God Save the Queen

I'm not a nostalgic person. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that I am occasionally, selectively nostalgic. Sometimes I miss places that no longer exist. Sometimes, I miss having little children. But most of the time, I am clear-eyed and unsentimental about the past. Things change, as they should. Time marches resolutely on and that's mostly to the good

I'm especially not nostalgic for the 20th century; at least not for most of my life during the last half of that century. But I miss a shared frame of reference. I miss the feeling of a solid foundation beneath my feet. 

For my entire life, my understanding of the world included knowledge that across the ocean Queen Elizabeth reigned over the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Her reign began years before I was born, and continued sometimes eventfully and sometimes quietly but constantly either way for the next five decades. The Queen was part of the landscape. She was a structural element. She was, almost literally, an institution. I'm an American, through and through, and even I feel disoriented and a little unmoored today. I'm sorry for England's loss but it's our loss too, a little bit. It's a loss for everyone in the world who doesn't remember or who has never known a world without Elizabeth Il. God save the Queen.