Letters from an American

I was playing around in yesterday’s post, because my “crazy rare find at Buddy’s wharf” was, of course, Buddy himself. Took yesterday off and am going to take tonight, too. First time since September 15, 2019, I’ve taken more than a single day off, but our wedding seems like a worthy occasion, no?

It was a beautiful afternoon and evening on the water... and a long enough kayaking trip that I have been sound asleep with my head on my writing table for a couple of hours. Going to take that as a sign that I should go to bed and finish the history of our intelligence system another day.

Exactly a year ago, after about a six-week hiatus during the summer, I wrote a Facebook post that started: “Many thanks to all of you who have reached out to see if I'm okay. I am, indeed (aside from having been on the losing end of an encounter with a yellow jacket this afternoon!). I've been moving, setting up house, and finishing the new book. Am back and ready to write, but now everything seems like such a dumpster fire it's very hard to know where to start. So how about a general overview of how things at the White House look to me, today....”

It has been a very long seven days, a week that will certainly show up in the history books. What may not make such a splash in the books, though, is how freaking exhausting it is to be living through this moment. I, anyway, am ready for a good night's sleep.

I told this story here two years ago, but I want to repeat it tonight, as the reality of women’s lives is being erased in favor of an image of women as mothers…. If you google the history of Mother’s Day, the internet will tell you that Mother’s Day began in 1908 when Anna Jarvis decided to honor her mother. But “Mothers’ Day”—with the apostrophe not in the singular spot, but in the plural—actually started in the 1870s, when the sheer enormity of the death caused by the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War convinced American women that women must take control of politics from the men who had permitted such carnage. Mothers’ Day was not designed to encourage people to be nice to their mothers. It was part of women’s effort to gain power to change modern society.

And on July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

I started this clear but somewhat chilly summer day reading a young adult novel on a sunny corner of the porch with my coffee, pitted about a gazillion cherries for pies, worked for a few hours on the new book, and then my sister and I kayaked up the Sound until we almost got eaten by a giant blue whale... or--depending on your version of events, and mine most definitely involves the mythic blue whale-- we saw from a distance quite a large fish rising as it chased a school of mackerel. And then we paddled home for pizza as the sun set.

An unusually warm May day had me out in the kayak today, early this year, in time to see the jellyfish bloom. I spent a while just floating and watching the moon jellies, and thinking about time and the persistence of the Earth and its creatures, and of what matters.

People write to me to ask why I have hope in our future despite all the trouble in the world, and the answer is always: I have faith because of you. The biggest miracle about these Letters from an American is the community that has gathered around them. It is made up of decent, principled, smart, creative, and thoughtful people from all around the world, and it is a never ending source of wonder to me that I have the extraordinary opportunity to meet many of you and to eavesdrop on your conversations as you work together to move our country, and our world, forward.

If I took a night off last weekend, I don’t remember it, and I am tired, tired, tired. So I’m turning tonight’s letter over to my friend Nadia Povalinska, who has recently fled her home in Ukraine, and who has graciously shared her love of her country with me over the years.

Turning it over to Buddy on this gorgeous October weekend, with an image he took Friday morning on his way to work. It’s perfect sleeping weather here tonight, and I intend to make good use of it. I'll see you tomorrow. [Photo by Buddy Poland.]

While there is a lot going on in the country and the world today, it seems as important as ever to honor Memorial Day, the day we have honored since 1868, when we mourn those military personnel who have died in the service of the country—that is, for the rest of us.

End of summer. No matter how much I love what I do, I never doubt that he has the better office. I'll see you tomorrow. [Photo by Buddy Poland.]

It’s been a long, hard week. Going to call an early night. Before I do, though.... Thank you all for being here. I have heard people this week despair of this country, but I look around at you all and I have faith. And so... I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

Crazy rare find at Buddy’s wharf this week. Lots going on in the world, but I’ve got family and friends in town, and am putting everything on hold until tomorrow. [Photo by Buddy Poland.]

There’s a lot going on, but I did not take a night off over the weekend and it’s catching up to me. Going to take the night off and get a good night’s sleep so I can be back at it tomorrow with a clear head for the next public hearing of the January 6 committee.

As the sun sets on 2021, I want to thank you all. It is a wonderful thing to watch this community develop. Your interest, enthusiasm, and concern for this country are what keep me in this chair night after night, figuring out who did what and why. Your interests shape what I write, and your suggestions, corrections, and the time you give to this demanding project keep me working to stay at the top of my game. Your observations, your art, your wit, and-- above all-- your friendship have kept me engaged and on an even keel in this unsettled time.

Something a little different tonight. Buddy and I were on the road last week and he snapped this in a light snow on Boston's Commonwealth Avenue. It's been a very long couple of weeks, and I'm going to see if I can be in bed before 10. Will see you tomorrow.

Hi folks: Four nights of the Republican National Convention combined with prepping for the start of next week’s classes have just about done me in. I actually want to write about the question of who gets to commit violence in our society, but if I start now it’ll be another 4:00 morning, and I just can’t do it.

On April 9, 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant got out of bed with a migraine. The pain had hit the day before as he rode through the Virginia countryside, where the United States Army had been harrying the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee, for days.

