AND YET
(with acknowledgement to Alan Jay Lerner’s “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”
Every person I speak to lately seriously sounds like they’re struggling with some sort of PTSD, anxiety, stress disorder, or depression.
I know I feel that way.
I describe it like inches of grey ash, the kind you see after a volcanic explosion, weighing me down. On my head, shoulders, eyelashes…Can’t be brushed or even washed off. Always here.
Not difficult to figure out why.
Onslaught against women- reproductive, legal, property ownership, travel rights.
Drumpf speaking, breathing, rallying in Arizona.
Arizona.Texas.Florida.
The ongoing “reeducation” of Uyghurs in China.
Bannon’s lying screeds outside the courthouse.
Corrupt Secret Service.
ArmaLite anything.
Putin allowed to walk the face of the earth.
Ditto for MJT, Boebert, Cruz, Jordan, Graham, Gosar, Johnson, Hawley…
Endless mass gun violence.
BA.5 variant.
Monkeypox.
Warburg virus.
The “not so” Supreme court.
107,000 deaths due to opioids last year.
Myanmar.
Death threats against Cassidy Hutchinson, Ruby Freeman, Shaye Moss, and Michael Fanone…
And yet
My cats lie across my chest when I’m watching Bosch.
David buys me whitefish and fillets it for me, so I can have it for breakfast all week long.
I have a career which enables me to meet the most awesome people; Sister Judith Ann Duvall; Doctors Fingerhood, Jordan, Seppala and Volkow; women like Carol, Rosa, Rebecca, Suzie, Linda, Juanita, Terrie, Barbara, and Kay.
And even make new friends!!! Laura, Kim, Assal, Sharon, through film outreach.
Both dark and milk chocolate malted milk balls.
Lobsang.
My aloe, given to me by my former secretary, Emma, who’s passed on, flowered for the first time ever- and grew four feet high.
The Bear.
Anticipation of David and I traveling the Norwegian fjords.
Noorjehan.
Hill Country ribs.
Mini, our cat/dog fetches a ball.
When my first list starts to overwhelm my second, I hear “And yet..” and then I stop, 2:30 pm or not, and take a moment to be grateful.
