Bowl o’ Cherriesbowl o’ cherries

Martha Coakley lost the Democratic Senate seat to Republican Scott Brown last week. The vote was close: 52 to 47 percent. The stunner was that a Republican could win, even with a four-point margin, in a supposed blue-state stronghold. This is not news.  What national leaders have made of this victory in the ensuing week, meanwhile, deserves scrutiny.

GOP Conference Chair Mike Pence concluded after the election that the American people had spoken through the people of Massachusetts, telling Washington that “enough is enough.”   Just to be perfectly clear, that’s not the message I sent. I’m American. And I voted, too.

I thought, a year ago, when I trained down to Washington to hear Barack Obama take his oath of office, that at last I could lift my voice, and the sound of my voice would be recognizably American for the first time in a long time. Today, reading the front page of The New York Times a week after the election, I realized that was a brief, dreamy moment. The people I voted for, the people I sent to Washington, the people who are supposed to be my voice in government, have abandoned the message I sent them to deliver and the work I wanted them to get done.

Look at what Senate majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had to say about the Democratic Party’s brand new take on health care reform. “We’re not on health care now. We’ve talked a lot about it in the past.  There is no rush.”  No rush?  Hey, Harry! I voted to rush!

I kept reading, only to receive the second in a one-two punch.  Senator Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., sounded a death knell for effective government regulation of carbon emissions.  ”Realistically, the cap-and-trade bills in the House and the Senate are going nowhere.  They’re not business-friendly enough, and they don’t lead to meaningful energy independence.”  And why does Sen. Graham get to thumb his nose now? “Reality is hitting, and the reality is the American people are interested in jobs, not extreme legislation.”  That answer from Larry Nichols, CEO of Devon Energy and chair of the American Petroleum Institute. Nichols may head an organization with the word “American” in it, but I can assure you, he doesn’t speak for me.

Barry, Harry, Larry? Listen up. I am American. I voted for you.  And this is the message I’m sending to Washington today, hours before the president is set to deliver the State of the Union:

Leaving health care unreformed, allowing the insurance industry to continue flushing a chunk of the GDP down the toilet every year, that’s not business friendly.  And kissing cap-and-trade goodbye? You will be rich and powerful enough for the rest of your lives to afford the platinum version of health insurance. When you’ve had your third bypass surgeries and all your joints replaced, and you are sitting in rockers on the front porches of your vacation homes, I’d like you to explain to my great-grandchildren why there aren’t any more polar bears.  Please remember to tell them that back in 2010 you were too chicken to listen to the American people who voted you into office and told you they were ready for change.

There hasn’t been much in the news of late to inspire hope, despite Barack Obama’s assumption of office.  He warned us in his inauguration speech.  He was right.  Unemployment continues to rise, there is still war in the Middle East, people in positions of power — no matter their political affiliation — still don’t seem to understand that, as the newly minted senator for Illinois warned us, “one day a peacock, the next a feather duster.”

And yet.  Three times this week men publicly did the unthinkable.  They apologized.  This gives me great hope.

Barack Obama led the way.  ”I screwed up,” he said over and over again.  He took full responsibility for having pushed nominees toward confirmation even after it was clear they had broken the president’s declaration that there would be no tolerance for even the appearance of impropriety in his administration.  Next thing I knew, Jehuda Reinharz, president of Brandeis University, was apologizing for deciding to sell off artworks in the campus’s Rose Art Museum.  ”I take full responsibility for causing pain and embarrassment in both of these matters.  To quote President Obama, ‘I screwed up.’”  Most astonishing of all, Elwin Wilson, a white man who reveled in his own supposed white supremacy, apologized to African American Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis for having beaten him to a bloody pulp 48 years ago.  ”I just told him I was sorry,” Wilson told reporters this week

Just.

As if this were some small thing.

