Happy Fourth of July : Come See The Beloved Country...

Dear Juliet

Happy Fourth of July!

Here and now, I'm staying off hard politics but, only a few short months ago, I was saying I'd never go Stateside again as Trump was unfairly tightening up ESTA rules:

"But (assuming this is it), I'm not going to be jumping with joy not to be going back. Not at all. This will be the sour end of a sweet and soulful thirty-five year relationship between me and the States. One in which I crossed America by Greyhound bus from sea to shining sea, stole the Enterprise in order to meet a Hollywood princess on Sunset Boulevard, saw the view from the Twin Towers, the Empire State and the Willis Tower, walked along the Grand Canyon's rim and wrote like Jack Kerouac while I was on the road.

And that was hardly the half of it.

I got to like Americans, and to love some of them. I defended you to your detractors and respected your traditions. But I can't square the noble words of your First Amendment with the grubby authoritarianism of your self-proclaimed king's current actions. I can no longer call you a shining beacon of democracy, or "a country that would be a light unto the nations" (Ronald Reagan)."

(What Shall It Profit You, Starz, Hulu and Trump?)

So I certainly wouldn't have been crowing about it. But then Homeland Security sent me a simple reminder that my earlier ESTA was about to expire. So I decided to see if I could slip through the net before Trump's tremulous administration stopped thrashing about and added all their Jim Crow laws.

And I got through.

I'm not sure what I'll see if I come back. Citizens slouched sadly on street corners singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" amidst the chaos?

Someone standing sweet on Sunset Boulevard against all odds?

See if the Pacific is still as blue as it's been in my dreams?

See my friend again one day, and shake her hand?

Happy Fourth of July, Juliet.

Love,

James