I Spent A Week In The Land Of The Free, And Now I Have To Go Back To America

On my vacation in Mabou, Nova Scotia

If you are lucky enough to escape the United States right now, you might find your way to Mabou, Nova Scotia. Here, you can hike through the wooded mountains that are littered with chanterelle mushrooms and skittish fawns, following the trickle of streams and the crumbs of broken sunlight until you reach the top of the mountain. When you look out, you’ll see a world that you didn’t know existed. Stay a while. There’s no rush here.

After your hike, sweaty and tired as you are, find the energy to drive down the dirt road towards the beach, with the crunch of gravel under your tires and the soft whisper of dust sprinkling behind your car. In front of you, the green landscape will unfurl towards infinity, opening upwards into the cerulean dome of the sky and slowly melting down again into the Atlantic Ocean.

Of course, you can’t stay forever. Eventually, you’ll have to head back home. Home. Home to New York, where you are a citizen of the United States, and all that comes with it: The President calling for “law and order” as he sends the National Guard to march through the capital; ICE detention centers being newly built, popping up across the country like a plague of boils; Texas officials attempting to rig the midterm elections through comically evil redistricting plans. And that’s just this past week.

Who knows what will happen next. Things will almost certainly get worse. There is an impending sense of doom, with all its accompanying violence, chaos, and inevitable conflagration of a major city. And when this happens, what will you do? You’ll have your books, and notes, and an affinity for trouble. But what will you do? “Because if you’re good, only luck can save you,” Martin Amis says, of oppressive regimes. “You can’t cooperate. You can’t. It’s an affront to the soul.” Only luck can save you.

So maybe you should take your luck and run. Run. Run far away. Escape the United States right now, and find your way to Mabou. Let everything else melt away. Would it really be so wrong to never go back?

Does a good person stay behind and fight?