Letter To The Editor: 1989, 1999 & 2023

By LYNN HANRAHAN
Los Alamos

I was standing outside the big art museum in Vienna on a cold, snowy December Saturday in 1989 debating where best to spend the one hour my mother-in-law had allocated to art. Cousin Greti hated modern stuff. I was too sleepy to care, and I can’t remember what we decided on.

A bus pulled up. The walls were falling in the world that year. A new world order was being born. The bus, like dozens more waiting, was from the East. An elderly man disembarked. He was dapper in an elegant hat and black wool coat. He carefully held the rail and when he made it off he got to his knees, bent over, and kissed the ground.

This is absolutely all you need to know about democracy in my opinion. Being lucky enough to live in a democracy no matter how imperfect is an incredible gift. Be grateful every single day. No ifs, ands, or buts.

An old friend was in town last weekend. We had ended our grad school and post doc days together in 1999 on a fun boat trip on Lake Powell. The four of us made a pact to do it again when our kids were grown, and we could hopefully afford a bigger boat. I think we waited too long. Age is taking a toll. The kids are embarking on their own lives. We go to a graduation this weekend and another next month.

My youngest sent a picture a couple of weeks ago of a few of them sitting on a log in the Santa Barbara sunset looking so young, beautiful, and sort of scared that it broke my heart. The descendants of those of us on the 1999 boat trip have hair in all sorts of colors, are sometimes gender fluid, and have significant others of varying races and nationalities. I love them all. They are so much more colorful than we were. The world is in good hands.

My husband grumbled, of course, that she should have been back at college not messing around visiting and taking beach pictures. She was on the way home from the Pacific Coast sailing championship in Hawaii. I really couldn’t care less though. We were unschoolers. Little kids, big kids, or young adults never stop learning. Read about drag queens, look at weird things that wash up on the beach. Learn your grammar on Grinder. None of it matters. Children were born that way, whatever that way might be. Love them and fight the hate of the diehards on the left and right.

As long as kids, and adults, are reading something and doing their math every day, it’s good enough. The new world order didn’t quite pan out like we had hoped. Despite the problems we face, my faith in a better future is boundless.

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