Although there must have been some folks, somewhere, who were sad to say goodbye to 2023, I certainly wasn’t one of them. My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer on June 5; I provided home hospice care for her until the end, on July 12. There are few experiences more terrible in life than watching your beloved mother die, unless it is watching your beloved mother being wheeled out of her home in a body bag. This hideous event was followed by driving her howling dog across the country to her new home, a trip that took four days, with regular doses of Ativan for the dog, and several pairs of ear plugs for me. Then came my mother’s burial, which was followed, a few months later, by an excruciating hand surgery from which I have not yet fully recovered.
And then there were both the Russia-Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas wars as a dystopian backdrop to everything else.
So there were no tears as I said adieu to 2023, but one really remarkable event happened in the final week of the year that constituted an unanticipated and most welcome relief: A man who had read one of my columns and disagrees with me on almost every social and political view I hold, wrote me a letter to tell me so.
His name is Pete.
Pete excoriated my views on migrants, on social mores, and, of course, on Trump. Pete lived in the Berkshires for many years, but moved south when he saw Pittsfield begin to devolve into a community that he could no longer recognize. He identifies lefties and liberals as the cause of most of the nation’s ills. Pete says that since leaving the Berkshires, he refuses to go north of the I-10.
When I read Pete’s feedback, I decided to write back to him, not to argue and not to defend, but because I have felt for quite some time that if ordinary people with diametrically opposed views cannot talk to each other and recognize each other’s humanity, then we are doomed. If we cannot see each other as fellow travelers—none of us perfect, or perfectly wise, or perfectly correct—I fear that our country will not survive.
I told Pete that I appreciated his contact and proposed that we engage in active communication, not to persuade the other to change positions or views, but to discover what we might have in common.
There are plenty of differences, to be sure. Pete sees the Capitol rioters of January 6 as patriots; I see them as insurrectionists. He sees Trump as America’s champion; I see Trump as the devil incarnate. Pete does not recognize the validity of transgenderism; I believe that there are individuals who live in abject misery because their interior experience of gender does not conform to the exterior expression of their anatomy, and they deserve as much of a chance to lead an authentic life as I do. Pete’s a vodka and New Zealand sauvignon blanc man; I’m an Irish whiskey and Italian wine woman. Pete plays golf; I subscribe to Mark Twain’s assertion that golf is a good walk ruined.
And yet.
Pete lavishes time, attention, care, and tenderness on a Native American woman who has horrible health problems, and he takes her daughter shopping for school clothes. He is well-traveled and has a spirit of adventure. He recommended a great place in Northampton for good Bloody Mary’s. He supports the right of Israel to exist.
We agree on that, and more. We both enjoy live music. We both agree that Gavin Newsom is a grandstanding twit. We both like good French onion soup. We both agree that there are parts of Pittsfield that feel downright blighted.
It’s a beginning, and through a flurry of emails, I find that I like Pete very much. He can be a gruff old bird, but he has a soft heart when confronted with the human suffering of a neighbor and her child.
I invite anyone who has avoided talking to the “other side” to start having some conversations—not about what divides us, although we can certainly manage to exchange those views without coming to blows, but in search of our common humanity.
I would invite Pete to come for a visit, but, at this point, he is determined to stay south of the Mason-Dixon line. Maybe that will change, but if it doesn’t, I will be happy to be his pen pal for as long as he wishes.
I know without question that I am better for knowing him.
Happy New Year, Pete. Thank you for preventing me from declaring the year gone by an unmitigated disaster. Who knew that two old curmudgeons could shout across the Great Divide—on the way, perhaps, to building a bridge.
