E-Mail to Dorie, a Literate Friend & Book Club Member

Dr. Williams

Yesterday I was pleased to meet and hear the Democratic candidate for Virginia’s Lt. General. Ghazala Hashmi who served for six years as a State Senator from a district in Richmond. She related yesterday that in her life she never envisioned politics in it. An English teacher, her graduate thesis was on William Carlos Williams, the famous American poet and physician from Patterson, New Jersey. You might remember, Dorie, that my hero, Dr. Robert Coles, did his Harvard thesis on Dr. Williams. Then based on the doctor’s advice, Coles went to medical school and became a psychiatrist & writer.

Dr. Robert Coles

Yesterday after candidate Hashmi’s speech, I found myself beside her in a photo shoot. Cheeky me… whispered the name Robert Coles, adding that he was something of a mentor for me. She responded with a knowing and welcome smile. “Oh, you and I must talk.” Not then and there, obviously. But I am speaking now in this e-mail, about one of those literary moments of connection that help sustain me, as you already know.

The setting yesterday was a private home in Northumberland County.  Across a vast green field was a white Romanesque temple (or Greek). Far from it was the historic home: a red-brick colonial with steep steps that led to a portico with an enormously high roof. The entrance to the house had the intelligent design of the past: a hallway open at both ends for circulation of ‘real’ air.  On one side was the traditional parlor, and on the other a dining room. Its long table was laden with food and made me wonder if the setting were more appropriate for Republications!  Then my friend Ilona and I sat at a table on the portico, awaiting the candidate’s arrival. The purpose was a ‘meet and greet’, and then later, beneath a white tent with white chairs, everyone gathered to hear Ghazala Hashmi speak.

She had impressed me in 2024, when Democratic candidates spoke at a local gathering on Good Luck Road, months before the primary. The Senator’s good luck prevailed when she won the election and became the Democratic nominee for Lt. Governor. She was, as she reiterated yesterday, an unexpected victor years ago for State senator, given she was an immigrant from India, a woman, and a Muslim.

On Saturday before this gathering on Sunday, I read a long piece in the WSJ Review, on the Baptist preacher Douglas Wilson. At least three members of the President’s cabinet are devotees of this religious firebrand. One of those on the cabinet gathered 800 military brass this past week and lectured them on attire, physical conditioning, and more.  A Dr. Strangelove performance, as I think of it, given the photo you sent me this morning of the War Secretary. I saw the doctored photo and thought of Peter Sellers in the Stanley Kubrick film, trying to control his arm from automatically jerking upward and saying two German words that begin with H.

Yesterday I heard inspiring and impassioned words from Ghazala Hashmi, spoken in the language of a devoted English teacher and lover of literature. Just now I recalled the claim William Carlos Williams made: “No meaning except in things.” His famous sixteen word poem shows this.

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

I add, so much depends on Virginia’s election on November 4^th.

Now, leaping back to Resurrection (no pun intended), Tolstoy asks, as did Etty Hillesum (see earlier blog): “What is wrong in all our lives?” Both Leo and Etty came to the same conclusion: “To change the order of the world, humans must change themselves.”  The converse of self- awakening is the Baptist preacher.  He wants men to rule, women to bear children and be home, and Muslims to be expelled from our Christian nation. The seeker turned prophet, then becomes the zealot, followed by the command: “Thus shall you live.”

Okay, Dorie, book club members, and other readers:   I will be back on October 20th with more on Leo Tolstoy’s world.  He is, as graphic designer Ilona says, as captivating as Thomas Mann.