Fair Warning: This post will not feature a gentle, upbeat piece about nature and life at our house by the edge of the woods. Instead, it is a lament about the choice too many voters made on Tuesday. If this isn’t your thing or doesn’t match your politics, feel free to skip it.

On Tuesday, the votes were cast, and I am still reeling over the results. I was convinced Harris would win. Silly me in my blue bubble with like-minded friends.

However, a week ago, I did see an ominous sign that should have warned me of what was to come on Tuesday. When Clif and I went to Lowe’s to pick up a few things for the house, we parked behind a huge pick-up truck with the most vulgar, obscene array of anti-Harris/Biden bumper stickers that I have ever had the misfortune to see. I just sat there and gaped, reflecting on how I would never, never have similar bumper stickers about Trump on my car. Never.

Hostility and anger radiated from that truck, and I thought about how I wouldn’t want to meet the driver, a man, in a dark alley. In fact, I would probably cross the street to avoid him.

I am betting, that Trump,  a fulcrum of crude resentments, was the candidate of choice for that driver. Naturally, I did not ask him.

And on Tuesday, all across the country, even in blue zones, voters chose a man whose daily diet consists of anger and resentment, who has an enemy list, who has threatened “to toss reporters in jail and strip major television networks of their broadcast licenses as retribution for coverage he didn’t like.”

Does Trump mean this? Who knows? I guess we will find out.

I am heartbroken that so many voters—almost 73 million across the country—went for this man who is such a threat to the United States. Will he drag this country down? Is this it for democracy?

Again, we will find out.

I am taking a couple of weeks off from blogging. I need time to recover and regroup. And to figure out how to resist in my own creaky-kneed way.

I’ll end with grandfather of grunge, the great Neil Young. Let’s keep Rockin’ in the Free World.

To a large degree, we are all here because of chance. If my mother had married another man, there would be no me. The same is true for my brother. Another daughter or another son, perhaps, but not the two of us with our exact genetic inheritance.

However, for my friend Ed Vigneault, the story of his existence is even more weighted by chance, a tragic, improbable tale that started sometime around 1815 in the waters off the Magdalen Islands, a small archipelago in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The archipelago is part of the province of Québec, and its French name is Îsles de-la-Madeleine. Population: 12,781.

According to Wikipedia, the territory once belonged to the Mi’kmaw Nation, and they named this cluster of islands Menquit, which means “battered by waves.” Later, it would be called Menagoesenog, or “battered by the surf. ” Both names give a vivid description of the rough waters that pound the Magdalen Islands, and through the years there have been over 400 shipwrecks. Some of the islanders are descendants of the survivors. And even though he isn’t an islander, this brings the story back to my friend Ed and the year 1815, long before Ed was born.

A ship from Europe, probably from the British Isles, was sailing to Canada. But before the ship reached port and was somewhere near the Magdalen Islands, a terrible storm blew in, a tempest. The ship was obviously in trouble, but the storm was so bad that none of the fisherman from the islands dared go out to rescue the passengers.

As the islanders feared, the shipped crashed against the rocks, throwing passengers into the ocean.  On a beach near Dune du Sud on the island Havre aux Maisons, bodies washed onto the sand. As the islanders searched for survivors, they found a heartbreaking sight: A  dead woman clutching a baby, who, incredible as it might seem, was alive. That baby was Ed’s great-great-grandmother, and a family—the Cummings—on Havre aux Maisons adopted her, naming the baby Sophie Peine. Because of her tragic beginning, Sophie was also known as “La Petite Misère,” which I’m sure needs no translation even for those who don’t speak French.

I first heard this story, told by Ed in broad outlines, at a gathering at a friend’s house, and I was immediately gripped by it. In my mind’s eye, I could see dead bodies—some face up, some face down—washed on a sandy beach. Waves break over them, pushing them farther up the beach and then rolling them back a little. With resignation, the islanders come to the beach, searching for survivors. Dead, dead, dead. Then they hear an infant cry and find baby Sophie in her dead mother’s arms. I think of the force of will it must have taken for that mother—Ed’s great-great-great grandmother—to hold on to that baby, to not let go as the ocean threw them toward the rocks and the sand. If the mother had loosened her grip just once, the baby would have been swept away to drown, and there would have been no Ed.

Knowing I was interested in hearing more, Ed and his wife Becky invited me over for tea one morning so he could fill in the details. He told me that when his niece and his sister started doing genealogy, she discovered the sad story of Sophie Peine. He spoke of how Sophie lived to be a woman and married a man named Bénoni Arseneau. They would have many children together, and eventually they moved to Natashquan, in the Province of Québec. The community is so remote that until 1996, it could only reached by either plane or boat. Ed’s great-grandmother would be born in  Natashquan, and it was in Natashquan, on dry land, that Sophie, La Petite Misère, died.

