To Break Bread, Not Break Apart: A Hopeful Path Forward

Disclaimer: Yeah, I know — this is a wine website. But in the spirit that wine brings people together (and, truthfully, because I don’t have anywhere else for it to live), I wanted to share this here. Pour a glass, pull up a chair, and let's talk.

To my friends standing in the ashes of yet another long, chaotic election:

This is not the time to retreat. Not the time to turn off, tune out, or bury our heads in the soothing glow of screens, drowning in escapism while the world outside cracks and fractures. We’ve been down that road too many times, haven’t we? It’s gotten us here, split down the middle like an old tree, half rotting and half reaching for the sun, each side marked by a flimsy line drawn in the sand. Us and them. But what if — hear me out, folks — what if that divide is nothing more than a mirage, a cheap trick peddled by power-hungry machines that thrive on our disconnection? They want us at each other’s throats, disoriented, and alone because that’s where their real power lives.

But we don’t have to play that game.

Here’s the raw truth: half of this country looked at that ballot and saw a different answer, a different way forward. Sure, maybe it seems baffling or even infuriating from where you’re sitting, but each of those votes was cast by someone with a heartbeat, someone who laughs and worries, dreams, cries, and bleeds just like you. People who see the world through their own story, their own bruised and battle-worn eyes. And the single act of listening, of trying to see the world as they do — not with the goal of changing them, but with the audacity to understand them — that could be the most radical, revolutionary act we have left. Because empathy, the real stuff, the kind you find over late-night talks and shared meals, doesn’t just happen. It’s earned. And if we’ve ever needed that, it’s now.

And here’s the thing: this isn’t the time to sit back with smug satisfaction, basking in self-righteousness, or to take cheap shots from the sidelines. That’s a fool’s errand, a hollow thrill that feeds nothing but bitterness, only builds thicker walls and deeper wounds. And for those feeling the sting of disappointment, don’t let this be the moment you pull back and let the fire die out. Turning inward now would be an act of surrender, the slow rot of disengagement, when we need every damn one of us, awake, alert, ready to fight for the world we want to see.

Instead, it’s time to get back into the thick of life, shoulder to shoulder, and break bread with those who see things differently. Sit at tables where we may not belong. Laugh with people whose ideas might scare us. Look across at folks raised with different values, molded by different experiences, and ask why. Not for a chance to argue or gloat, but for a chance to see ourselves in each other. Because connection doesn’t come easy. It takes work. It takes warmth. And sometimes it hurts.

So lean in. Breathe it all in, this messy, maddening, marvelous human experiment. We’re done with letting the cold algorithms and political machines steer our hearts and our thoughts; we’re charting our own path now. A path guided by something real, something that lives in the marrow, something that whispers that our empathy, our strange and stubborn capacity to care, could be our salvation. This isn’t the end, friends. This is the beginning — a chance to build the world we actually want. And it starts, believe it or not, by daring to know each other again, flaws and all.

Let’s take that dare. When are you free for dinner, for a cup of coffee, or to share a bottle of wine?