I was considering this image for my Postcards from America, and it got me thinking. What DO you love?

Your loved ones, family, friends, your home of course. Your dreams and imaginings. Your work if you’re lucky. Your neighbors if you’re really lucky (as I am). For me, photography is about love. I can’t photograph what I hate, my shutter finger won’t activate.

I love a lot of things in other countries. Many places have quite lovely architecture and sensible social support systems. I’ve often felt I could live happily in this or that country. Kenya is tempting. Finland is a great place, must be nice if you’re Finnish. But as a visitor something is deeply lacking that is becoming more clear to me as I get older: it’s not home and never could be. Especially when you reach a certain age and home is so deeply embedded with life already lived.

Granted I’ve been living abroad, I’ve only been back a few weeks so I might be a bit misty. But in our budding spring I am reminded of a notion of love that is closer at hand.

I’m going to make an outrageous statement: I love this country, more than ever.

Even with everything going on. Because of everything going on. Yes it’s under siege from within. That makes me disgusted with those doing the siege-ing, not the place.

Yes these are deeply disturbing times. Yes I am still deeply critical of a long list of things, as I always have been. As a true American should be. Name a ‘great American’ who wasn’t on some level a contrarian.

In this country it's easy to forget the love part when there is much that repulses. But as we grow angry we also become indifferent or callous to our true bounty and potential.

How can you love a place where the soul-crushing never seems to end? This country can kill you, or let you die, without remorse. The people it rewards are so often the wrong ones, even the grotesque ones. The worst impulses are too often allowed to run amok. Freedom? In so many ways, this is not freedom. Quality of life? The US will never be, I dunno... Denmark. A country that has its basic act together for its people without huge pendulum swings.

But I love it anyway. I didn’t used to say that. Maybe now because it’s under such unique threat. Maybe it’s defiance talking, because it’s mine and I’m not letting these people destroy it. I’m not going to let the bastards take both the country AND my feelings about it. I’m not giving up on what it can be. That day might come but it’s not here yet.

I’m not talking about baseball or national parks or Hollywood. The things that have moved me after returning have been more everyday, local, and connected to my memories.

Sometimes just by going outside and moving around.

The cacophony of birds. My god. But not just the birds, generally - that one mockingbird (hey, he’s back as I write this) that reminds me of the baby mockingbirds we once found and built a little fort for in our yard. The mother would swoop down and feed them, until they disappeared after a few days.

The astonishing tree canopy. Not everywhere is so blessed. But not just trees generally - the ones we planted in our yard several years ago. We prepared the soil for a year before planting. Moving dirt around will bring you closer to your own patch of Earth. Ok, yeah, at the moment it’s a mess (hey, I’ve been away).

The woods nearby. Especially the area of the woods where we buried our dear departed guinea pig Seydi.

My childhood house that I passed recently with my mother. On its own it contains countless life moments.

The cool ‘hippo rocks’ I had to cross everyday on the way to school, that now feel like a shrine.

It helps that I like where I live now.

One night last week I was out for a walk. Passing a local music school after dark, the lights were on, it was open mic night and a good turnout at that. Great vibe.

(Speaking of open mics, I was part of a local Open Mic for Democracy event last week.)

Circling around a shabby house across the street that is a celebrated DIY art venue, I peeked in as an art-rock band in what was once a living room is nailing it for about a dozen people in what was once a dining room.

Down a darkened street in the historic district, lights emanated from the old, deeply American houses.

Over at the bookstore another night, an author talk about Ukraine. Where, oddly, I met a lovely family of Latvians living here. Talking about my time in Riga in the 90s, they actually knew one of the friends I made there. Wild.

Next door is the music store on one side and the funky local radio station on the other, next to a great recording studio. Music store > bookstore > radio station > recording studio. Damn. What a lineup for any town. If revolution breaks out, put the barricades there.

America is both an actual place and an imagined one we carry around in our heads.

Things in this country I usually carry in my own America-bubble: proper bagels, public libraries, Martin guitars, East Coast autumn, endlessly varied nature, everyday friendliness of people, indie coffeeshops.

When I dream forward I sometimes think of the Hudson Valley.

Of course there’s music and culture. Beyond the stars and obvious pop culture names, plenty are out there that still make America cool: Andre 3000, Beach House, Kishi Bashi, Patti Smith, Thievery Corporation. A radiant Tracy Chapman’s surprise 2024 Grammy appearance with Luke Combs still stirs.

Younger up and coming artists like Jesse Welles (that United Health song guy) and the DMV’s own Yasmin Williams (a new kind of guitar hero for this generation).

Author and commentator Rebecca Solnit has done much to buoy us in these times, and I’ve been discovering new independent voices like Marisa Kabas and Joan Westenberg. Our cinematic canon can still claim the Coen brothers, Spike Lee, and Jim Jarmusch.

This is just a small sampling. Your list will of course vary. I humbly suggest that you take a meditative moment to recall what you do love.

In these perilous times, you already know what you’re against. You will only truly fight for what you love. (Ask Ukraine.)

To be clear, I don’t forgive those who brought us to this dangerous point. My love is not about that.

It’s a weapon to defeat them.