Deep America
On leaving Washington
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On July 16th, I left Washington D.C. and returned to the American interior. It is likely I will only go back to retrieve my furniture from the semi-drained Swamp. I came up north for a family emergency, and to stay close to my father, who had been placed in a memory care facility. It is fascinating how in times of struggle, angels emerge: a friend who was driving from Annapolis to Western Massachusetts with her family offered me a ride, and we charged up the Eastern coast in true American fashion, car loaded with supplies and snacks. Others helped me find a safe place to stay near the nursing home, from the receptionist whose friend and colleague took me to her own house, to the chaplain who talked me through my fears. Angels appeared at the facility, too: I recognized a girl I had only seen in online recovery meetings walking through the hallways, and found out that she worked there. During that four-day visit, every conversation I had was significant. Everyone had wisdom to impart that seemed to be coming from God Himself, in the way that people become sacramental when God is trying to send a message.
After an endless day of travel I burst into my Dad’s unit, and immediately spotted him trying to dance with some of the seated ladies. I walked up to him, said “Hi, Dad,” with my arms outstretched, and he looked like he was seeing a vision. He no longer calls me by my name, but we embraced for what felt like ten minutes, and he softly said: “Hallelujah.”
My father passing away has always been my worst fear. We were, and still are spiritually, enormously close. When I was growing up, my father sat me down at the picnic table on summer mornings and held what he called “Dad’s School.” He read to me for hours at a time — poetry by William Blake, fiction by C.S. Lewis, and children’s books by Maurice Sendak. He is a classical musician and he educated me on each historical period, from the Baroque (J.S. Bach, Handel), to the Classical (Mozart, Haydn), to the Romantic (Schumann, Brahms) and the Modern (one of my favorites, Debussy). He loves engravings, and collected antique editions of Shakespeare illustrated by Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac.
As soon as I saw him, I realized that nothing could be more important than to live close to him again — no career advancement, no stats on Substack, no networking parties or feeling of being “inside the action.” One doesn’t need to be inside the Beltway to be a writer. How silly.
Now, I am safely ensconced within the borders of the Adirondack Park. This is the land of my origin and my ancestors have lived here for centuries. Stepping out back of the house, I feel exactly as I did as a child when seeing the soft covering of pine needles on the forest floor. In this particularly Northern forest, pine and spruce are the main characters, and they stand tall and mostly silent, creaking every once in a while only to acknowledge your presence.
The Adirondacks are medicine. Everywhere I look, I feel like I’m in the movie Train Dreams, which I wrote about last November. This still feels like a place where one can live close to the land and sink into deep self-reliance. It feels so conservative here. Not in a newfangled, agitated red-pilled way. In a profound, established, unquestionable way. American flags are everywhere. Green porch lights illuminate the nighttime homes of veterans, like the one I’m staying at now. Big ass trucks are everywhere. People are plucky but leave you alone. This is heaven.
There are three main churches in this town: Methodist, Wesleyan, and Catholic. People seem to get along. There was a particularly ecumenical spirit at the mutual garage sales this weekend. I got a sick bald eagle shirt for 75 cents. Why didn’t I come back sooner?
My desk has changed, too: I’m now sitting at a card table in an attic, and I think I just heard a loon. My cousin said you can usually hear them further down the lake, far away from the kids at the beach.
Suddenly New York State seems like a good place to be again. The governor has just implemented a year-long moratorium on new “hyperscale” data centers, the first of its kind in the nation. Four years ago all I wanted was to get away from the mask and jab-obsessed people, but now the encroachment of data centers all over Northern Virginia seems like the bigger threat.
Things change. All the time I was in D.C., however, I never gave up my desire to live in an Andrew Wyeth painting, or to see the fields of upstate New York again. Sometimes it was painful to think about the vistas I had grown up in. I thought I had left it all behind.
In George Packer’s 2021 book Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal, he identifies four Americas: “Free America” (Gordon Gekko types), “Real America” (Sarah Palin types), “Just America” (Ta-Nehisi Coates types), and “Smart America” (Pete Buttigieg types). Where I feel I am now is Deep America. Deep America is an impulse than runs through all four Americas, and unites them.
Deep America is the sound of gunshots at the target practice behind the cemetery in the town where I now live.
Deep America is a woman named Milagro (Miracle) who offered me a ride at a Catholic church near the nursing home when my Uber never came, even though she’d never seen me before.
Deep America is the slice of apple pie my cousin offered me at our first dinner back together.
Deep America is the home of the healthcare worker that was opened to me when I first arrived to see my Dad, and her monologue as we sat in her backyard and she told me between cigarette drags about her determination to buy a house as a single mother even though her ex told her she’d never make it.
Deep America is the sight of fog over the lake in the morning, and the silent pine trees who stand behind it watching everything, as they have for centuries.
Deep America is the card table desk in my cousin’s attic with my mini-flag to my left and my crucifix on a shelf to my right, and the proliferation of my voice across the country from this place of stillness and refuge.
Deep America is the soft layer of grasses on the inside of a nest from the porch, whose baby birds have already flown and are making their way.
I’m in that safe interior now, and out of elite America for good. I’ll dip my toe in, of course, but this will always be home. I’m happy to report that there are still places that are normal, that aren’t consumed by political battles or outrageously priced real estate. Gas is about $4.05 here, creeping up there, but it’s possible to fill your tank and go back to your house and just be.
I hung my Karl Lagerfeld dress in the closet next to my new bald eagle shirt. I can wear both at once. I can be a contradiction.
