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Five Things to Share:

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1. In honor of James Baldwin's 100th birthday this weekend, I'm sharing his quote from a 1984 Paris Review interview describing the meaning and weight behind turning 40:
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   ​INTERVIEWER: This brings us to your concern with reality as being history, with seeing the present shaded by everything which occurred in a person’s past. James Baldwin has always been bound by his past, and his future. At forty, you said you felt much older than that.
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   BALDWIN: That is one of those things a person says at forty, at forty especially. It was a great shock to me, forty. And I did feel much older than that. Responding to history, I think a person is in sight of his or her death around the age of forty. You see it coming. You are not in sight of your death at thirty, less so at twenty-five. You are struck by the fact of your mortality, that it is unlikely you’ll live another forty years. So time alters you, actually becoming either an enemy or a friend.​
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2. Norman Maclean spent an entire lifetime before he became a novelist. After retiring as a professor from the University of Chicago, Maclean's adult children encouraged him to write down the stories he liked to tell of his own childhood in Montana. That prodding instigated a brief spell of literary magic, including one of the great American classics (and one of my all-time favorite books), "A River Runs Through It". Kathryn Schulz's fantastic essay in The New Yorker tells more of Maclean's twilight years as a novelist.
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3. What happens when a 79-year old beginner with arthritic fingers falters during a piano recital? Once the cloud of humiliation passes, a sense of joy and pride at the accomplishment. In another story of second acts of sorts, former Michigan congressman David Bonior writes a funny and heartwarming essay about learning to play piano after he retired from politics. Not merely taking lessons in the comfort of his home, but practicing for and playing in front of strangers at recitals (alongside kids and their parents). Why is he doing it? In his words, "Because I've always wanted to." Despite the obstacles, he sensed that pursuing it would mean something to him and it has. No small amount of joy is shaped by trial.
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4. ​Nancy Pelosi: Oh to be a fly on the wall during Nancy and Joe's conversations in the hours and days leading up to Biden's decision to drop out of the race. For those excited (and cautiously optimistic) about the changed tenor and trajectory of the 2024 presidential race, we owe much of our gratitude to Nancy Pelosi. She stepped into the fray with clarity and cold precision, deft political touch, and balanced with compassion for a friend and leader who had to make an almost unimaginably difficult decision. Contrast her role with how Mitch McConnell withered and shriveled away in the face of Trump. The linked article is a great telling of Pelosi's role in Biden's decision and how it fits within her legacy as one of America's most consequential politicians.
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5. Although Biden's options evaporated and the pressure to drop out grew heavy, it doesn't make his decision any less difficult nor less worthy of our admiration. What it did was lay bare the difficulty of selfless acts. In the time between the debate and the announcement to step down as candidate, Joe Biden fought to stay in. He did so even as more and more of his party and supporters told him it was time to drop out. The defiance was so strong and the man increasingly isolated that it seemed he might do the wrong thing. Choose ego and ambition over country. The fact that it was messy feels more honest and human. Selfless acts are rarely clearcut. We know that because most of the time they don't happen. Biden gave us a glimpse of that tightrope, and what it looks and feels like to come out on the right side.

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Next Sunday

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