Trail's End Week 3 2021

When day comes we ask ourselves,

where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

(Amanda Gorman, Youth Poet Laureate)

The two weeks after the storming of the Capital, awaiting the inauguration, seemed to last forever. Living so close to DC we watched Washington turn into a war zone barricaded by soldiers in full camo carrying automatic weapons in anticipation of what seemed likely to to occur in the days before our new President was sworn in. We, like so many of you, woke up with painful anticipation the morning of January 20 waiting for the stroke of noon to arrive and allow us our collective sighs of relief. And indeed it did; without incident and with a wave of more hopefulness than we have experienced in past days we can even remember.

Without the dark cloak of Covid it could have been a near perfect day. Washington was crisp and cool but the sun came out as the 46th President was sworn into office. Our new President, a man who was a compromise for so many of us hoping to create more humanity in our country, talked about his soul. Finally, after the longest four years, we have a President who talks about unity, a Vice President who checks three historical boxes, a Cabinet that represents the diversity of our country and the beginnings of belief in democracy again.

Last week-end we took a trip to West Virginia (bear with me as I completely change the subject ~ I promise to tie it all together). Despite Covid, Thomas and I are chomping at the bit to explore our new surrounds. We chose West Virginia because it is close, it is sparsely populated, and I am in a never-ending quest to challenge all my stereotypes. In less than two hours we arrived in Shepherdsville, West Virginia, a charming small town that is the home of Shepherd University. The town was filled with shops waving the rainbow flag and signs of "Black Lives Matter" in many of the windows. We drove through Harper's Ferry on our way and noted that Antietam was ten minutes down the road. So much history of our nation surrounded us; history that we learned about but really never grokked.

Antietam is part of the National Park System. It is absolutely beautiful and we hiked the Bloody Lane Trail which is partly dirt road, partly narrow trail and partly a corn field. The beauty of the area was juxtaposed by intentional placement of cannons and plaques along the way describing the march of the Union and Confederate soldiers to their almost certain death in 1862. 23,000 lives were lost over the course of a few days; the most American lives lost in a single battle of any war. The photographs, sketches and statues depicted very young men whose lives were so tragically cut short. Although the notion of war is completely abhorrent to me, the more I am learning about the Civil War, the more I understand how the abolition of slavery was the compelling component that drove the Union to engage in battle. My deep sense of pacifism was tested with each plaque I read; at what point is freedom worth fighting and dying for?

The next day we went to Harper's Ferry which is designated a National Historical Site. I remember learning a little about John Brown but, again, I grew up so far removed from the story of it that what was real about it was lost on me. John Brown, an avid abolitionist, is credited with the beginnings of the Civil War through his raid at Harper's Ferry with the hope of destroying the institution of slavery. We happened to be there on the Martin Luther King holiday, and when we drove up we found admission was free in honor of MLK. Sometimes it is so heartening to be reminded of how far our country has come as we continue to struggle with how far we still have to go.

Harper's Ferry also happens to be a beautiful area. It is where the Shenandoah and Potomoc Rivers meet, where Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia intersect, and is nestled in a valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We walked across a bridge over the Shenandoah River that is part of the Appalachian Trail, a trail that spans 2200 miles from Maine to Georgia. We met a cyclist who had been riding the trail for six days from Long Island, New York on his way to the Florida Keys. We hiked along the Potomoc under bare trees on a cold day with the sun's reflection in the water feeling possibility in our new lives here, a harbinger of what Wednesday would bring.

On Wednesday I did not realize, until the digital clock in the corner of my television read 12:00 pm, how scared I have been for four years. Terrified actually. When noon arrived my first thought was "now we will not have a nuclear war; now we are safer". After that came a flurry of thoughts and hopes and wishes that I dared not have before this day. We will be in partnership with the world again. We have a chance of fairness and justice again. We will take care of each other again. Like a child must feel when their parents return from a trip and the sitter is sent home a naive kind of peace settled over me.

Of course there is so much work to do to create that partnership, fairness, justice and care for one another. But it seems possible now. Even Covid seems so much less haunting now. The work ahead is the healing from the trauma of the last four years. The ability to be hopeful now is the salve that begins that healing.