I spent the end of last week at the farm in Andover, VT. It was quiet and cool, and I read a lot - mostly about the brutal end of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975-1999) and then a work by a legal philosopher (Martha Minnow) about the promise and limitations of truth commissions, trials, and reparations to help societies that have experienced mass violence to navigate the path between "vengeance and forgiveness." In the early 1990's, roughly one third of the East Timorese population perished as a result of the occupation. At times, East Timor's history seems too large for a country the size of Connecticut.*
Despite the heavy reads, being at the farm felt great and I was happy to hang out with Jess before hitting the skies. And no goodbye is complete without interpretive dance.
* The site, I should acknowledge, of its own genocide.
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