America

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping.

"I'm empty and aching and I don't know why."

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike

They've all come to look for America, all come 

To look for America, all come to look for America.

From "America" by Simone and Garfunkel

________

I am alone in the house, brooding. I could rant about Donald Trump, about how insane it is that he is this close to the presidency, though I have to believe the Hillary Clinton will clean his clock in November. Nothing else makes sense to me, but then it makes no sense to me now that he is even the Republican nominee. How did that happen? How did this hateful man, this empty suit, this man completely devoid of human decency and compassion, this psychopathic attention hound with no sense of proportion or consequence, get to this place? This man who says rape is "to be expected" if women are in the armed forces. This man who says that the Russian leader, who has murdered journalists and his own comrades, is a superior leader to our own President Obama. This man who says he could stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and he wouldn't lose any votes. I could go on and on. But what's the point? This is where we are in America right now, and the implications are shattering.

I'm so lonely. Honestly, it feels like a cosmic loneliness, something deep and sorrowing and untouchable, and I wonder sometimes if I am just absorbing all the painful, fearful energies swirling around us right now. When I look at Trump, I feel as if I am staring into the abyss, he makes me believe in the devil incarnate, walking among us right here on earth. Heaven and hell are right here in our midst. We are creating one or the other every second that we breathe, every thought that we allow to build a nest in our heads, every action we take. Trump tempts me to believe that hell is winning, but then I look at the Obamas, and at the deeply good people in every direction, and I have to pull myself back from the brink of the abyss, and remind myself that we will wake from the long nightmare only if we can love each other hard enough, and with enough faith in our ability to create a bright heaven from the shards of this bleating hell. 

I am heartsick if you want to know the truth. I'm empty and aching and counting cars. Trying to make it through to the next moment, and then the next, and to believe in the good.