New Friends in Mixed Company
I have decided to not let my political beliefs dictate my friendships. It is part of my service to this time.
I made a new friend in my neighborhood on a bright winter day. We both live on small acreages between two rivers in the high desert. He was hiking across the rimrock and I was coming up from the river with a fishing pole and a fish dinner. We got to talking in the sunlight.
He told me that the previous June he had been hiking somewhere downriver from here, on a canyon rim or a bench1 and saw a kayak submerged in the river. It was perpendicular to the flow trapped against a rock.
In April, the canal system upstream starts diverting water and the flow of our river drops dramatically. I called my new friend when I saw the river drop and we set up a time to go find this kayak. We were a couple young boys — defying the many decades past technical boyhood we each were — on an adventure.
In two excursions and a couple planning phone calls, we have talked for several hours. I learned about the jobs he has done. I heard stories about dogs and a nearly tame deer that stole a banana off his kitchen counter.
I did not learn how he votes. I didn't ask.
He learned about my childhood here, about the house I live in, what I recalled about this desert 35 years ago. I told him what fishing this river means to me and what I do for work.
We told stories of snake encounters, pointed out cool rock formations as we passed by. I spied an eagle eyrie on the cliff side across the river and pointed it out to him.
We talked about shoe choices.
He never asked my political affiliations.
We walked in the high desert April 2025. The tiny early spring flowers had emerged. He came across a patch of sand lilies. Later in our hike he pointed out a sheltering place against the rimrock."That would be a great place to spend the night," he said.
Also going on April 2025: A father and union member had been incorrectly deported from the US to a brutal South American prison. The President was refusing to bring him back. Senator Cory Booker spoke on the floor of the US Senate for 25 hours warning about that President. Over three million Americans had protested the administration on a single day. Budgets and employees were being summarily cut from government offices. Tariffs are threatening businesses large and small.2
We didn't talk about any of that. We did not talk about anything in the present except our own lives. We don't know each other but want to. I can't speak for him but I was concerned that if he found out I was a Democrat it would separate us. I daily volunteer with the county Democratic Party. Being a Democrat is core to who I am right now.
It was a lie of omission, but what if he was filled with so much hate for the Democratic Party he could not separate me from it?
I have decided to not let my political beliefs dictate my friendships. It is part of my service to this time. In my recollection of what this community was like 35 years ago, friends were not exclusively of one party or another.
Both the abstract ideas of The Left and The Right exert forces that seek to divide. I can feel them, I can hear them. On social media, I can see those from the Left.3 We hear and repeat stories of the craziest, most dangerous things that the stupidest extreme of the other side does and says. It gives us access to fear. In fear we are willing to simplify people to good or bad, in or out.
We contribute to the idea of Those People. We contribute money and our social currency to fight these demons. We patronize Jordan Klepper and Tucker Carlson.
So I can say that I worried our desert quest would be distracted by all that. I was concerned a new friend would flesh out his profile of me from some venal anger he has of some other Democrat.
We got to a spot he was pretty sure is where he saw the kayak. We were relying on his memory from 10 months ago. He remembered he was standing next to a tree. A draw led down to the river from the bench nearby. He could see a big house just down stream.
It was nearing sundown when we got there. The canyon below us had already experienced its sunset. We stood next to each other and looked down. There was no sign of a kayak.
He said, "Well, I think it is gone, Joel."
We peered hard. He remembered is was brightly colored: green, orange, or purple maybe. We saw no sign of any of those colors.
We walked back to his rig, talking the whole time about our lives and this desert. We struggled up a slick barely-trail laughing as we slipped backwards. I pointed out a collection of moss where a spring was feeding moisture into the desert.
I plan to show him a favorite trail by my house soon. I still don't know how he votes.
A bench is a term for a shelf formed in a deep river canyon between rimrocks, like the wearing motion took a break. Hiking in the Deschutes and Crooked River Canyons, you are often on benches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bench_(geology)
Sorry that I can't talk about any of these things from two points of view. As I have stated here, this is fascism and I am not going to excuse any of it. This is an attempt to rewrite our nation as an authoritarian state.
The applications hide from me most of the right's experiences.
It's so important to seek out and create, build and maintain connections. Only then can we decide if they are healthy and productive, constructive. But I can't help but wonder, if we can't discuss politics, which at its most basic level is simply the discussion of people, the public, with our closest connections ("close" can be emotional, spiritual, etc., but can also just mean the person you're standing across from at this moment), then with whom, and when and where, can we do? I struggle with this as well. We are in such a divided society it's hard to imagine bridging a gap between such a chasm. This isn't just a leap that requires a bit of extra effort... this is the Grand Canyon we're talking about. For example, my uncle, whom I love dearly, I've had to consciously decide to avoid all discussion of politics. This may sound absurd or extreme, but I have decided to assume that, where politics is concerned, he is actually mentally insane, and that I need to extend the kind of compassion and grace to him that I would to any person with such an illness and not challenge him in any way. I have other friends whom I will probably have to treat as such. That does not make me feel good, neither about my relationship with these people, nor about my country in general. Anyway, this does reinforce how difficult a time this is. It is going to be a real challenge for me to navigate news, relationship, feelings that bubble up. I have to learn to control those, feelings, express them in ways and at times that are appropriate (like here and now) and not by preaching or belching exasperated posts on Facebook that are only based on my own outrage and fear. I journal, I write hand-written notes to friends, acquaintanances, clients, just to reach out and have a personal connection. I participate with my partner in group bike rides to meet and be in physical proximity to other human beings. It's important to find like-minded people with whom to share human experiences. They don't have to be like-minded politically, but it would be nice if we didn't have to be so hyper aware of that status.
Thank you for this post Joel. It's hard not to care how someone votes because to me, that seems core to decency. But I am also learning that being able to be friends with folks on the other side is the only way we might be able to talk about things. And I bet that what they believe, they don't think is indecent.