Dreading going to the US

One more day in Europe before I head to the US.

I dread it. 

Business and my husband are the reasons. I will be in a state that actively promotes ignorance, bigotry, and violence, three things I abhor. Book banning and history class cutting plus censorship is guarantying another generation of ignorant people. 

It is a state that is destroying my birth country with its division and hatred and is contrary to most of the values on which I was raised and what I was taught that the US was based on. 

Granted, the more I learned, the more I read, some of those early lessons were myths, but the good thing about myths is that they are a goal post to try and reach. And some were more than myths, they were truth.

As a reward after the conference I will go to my home state to see my daughter for two nights and a day.

My home state had/has its problems too. They once considered burning witches a good thing, but have not done much of that lately. They have done their own share of racism. However, they have over the years produced a large number of American thinkers, writers, presidents (more of the better but far from perfect ones) and some of the best universities in the world--and a few so-so ones.

In the first few days in the US, I will meet some people in person, I've known over Zoom or through my husband but never face-to-face, which will be fun. 

Some of the conference sessions will be interesting even though it is not my field. We are both writers and our work sometimes overlap and interest in each other's work almost always overlaps at some level. 

I will get a chance to eat at the hotel breakfast my husband says is the best in the world. I will always get a great breakfast in my home state at a place that has become special to us, a tradition now for my daughter, husband and me.

I will be  a good corporate wife. I really, really, really respect and admire the work the organizer of the conference does and that is why we will be there. 

And there's the comfort this will be the last time I have to be there.