Electing to Suffer

Hello.

This is a brief, unscheduled, bonus Gene Pool, with a personal story attached.

About a year ago, some of you noticed that this newsletter started occasionally moving around a bit in time and space, to accommodate appointments of mine. Occasionally, I made an unexplained trip or three to Charlottesville. One or twice I truncated the live-discussion section a little early because I had to leave.

Some of you sent me private notes, concerned that I was sick. I was moved by that, and still am. You are friends, acting like friends. I answered you individually, and said I was fine. And that was the truth, but it wasn’t all of the truth. Something was going on — and there was a story behind it, but it was not my story to tell. It was Rachel’s story, and she tells it today, in a remarkable piece in The Washington Post. Until today she had written only obliquely, and coyly, about it.

Here is her new story. It is painful, but not sad. In my judgment, this is a high-wire act that not many feature writers could pull off with as much aplomb, and control and, above all, humor. Because of its sprawling ambition, this piece had to run this week, for reasons you will understand.

Feel free to comment here, but a more fertile venue would probably be in the comments section of the story itself, on the Wapo website. (The link is a gift; to read it, you don’t need to be a subscriber to the newspaper.)

Oh, and once you read it, you’ll understand the “Separated at birth?” photos below.

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Squeaky, circa 1969

Rachel, 2024

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One more thing. Please remember that The Gene Pool will be live on election night for questions, observations and Comments, starting at 8 p.m. To be able to participate, you’ll need to be a paid member ($5 for access to that one day, if that is your choice.)

See you all tomorrow for the Invitational Gene Pool. And from the bottom of my apparently still functioning heart, thank you all for bearing with me all these many months.

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