I was once a political writer. In recent years I have prided myself, almost bragged in fact, about my disinterest in national politics. I didn’t vote for years, or pay much attention to the shrinking of the process into a  smothering “left” and a “right,” bleeding away any idea of real debate or enlightenment.

People thought what they were told to think,  I can’t think of a system that had less space or meaning for me. People scolded me all the time, you need to pay attention and vote, they said. I didn’t.

People like me live on the edges of politics and all organizations and gatherings of people, I am to be found staring curiously into the cages, keeping well away from the pacing, often enraged,  animals who live there. Once in awhile somebody asks me to be on a board, I say that is not for me,  you would regret it.

I would not last long in that zoo. I change my mind often, I love to listen to people who disagree with me civilly, and I am stirred by the truly spiritual people who command us to care for the poor and troubled.

In my mind I see our political system as a bloody and often frightening kind of modern Coliseum for men, wounding and stalking and killing one another with new weapons,  as viciously and relentlessly as they have always done.  Everywhere they go, men seem to conquer, dominate, attack,  frighten, kill or destroy things.

it is a very rare man who takes responsibility for what he has done.

The presidential campaign has drawn me back in, of course, there is no point in pretending otherwise, or forcing myself to never write about it. I have no intention of making this a political blog,I truly hate the ones I see, but I have to write about where I am at any given time, and today, this was where I was. As was almost everyone who reads this blog.

I understand that I don’t have the spiritual depth or psychological discipline to ignore this ugliness completely, not right now, even though I am intensely conscious of not taking it too far. It is not healthy to look very often, interest quickly becomes obsessive. It is not healthy to argue with people on Facebook about what one believes.

But  I don’t think I will ever see anything like today, I sometimes wish I could  still report on it, and tell my grandchild  I was there when Donald Trump and Michelle Obama gave their famous speeches.

These two very disparate people went right to the heart of where the country is, and of the choices all of us who care about it will have to make soon. If I could point to one moment where I saw the crossroads clearly, it was in those two speeches today. I saw that I was living in two different worlds, with two different realities. Two different choices, two different mirrors that will reflect who we really are. There is no escaping that.

One speech was Donald Trump’s furious warning that the Clinton’s were at the center of a vast international corporate-media conspiracy to stop him and take over the country; the other was Michelle Obama’s speech, given at almost precisely the same time, in which she said the comments about women that he made on that bus were an insult to decent men everywhere.

Both speeches struck very different nerves, in completely different ways. In my mind, I saw two Americas, one fighting to survive, the other inevitable and ascending, a train coming down the tracks. Everyone saw what  their own souls needed and wanted to see.  Each of us thought we alone saw the truth and knew the path to righteousness.

The language of one was disturbing and familiar to me, the language of the other was personal and heartfelt.

For me, these two people and their speeches captured the great drama of this election, a nation divided and in agony, two nations really, each defining themselves in a totally different way. I remind myself often that almost all of us do the best we can, almost all of us thinking we are doing well, are on the side of right. Sometimes, we forget  not to hate the other people who think they are also doing good.

I must admit that I was touched by Michelle Obama’s speech and identified with it, especially the part where she said the taped comments on the bus were hurtful to her and an “insult to decent men.”  She was authentic and full of grace and feeling. It was a speech from the heart.

What does it mean to be decent?  According to the dictionary, to be decent means to conform to the standardized notions of propriety, to be honest and kind and worthy. Those are vague words, I don’t really know how to define decency. For all of us, it is different I think, our own ideas of what the right thing is.

Am I one of those decent men Michelle Obama is talking about? I’d love to think so.  Maria told me today, after reading some of the news, that I was a “good man,” and she was grateful that we were together. If a wife or partner can say that after a few years, it is a high compliment.

She shivers when she thinks about other kinds of men sometimes. She cried when Michelle Obama talked about comments about women that hurt and frightened even her. Michelle Obama did what most men never do, she showed her vulnerability, despite all of her power.

I know what she means, Maria said.

My friend Scott Carrino called and we were clucking in sadness about the campaign, and  I was talking about my visit with my daughter Emma, it was a nice visit, I said, we are getting more comfortable with one another and this new person. “Does she know you?,” Scott asked me, “that you are kind and gentle and good, that you are a decent man?”

This startled me, and embarrassed me, I didn’t answer, I moved on, quickly changed the subject. I can’t say what Emma thinks of me, I imagine I am afraid to ask.

When I think of The Decent Man, I  think of men like Scott. He is, like me, a little crazy and unpredictable, willful and impulsive. An individual, passionately committed to living his own life, not someone else’s  idea of life.

