Like most everybody else, I’m hanging out and social distancing. The arrival of warm weather and its companion, a bright sunny day, helps the spirits as does cutting back on cable news where Trump is a constant presence. Still it is hard to shut him out entirely. He doesn’t let a day go by without saying or doing something that is stupid, dangerous, and evil.
It’s mind boggling that the deaths of nearly 100,000 people don’t seem to register with him. Not a bit. He’s indifferent. Empathy is absent. Comforting is something he doesn’t do. Even fake concern is nowhere it sight. What preoccupies him is his slipping polling numbers against Joe Biden. Nothing concentrates his mind and triggers wild conspiracy theories and bizarre behavior quite like they do. His latest invention in a long line is, no surprise, Obamagate.
Sorry Jerry, but he is “a long strange trip.”
All this would be more than enough to drag me down, if I let it. But I don’t. In no small measure because I see, sometimes up close, usually at a distance, so many acts of kindness, solidarity, and sacrifice from so many people. Some even giving their own lives as they help others. Deeply sad for sure, but noble and heroic too. It lifts my spirits, although if I could drink wine and/or beer without a hangover the next day, I could easily develop a drinking problem.
But I don’t, at least not every day. Instead, I keep busy in other ways. Write a little, exercise daily, rehabilitate my arm (I tore the tendon in my right arm and decided to do physical therapy instead of surgery; didn’t want to go into hospital in early April), read, including some books that I have been wanting to read for a long time, walk every morning, cook, clean (with a little urging), mow the grass (big yard), entertain my dog, and zoom weekly with family and friends. I’m sure I’m forgetting something. Ah, I did. It’s Netflix, and also I’m participating in a well coordinated voter registration and get out the vote campaign, using postcards.
Hope you are doing ok and staying safe too.
