2024.67

I'm not sure how many times I've heard the idiom "like oil and water". Meaning—two separate things are like immiscible liquids—that is, two things don't go well together. This idiom is usually applied to people—one could apply to me and my father—but just so we're clear, it's an idiom which is only true without external forces applied.

Oil and water emulsify over heat. Aglio e Olio, one of my favorite pastas to make, works because of this emulsion. Olive oil, water, salt, red pepper, sliced garlic, some parsley at the end—deliciousness on a plate.

I keep reaching for simple metaphors because they're like comfort food. Like a lot of you, in spite of my best efforts, I still find myself thinking about America.

When I was young, my father would tell me how I'd be a conservative when I got older. That I'd get tired of paying taxes, tired of the government taking my money. Dear reader, my father is wrong about a great many things.

I grew up with this idea about the people living in California—how they were all godless heathens—the entire state might as well be an alien planet, or better yet, a sacrifice—for the wrath of an angry god.

It was easy to dehumanize people in California, easy because we didn't know anyone from there. Back then, Californians weren't moving to Missouri or Arkansas in search of cheaper real estate. We could make up any story and fantasy we wanted—and because we were Evangelical Christians—it was only a hop, skip, and a jump to those fantasies becoming real.

Like uh, you know—demons. Totally real.

Looking back, it's painful to recall just how many assumptions were baked into my worldview back then. It was easy to mistake myself for the "real America". To believe myself and my immediate circle of family and friends were "real" people and everyone else was "less than". Simple to dismiss tragedies that happened to Californians as ordained by God because you see—Californians are evil. But if a tornado struck Joplin, Missouri? That was something different altogether—a tragedy so great, the world should stop spinning and take notice because it had never seen such a thing.

Before becoming Californian myself, I didn't see myself as the same kind of human which lived on the "Left Coast". We were different. Like oil and water. Now that I think about it, that may have been the very first time I've admitted to myself a Californian.

Whatever is happening in America—I hope it's like turning up the heat. I hope it's going to emulsify us and bring us together like so many times to other civilizations throughout history.

Then again—America has a lot of sins to pay for, so maybe we burn ourselves to ash. We can't choose how the empire will end.