Dear President-Elect Trump:
Look at a body of sand from a distance, and we see nothing but one giant mass of sand. Zoom in and in and in until we no longer can see the large mass, but only a few grains of the sand that make up the whole. We’re able to see the intricacies of each grain–the marks that come from being broken off from larger rocks, or of being beaten against ocean floors. Each grain is unique and happened to be in a way that is entirely independent of every other grain of sand.
Years ago I started collecting sand. Some may think sand a strange thing to collect, and maybe it is. But when we went somewhere as a family, I filled a small water bottle half full of sand, labeled it, and took it home. When I forgot, my kids did it for me. At home, I put a few tablespoons into a little glass vial, labeled it, and then threw the rest away. For Christmas this year, my son Seth gave me a wonderful gift—a vial of sand that represented a particular intersecting of our lives.
My sand serves as a tactile reminder of the time I’ve spent with my wife and kids. Each bottle is a bit like a personal portal, taking me back to memories and moments that can never come again, but which bring deep richness in their sheer remembrance.
There’s the sand from Havasupai Falls on the Havasupai Reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It was a miserable two days—hot, sweaty, sticky, interminable. The memories of those two days are now sweet.
The sand from the Red Sea transports me back to a hectic night traveling through the Sinai Desert in a mini-van with no headlights with bodyguards hired to protect us from marauding desert thieves.
Every vial holds a memory, a part of who I am.
Look at different groupings of Americans, and you see just groups of people—Republicans, Democrats, blue collar, white collar, urban, rural.
But zoom in and in and in until you can’t see the group, just the close up of each grain of America—individual people. Look closely enough, and you see the tumbles of their lives—the disappointments and triumphs in love or their labors, moments of loneliness and connection. Look even closer, and see not only the wrinkles on their faces but the events that formed those wrinkles in the first place.
We can’t know sand by looking at the beach, and we can’t know America by looking at its large masses of people. Each is understood by examining the individual grains.
Yours truly,
David O. Leavitt
