After two years of angst, I’m finally breathing again. The joy I’ve felt since last week’s 2026 midterm elections has me wanting to hug everyone I meet. A sense of human reconnection and hope is once again alive. November 3rd that many feared would be dark and drear saw voters from California to New Mexico, Texas to Kansas, Georgia to Michigan and across Ohio to Maine deliver a blue tsunami of historic proportions unseen in America for half a century.
To add to my joy, our son Hayden arrived Halloween evening after a long flight from his home in Spain for a visit with Kit, our cat Peekay and me. O, the joy of being together for daily visits with Kit at the Lodge, especially sweet during this time of historic political change. He took brisk walks in the woods each morning to fill his lungs with the crisp Sierra foothill’s air—something I’m doing with new energy every afternoon up and down our road, armed with my trekking poles and bundled up in a fleece jacket and wool neck scarf.
Each afternoon and evening we prepared light Mediterranean dishes in my kitchen, followed by conversations over relaxed meals at the dining room table. Evenings were spent reading by the fire and time reveling at how amazing his children Nico, Ines, and Catalina are and what a wonderful addition his three-year old grandson Willy has become in his life.
Each day on our drive to the Lodge to be with Kit, we passed Autumn Blaze sugar maples as red as cherries, rivaled only by golden liquid amber leaves that turn from butter yellow to deep red before stiff breezes eventually send them flying. After a long, dry summer and fall, gentle rain fell on Election Day, but no one cared. After the polls closed and we retired for the night, a new dawn came up, washing the tall pines, firs and cedars in our woods with rosy light, seconds later announced a brilliant blue new day.
Across the country, our politically polarized crazy quilt of diverse American citizens had come together and voted for change. That beautiful morning, it was clear as a bell what their commitment and vote had set in motion. Now, as a sage Siamese cat pointed out with its long paw, “After the train wreck comes a reckoning.”
O, the joy! I and WE the people are finally breathing again.