Let It Go

 She had moved away some time ago, leaving her son to reckon with his childhood home. She moved north to the part of California that was still nominally frontier, where the land was cheap and the opportunities for putting down a new set of roots was made appealing by real estate developers. 

She was back, visiting her son and her grandchildren who remained across the street from me. I stopped my run just in time to engage in a conversation that caught us up initially. The she asked the question: "What do you think of our new president?"

I didn't make the retching sounds that I might have with associates close to me. Instead I opted for, "I didn't like him the first time."

This seemed to put her on guard. "What do you mean?" Now I could tell that I had stepped in it. That puddle of MAGAnesium that exists in places that I do not frequent. Yet here it was, right across the street from my house, where my wife and our bleeding hearts continue to suffer with the realization that we are lurching backward into the tar pits of fear and loathing. 

I persisted: "I mean that he's a convicted felon and an adjudicated rapist who preys on the weaknesses of others and demands allegiance." Perhaps I wasn't holding back as much as I had imagined. So I opened the door for her. "What do you think?"

"Well, I like him," she replied. 

"What about him do you like?" 

"He's better than those others, that's for sure."

I was having a hard time making that leap with her. "How so?"

"Well," she began then trailed off, " You know."

Trying to maintain a respectful stance, I replied, "No. I don't think I do. What should I know?"

At this point, her tone shifted to more of a conspiratorial hush. "I'm not going to go into it."

I gave her a little nudge: "No. Please. I'm interested." I really was. This was a woman who had lived across the street from us for a decade, raised a son who had parties in their back yard and continued to be a mover and shaker in the local hip-hop scene. How could their paths have diverged so greatly?

"I'm just not going to go into it."

That was that. Conversation over. We wrapped up with holiday pleasantries and she was off, grandchildren trailing behind her, unaware that grandma supported someone who did not support mixed race unions like their parents. They crossed the street and in my mind I wanted to pursue the discussion to show her just how full of contradictions her life was, but it was so much easier to just let it go. 

I let it go.