Snow swirls through the porch lights as I write, a smothering whiteness through which I half expect to see George Bailey come careening up our driveway in his Model T, veering towards our cottonwood tree, hop out, and go racing down into our little stream, seeking absolution.
The snow slows us down, cocoons us inside, and evokes a memory of the Christmas that never was – the one back in the 50’s when I didn’t have to go to school, or work, and presents still appeared by magic overnight. This year, at last, our children have all finally scattered, and we are winding down, but still dreaming big.
Annie went off to Whitman College in Walla Walla (“the town so nice they named it twice”). She’s taking full advantage of the small-town, small college atmosphere, ingratiating herself with friends from Texas, Colorado, and points East. Cycling team, orchestra, Chinese, gender studies, psych … it makes college seem worth doing all over again!
Shaine, tonight, is snowed out in Missoula. She works for SEIU, progressing this past year from organizing individual nursing homes to training other organizers, and now preparing to lead the charge for employee free choice and universal health care legislation in Montana, lobbying Sen, Max Baucus. She’ll be back home for Christmas, but then spend the next six months in Big Sky Country, taking advantage of the Hundred Days.
Cody, like Shaine, is still living in Seattle. He took a big step this year -0r rather stopped taking some big steps, when he bought a Smart car. That’s the little thing that looks so small and cute you just want to pick it up, put it in your pocket, and take it home with you. He moved on to Iris Ink, a computer services group specializing in providing Macintosh business systems for small and medium sized businesses, especially arts oriented non-profits, and dreaming big tech start-ups.
Cheryl has plowed nearly full time into her culminating thesis project for certification at Photography Center Northwest. She is still spending time with pregnant and newly delivered inmates who are doing their sentences in the Residential Parenting Program. Her images illustrate the potential for life-changing opportunities with such a “captive” group of mothers: opportunities to educate, to facilitate healthy maternal-infant attachment, to decrease recidivism. New to yoga this year, she is striving to maintain balance. both literally and figuratively.
I have become fully focused on Ironman triathlons. For in depth reporting, see my blog at www.bikrutz.org/triblog/ I have qualified again for the World Championships in Kona, October 10, 2009. And I intend to set age group course records for the Ironman races in Coeur d’ALene and Tempe.
For the past forty years, I have marveled at the myriad ways we and our Presidents can fool ourselves and disappoint us all. The civil rights leaders of the fifties and early sixties often used allusions to the wilderness and the promised land to help keep faith in future progress. For the past ten months, I have slowly let myself build towards a similar hope, that we, the American people, after 40 years in a wilderness of our own making, can at last, through sheer attrition if nothing else, find our way to a better place. Barack Obama, with his eloquence, intelligence, determination, perseverance, equanimity, and, oh that smile, can point the way. But only we can go there. And, yes, we can.
— Al, for the rest of the Truscotts: Cheryl, Cody, Shaine, & Annie