When he was done talking about his family, Ed brought out a small plastic container. Inside was sand, scooped from the beach on the island where Sophie and her mother washed up. On top of the sand was a little piece of driftwood.

Ed said, “I like to think this piece of wood came from the ship Sophie was on.”

I just nodded. Such a lovely thought that connects Ed to his great-great-grandmother, the improbable survivor of a storm that took so many lives, including the life her own mother.

Most of the time, the posts on this blog avoid the political, and world events are seldom mentioned. Instead, the focus is on life in the hinterlands of central Maine. I’m a homebody who seldom travels more than twenty miles from my town. I dwell in the particular, on the edge of a small forest where the wind moves through the tops of the pines and a snake sometimes suns itself on my patio and a bear once smashed flat our bird feeder.

However even in central Maine—far from the center of things—world events can dominate. With Russia invading Ukraine, now is such a time. If there is one thing the pandemic has taught me is that there is no “there.” What happens across the globe ripples outward, touching all countries, no matter how far apart they are. Once upon a time, what happened in a Neanderthal village might have stayed in a Neanderthal village. But those days are gone, and the United States is now inextricably linked to the rest of the world, from Africa to China to Russia to Europe. And as the twentieth century has illustrated, especially to Europe.

What will happen next with Russia, Ukraine, and the world? Naturally, no one can know. But Clif observed that while Afghanistan felt like Vietnam, Ukraine feels more like Poland. I hope this impression springs more from a sense of unease than from any kind of foresight. A world war with an authoritarian leader who has nuclear weapons is terrible to contemplate.

Amidst the gloom, there is a glimmer of hope. In the New York Times, I read, “Thousands of protesters took to the streets and squares of Russian cities on Thursday to protest President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine…Many Russians, like people across the world, were shocked to wake up and learn that Mr. Putin had ordered a full-scale assault against a country often referred to as a ‘brotherly nation.’ At the protests, many people said they felt depressed and broken by the news of Russian military action.”

But this is just a glimmer. Unfortunately, as we have seen in our own country, tribalism and nationalism are always lurking, and authoritarian leaders know how to whip up a frenzy for conflict and war.

Frank Bruni, also in the New York Times, gives this sobering assessment of Putin and Ukraine: “Embarrassment, vanity, viciousness: History never moves on or gets past these forces, which drove invasions and conquests in centuries past and will drive invasions and conquests in years to come. There should be no great shock about Russia’s audacious attack on Ukraine — only profound sadness and painstaking thought about what to do and what’s to come.”

When I shared Bruni’s quotation on Facebook, I got some pushback from a friend who wrote “As long as most people say war and destruction are inevitable, just part of life, it will be.”

I sympathize with that sentiment. How nice it would be to say war and destruction are not inevitable, and then have no more war.

If only it were that easy.

Several days ago, when I went shopping with my daughter Dee, I fell flat on my face outside of Kohl’s.  I mean this quite literally. One minute I was upright, and the next minute I had pavement pressing against my forehead and mouth. The fault was mine; I wasn’t paying attention. When I came to the curb, I walked along as though it weren’t there. But it was there, and down I fell.

A woman came rushing over. “Are you all right?”

Was I all right? As Dee helped me to my feet, I tasted blood, but miraculously no teeth seemed to be broken. I felt my nose. That, too, was fine. As far as I could tell, nothing was broken.

“I think I’m all right,” I said. “Thank you.”

“That darned curb!” the woman said, making me feel a little less stupid.

Yeah, that darned curb! Why the heck is it there, right in front of the entry way?  What purpose does it serve? In the end, of course, I should have noticed the curb and stepped over it, but I appreciated the woman’s kind words.

Dee and I went shopping in Kohl’s. I was in a bit of a daze, but I followed her around, giving her advice for Christmas presents.

Afterward, we went grocery shopping, a grim event as my right knee was really starting to ache. By the time I came home, I could hardly walk. It seems I had sprained my knee.

Ever since, I have been one with the living room couch, where I can sit with my legs outstretched. I do have a cane, which has been a big help, and every day my knee continues to improve. Today I even feel well enough to sit at my desk and write this post of my woes. (Never fear. If my knee hadn’t improved, I would have gone to the hospital for X-rays.)

In the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, and it is a time for feeling grateful. You can bet I am feeling grateful that when I fell on the pavement, I didn’t break anything. It still amazes me that all my teeth are in my mouth and that my nose wasn’t broken. And I feel nothing but gratitude for having such a sturdy body.

You can also bet the next time I go anywhere, I will be on the lookout for curbs.