I thought of Scott right away when I thought of Michelle Obama’s “decent man,” I don’t think of me, I have taken too many wrong turns in my life, shed too many skins. Like me, Scott is not heading for sainthood, but he is a very good man. He is decent.  You can be broken and still be a decent man, I know, as long as you know you are broken, and try to patch yourself up. As long as it humbles you and you learn not to hurt people.

As long as you can hear the worst things about you and see that they are true.

For a long time, I have said the only men I love are those who were tortured as children or humiliated as adults, they are the only men who know humility and can truly empathize. That is a generalization, I know, but still, I believe it.

I see the decent man in Scott, even if I cannot see it in myself. He is gentle, and generous. I have never known him to willfully harm another person, even though he may sometimes annoy them. He does not frighten people.

He loves his children and treats them with kindness. He is respectful of women (and men), he would not ever treat them with contempt or disrespect. He and I have spent many hours together in his Sugar House or by the lake on his farm, arms folded, talking openly to one another.

Scott has never spoken in a dismissive or dominant way about women, we have never fantasized of groping or abusing them, or spoken of their bodies in a sexual or other way.  That would be shocking to either one of us. We do not ever talk about the weight of people, men or women, or rate their attractiveness by number.

We have never once spoken of women the way the man on that recorded tape did, nor heard any other man, in or out of a locker room speak of the joy and glee that comes with touching and  grabbing a women because you can.  To me, that is another kind of rape. It is a violation in so many different ways.

Like Michelle Obama, we were both hurt and angered by the idea that this is what men do. I can forgive error, but not error defined by arrogance. And I can certainly understand why many women were afraid to come forward.

There is not much talk of decent men these days, or praise for them. Michelle Obama’s speech was important, even  historic, if you were really listening. It made the day remarkable for me.

I thank Michelle Obama for speaking up for decent men, that is rare, perhaps because we so rarely hear from them in our public life.

But the two speeches made me sad, each for different reasons,  my blog is about sharing my life wherever it goes, and I have been faithful to that for nearly a decade. The definition of a great speech is the same as a great piece of writing, it makes you say, “yes, I know, I feel that, you also?”

That’s what I felt when I saw Michelle Obama’s speech, it touched me deeply. Yes, I know, I thought. You too?

Speaking in such a way about women is not something I have ever done, it is not what Scott would ever do, or any of the men we know have ever done, to our knowledge.

Words are my business, I have lived with all of my life, and those words were like chewing on glass to me, just to think of speaking them turns my stomach. I don’t think I could force them out of my mouth, and I have said innumerable stupid things in my life. It makes me gag. Not just on behalf of my daughter, or my granddaughter. On behalf of me. My daughter does not need for me to rush to her side and rescue her, she does a much better job of running her life than I did for most of mine.

And everywhere I look, women are rising. Michele Obama’s speech would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Today, it was being shared by millions of people.  Those comments in the bus are changing history. They call Michelle Obama the “closer” in this campaign (after the prized baseball pitchers who finish up games by shutting down the opposition). She closed it for me, I can go back to my book tomorrow, at least for awhile.

And so there it is, the divide that is also on my mind, this great sense of looming conflict and disconnection.

Each of us asking the other, how could you not see that? How could you support this? Nobody listening, nobody hearing. The center that holds us together is broken.

But it’s simple, really, you either believe such comments are profoundly indecent and hurtful, or you don’t. If you don’t,  if you think such statements are commonplace or minor, there is not much for me to say to you, or for you to say to me.

We will just walk on different paths, vote our separate ways, do the best we can for as long as we can.

I believe it’s time to stop whining and complaining about the choices we have been handed, this is what it is,  time to deal with it as each of us sees fit and move on. Life is what you make of it.

How can we tell a decent man? I liked the writer Peal Cleage’s idea:

“Any time your life is at stake and you can’t find even one woman to come forward and say, ‘This is a good man,’ your problem isn’t what kind of woman they are. Your problem is what kind of men you are.”

If you do share Michele Obama’s view of things, then perhaps you can join me in a moment of reflection and silence for the decent men who love their families – men and women – and wish for them to live in love and peace and dignity.

I hope that Scott is right, and that my daughter thinks of me as a decent man. I believe my wife does, and I will work hard to keep it that way. I can find a couple of women, I believe, who can say I am a good man.

I wish the decent men Godspeed and happiness, and am grateful for the chance to think of them. I am surprised to find that I love each one of you, you are important, you matter in the world.