I'd say I'm going to take tonight off, but I already did-- I've been asleep on the couch for hours (all the way through Bullitt!) and am just over here to post a picture so you all know I'm alive, and then I'm falling into bed. Semester ended this week. Can you tell?

Not sure when I’ve ever been so tired, and that’s saying something. This has been quite a week. Buddy, too, is back at work, but his office is on the water and is way more beautiful than mine. This is his picture of Sunken Ledge Buoy, one morning when he was getting up as I was going to bed.

Too much posting after 3 a.m. this week, and I’m going to go to bed and see if I can catch up. I love that this bridge exists in the twenty-first century. It always makes me imagine I'm paddling about 150 years back in time, and that just on the other side of this bridge there will be piles of sawdust, teams of horses pulling wagons stacked with logs, and the old mill, still sawing wood.

Check out the neighbors who stopped by yesterday as we drank our morning coffee! The bald eagles started to come back here about 15 or so years ago, and seeing one never gets old. I'm going to close the laptop tonight and take a break. I'll be back tomorrow.

And so, the sun sets on 2022. It has been an astonishing year across the board, and I thank you all for, well, everything. May 2023 treat us all kindly.

A calm sunrise seems like a good omen these days... or at least a welcome respite. Let’s take the night off and get back to work tomorrow. [Photo by Buddy Poland.]

Aside from a few peeks at the news to make sure nothing was happening that could not wait, I have let the world turn without me today. It's been as good a rest as a vacation, and I will continue to take the night off, go to bed early, and take up my pen (or pixels, I guess) again tomorrow.

Here in the midst of high summertime, I am finishing a book and burning the candle at both ends. Going to take an early night and be back at it tomorrow.

I started these letters completely inadvertently on September 15, 2019, after I happened to see House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff's (D-CA) angry letter to then–acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire on September 13, noting that the committee knew a whistleblower had made a complaint and demanding that Maguire produce that complaint as required by law. As a political historian, I saw that for what it was: an accusation from a member of the legislative branch that someone in the executive branch had very clearly broken a specific law. That was huge, way different than the general complaints around at the time that, for example, then-president Trump must be violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution, an accusation that was vague enough that it was terribly hard to address.

Buddy and I are visiting the Pacific Northwest for the first time, and he’s been busy with his camera while I’ve been working. Here is his view of Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, Oregon. It’s quite different than our own rocky coast, although the tufted puffins-- which are related to our Atlantic puffins-- had arrived for the season just before we got there.

Two years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, I whipped off a quick and somewhat flippant letter about why March 15 is a crucially important day in American history. It became one of the most popular things I’ve ever written, so popular that when I was asked to write a book based on these letters, I centered the book around it.

The first spring-like weekend here has meant picking up trash from the shore and scraping the farmhouse for painting and carrying rowboats and walking with friends and seeing family and writing on my laptop outside on the sunny porch in the wind. After a winter spent quietly holed up by the woodstove, two days outside working has me so tired I’m falling over.

Every day, people write to me and say they feel helpless to change the direction of our future. I always answer that we change the future by changing the way people think, and that we change the way people think by changing the way we talk about things. To that end, I have encouraged people to speak up about what they think is important, to take up oxygen that otherwise feeds the hatred and division that have had far too much influence in our country of late.

You hear sometimes that, now that we know the sordid details of the lives of some of our leading figures, America has no heroes left. When I was writing a book about the Wounded Knee Massacre, where heroism was pretty thin on the ground, I gave that a lot of thought. And I came to believe that heroism is neither being perfect, nor doing something spectacular. In fact, it’s just the opposite: it’s regular, flawed human beings, choosing to put others before themselves, even at great cost, even if no one will ever know, even as they realize the walls might be closing in around them.

The second coronavirus shot is whuppin' me. Haven't even looked at the news, and am going to take the night off and keep sleeping. I took this picture the other day of a carving on an old birch when Buddy I and hiked Tumbledown Mountain, and am posting it today to thank all the scientists and healthcare providers who have gotten us through this.

Sometimes it seems like we live in different time zones in this house: I write very late and Buddy gets up very early. On Thursday, Buddy captured the confusion of our schedules when he got up about two hours after I went to bed, went out onto the porch, and took a "sunrise" picture over the island... of a predawn moonrise.

Today’s news can wait for tomorrow. Tonight, a thank-you. Exactly two years ago today, after about a six-week hiatus during the summer, I wrote a Facebook post that started: “Many thanks to all of you who have reached out to see if I'm okay. I am, indeed (aside from having been on the losing end of an encounter with a yellow jacket this afternoon!). I've been moving, setting up house, and finishing the new book. Am back and ready to write, but now everything seems like such a dumpster fire it's very hard to know where to start. So how about a general overview of how things at the White House look to me, today....”

As we turn to the autumn, a picture that captures the passing summer. I’m sending my very best wishes to everyone starting the school year. Guessing– heck, pretty sure we know– that it’s going to be a busy week, so let’s take a deep breath and take the night off.

On July 18, 1863, at dusk, the Black soldiers of the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry of the U.S. Army charged the walls of Fort Wagner, a fortification on Morris Island off Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. Because Fort Wagner covered the southern entrance to the harbor, it was key to enabling the U.S. government to take the city.

A year ago today, Trump had a phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and promised to deliver the money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine's protection against Russian military incursions. Then he added: "I would like you to do us a favor, though...."