Any one of you lucky enough to parent knows how big a thing apology is.  ”Hard” doesn’t begin to describe the task of teaching children to “say sorry.”  They certainly do not emerge from the womb equipped to take responsibility for their actions and repair the emotional damage they leave in their wake.  Who hasn’t heard a small child mutter, “sorry,” chin tucked to chest, eyes darting side to side, torn between furious self-pity and a desire to please authority?  Who hasn’t watched teenagers threatened with the revocation of privileges shuffle from foot to foot as they coughed out the most insincere of “sorries?”  

Getting these wily ones to stand firm, meet a gaze, confess, and apologize is one of the hardest things I have labored to achieve in my life.  Maybe that’s because I came from a family that settled disputes by fist and fiat.  Since I didn’t know how to set things right when I married (and neither did Mark), we’ve both had to work on cultivating civility and extending apologies.  A good read: Douglas Stone, et. al., Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (NY; Penguin Books, c1999).  Also helpful: the Buddhist concept of “right speech.”  Is it true?  Is it helpful?  If not, don’t say it.  I’m guessing that Barack Obama’s mother and grandmother didn’t need books.  They knew most of the stuff already - and it helped them do an exceptionally good job raising him.  Ditto Michelle Obama’s mom.  

The single most effective way to teach children to apologize is to do it ourselves.  When we say we goofed, when we deploy those powerful words of apology, when we move beyond facts into the realm of emotion and connect our actions to others’ feelings, we show our kids how to heal wounds we have inflicted.  We demonstrate that it’s possible to make really big mistakes and still love and be loved, introducing into children’s black and white certainty a mysterious shade of grey.  For Barack Obama, Yehuda Reinharz, and Elwin Wilson all to name their failures in public and “say sorry” shows a strength that fills me with hope. It is behavior that, as Dr. Aaron Lazare has written in On Apology (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004), requires “attitudes of honesty, generosity, humility, commitment, and courage” (263).  

Now to get Hillary Clinton, who surely has heard her share of apologies, to start practicing at the State Department.  I invoke John Lennon: Imagine!

There are so many reasons to celebrate President-Elect Barack Obama’s victory last night: what it means for upcoming appointments to the Supreme Court, the significance to our ability to interact with the rest of the world in positive ways, exiting gracefully from Iraq and bringing home our troops, the implication that the best (not just any) person can win regardless of race or gender, the warm fuzzy feeling of the country coming together in a lovely shade of blue. Yes, all of it.  All of it.  It’s so exciting.

And then there’s my knee.

My right knee, specifically.  

When I saw the knee specialist last spring, he reconfirmed that I have a growing hole about the size of a quarter in the cartilage underneath my right kneecap.  When I put pressure on the knee, bone rubs on bone.  It hurts.  At the ripe old age of 46, I don’t hike or backpack, play tennis, run, or do anything that causes impact to my right knee.  Instead, I get in the pool for my own water aerobics routine, ride a recumbent bike at the gym, and do lots of stretching.  More than you wanted to know, but there you have it.

I asked the knee guy if I’m a good candidate for knee replacement surgery.  Or maybe a partial replacement.  Not really, he told me.  For this particular problem, doing nothing is about as effective as undergoing invasive surgery.  I told him I felt a little helpless, given the lack of options.  

The knee guy leaned in.  ”Your best bet?  A new administration.”

Hunh?

Research scientists have successfully manipulated stem cells in non-human animal models to re-grow cartilage after trauma.  Whether the process will work in degenerative disease is still an open question.  And whether it works in humans is a matter of electing a presidential administration open to regulated stem cell research.  Might take three or four years of trial and error, but, he said, there’s an excellent chance that an injection of engineered stem cells would patch the cartilage hole.     

Along with all those other people out there hoping to get fixed — those harboring identifiable genetic mutations predisposing them to disease, those hobbled or stilled from injury or deterioration — I’m nursing a bad case of hope today.  Maybe the knee guy is right.  Maybe with a new administration, there’s a chance for a fix.

My right knee offers thanks all who voted Democratic yesterday.  It would bend deeply in gratitude if it could.  But it can’t.  And that’s the point.