for a long, long time. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.

The other morning when I was riding from the airport into New Orleans I saw a handful of cranes and herons, including a little tiny baby crane. I texted Laura to tell her and at first she thought it was probably an adult crane that was just further away, but I managed to convince her that this baby crane was in the same plane as the adult ones I’d seen and was clearly very much smaller. I have no idea whether it will be making the trek to the Bosque or if the NOLA cranes even need to migrate, but I hope wherever it spends the winter that that place stays safe from the other sort of cranes, forever.

May we all, including bird-cranes, be safe and may our habitats be protected, forever.
May we all be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to safeguard our shared home.
May all those in NOLA who were injured in the construction collapse return to health.
May your people see that you’ve sold out their active duty daughters and sons stationed in the Middle East.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson