COMMENTARY:
Watering tomatoes this morning, I glanced up and watched Foxy watch me. We inherited Foxy, a red-heeler mix, from a woman my wife was helping through her last years of life. Foxy had had a hard life, but blossomed here. Although initially she distrusted male humans, and I worried she’d be a pain, we’ve come to love each other.
That’s a simple experience Donald Trump has never had. He seems never to have had a pet. Well, what could the pet do for him? (What he could do for a dog or cat is a question that wouldn’t occur to him.)
Later, during a break from writing, the internet played a bit of Jason Carter’s memorial speech about his grandfather, Jimmy. Loved the part about hanging zip-lock bags up to dry for re-use. My wife has us doing that, too. And the Carters being small-town folks who never forgot who they were. A cutaway showed Donald Trump, scowling, then the Bidens and others laughing at the laugh lines.
I felt sorry again for Mr. Trump. He was raised by a Father obsessed with making more money. Donald and his siblings learned to compete for money and status, not to love. Or give.
Next, the Internet showed me Robin Williams, in Good Will Hunting, released twenty-five years ago, making that great speech telling the young genius, Will, that although Will could write a book on Michelangelo, he can’t tell us how the Sistine Chapel smells, or how it feels to look up at that marvelous ceiling; and that while he’s memorized Shakespeare’s love sonnets, he has never loved enough to be vulnerable, never loved a woman “so much she can level you with a glance,” or sat in her hospital room during her last months.
Some people know those feelings. Others avoid them. I don’t envy you, Donald. I envy men who stayed married to and loving a single woman all their adult lives, raising children the best they could to be loving, caring, confident, honest folks. Men who showed a steadiness neither you nor I ever did. You touched women without permission – the sign of a man who needs to bully women, not one seeking love, or even sex. Seduction takes a gentler mode.
Sorry, Donald. We’re 79 this year. I’m sorry your life has been so limited by your fear of real feelings, real friendship, love, or the sensation of wandering alone into a new country, having no common language with the folks there, humble as a baby in their culture, but smiling while they laugh at you. You’ve never been writing and suddenly teared up because your fictional characters lost a child or learned some painful truth. Have you ever truly loved a woman, as more than a status symbol, sexual release, or appropriate decoration for a life designed to impress folks?
I’m nobody. But when I die, if I’m able to reflect, I won’t regret having so few worldly accomplishments. I’ll regret moments I chickened out, didn’t ask the hard question, didn’t provide a kindness, I could have, didn’t go deeper into the Peruvian jungle, the Tibetan mountains, or the mind of a character, or didn’t love enough.
I’m sorry your father and mother didn’t teach you love and integrity, and exemplify those. I took all that for granted, mostly rebelled, and only later appreciated – and had time to tell them I appreciated – what they gave me.
Peter Goodman's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of KRWG Public Media or NMSU.