A Post-Election Love Letter for You

"I know there are a bunch of you whose work lives have been turned upside down in the last week, and I'm sorry," the Senate staffer wrote to anyone who cared to read. The staffer's world had been upended a decade ago when the Senator he worked for was sent packing.

"If you need a hand with anything, I'm here to help - connecting, resumes, commiseration, you name it," the staffer continued. "We are better off because of your work. And we will get through this together." Then he ended it: "Solidarity."

There is a lot of unhelpful noise right now, the red-hot blame, throwing our own under the bus, political know-it-alls saying, "Told you so." But the staffer came along to offer something more connective, something like grace. I have loved and lost, too, he says. Let's walk into this fog shoulder to shoulder.

Grace never comes at the wrong time. I was raking maple leaves that had piled up a foot-deep on the sidewalk outside my house when a neighbor walked by. Sorry I don't have a clear path for you, I said, I meant to do this weeks ago. And of the million responses she could have given, she gave this: It's a joy to walk through fallen leaves.

"I do not understand the mystery of grace," writes Anne Lamott, "only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us." This seems like a good season for giving that big gray truck the parking space we clearly deserved, telling the manager that our nervous new waiter was top notch, saying, "I do it all the time!" when someone accidentally bumps into us in the produce section.

And if we are worn too thin to extend grace to others, "be excessively gentle with yourself," suggests poet John O'Donohue in "For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing." Turn down the news; the worthwhile answers were never there anyways. Prescribe yourself heavy doses of autumn air.

There will be a time to muscle up and swim against the current; but for now, we're allowed to just float. Life is asking a lot of us and we, too, are deserving of our own grace. Our heart will open back up for business in time.

And if you are ready to roll up your sleeves, terrific. Know that there will be roadmaps and possibilities on these pages in the weeks to come.

What we are trying to do with democracy has always been hard. Of, by and, for the people is a tall order on a good day. And perhaps, as Lincoln suggested that gray Gettysburg day, democracy is never finished work. Justice and gentleness don't always win out in the near term, but I do believe they have longer shelf lives.

So let's take good care of ourselves and each other; let's make good food, good art, good trouble; let's get outside and get together, and we will, as Edward Abbey says, "Outlive the bastards."