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“don’t grow up. it’s a trap.” [merely-a-thought monday]

dontgrowup

grown-up (adj):  1. not childish or immature 2. of, for, or characteristic of adults.ie:  insisted on wearing grown-up clothes.  grown-up (noun):  adult.

(according to miriam-webster)

there are perils.  adulthood is full of them.  frequently searching, searching, looking for sense, seeking our meaning, evaluating ourselves, measuring, bettering, struggling, comparing, falling short.  so many opportunities for falling short.

i suppose that life is somewhat like an experiment.  but by the time you get to writing the lab report, it is unclear what the hypothesis was; there have been so many tangents the original purpose is muddied by much emotional research.  the sheer volume of subjective data falls under too many objective categories to make it all absolute, to make it all clear.  adulthood: not childish – is a certain definition in the dictionary.  adulthood: not childlike – is certainly a sad story.

“you are enough,” i’ve seen, written as quick success-signage, a succinct unembellished positive.

yet, the path is never really certain.  it is fraught with all the dr.seuss-monsters imaginable.  but in the midst of all that, in the vortex of all the searching and figuring out and listening and learning and choosing and getting lost and finding and hiding and being seen, standing still and watching a butterfly open and close its wings, tracking a caterpillar’s journey across a dirt path, tracing clouds in the sky, sharing a seesaw, chalking a driveway all take on exponential meaning.  this moment.  this hug.  this breath.

lilah splashes in her blow-up pool, nestled in lush grass in the shade of graceful birch trees, in the warmth of a steamy summer day, surrounded by adoring parents, grandparents, friends.  she is in her delight.  a wise and untrapped seven-months old.

we each slow down and watch her hug the moment she is in.  her day is full of these snippets of time, each a minute of her tiny life-so-far.  unconcerned about the experiment of growing-up ahead, sweet lilah reflects back a universe of “you are enough” to us.  if you look in her eyes, you will see what love is, what hope is, what living is.

someone said, “life is hard and then you die.”  maybe that person was just too grown-up.

i guess growin’ isn’t hard to do, just stand against the wall.
once i was just two feet high;
today i’m six feet tall.
but knowin’ who to listen to, is somethin’ else again.
words just whistle around my head,
like seasons in the wind.
all across the water the clouds are sailin’.
they won’t let me look at the sky.
all I want to do is try to find myself;
come and let me look in your eyes.
in searchin’ for the way to go, i’ve followed all the rules:
the way they say to choose between the wise men and the fools.
i listened to the words they say;
i read what i should read.
i do whatever’s right to do,
try to be what i should be.
someone let me in i think the sky is falling;
seems i’ve gotten lost on my way.
all i want to do is try to find myself;
come and let me look in your eyes.
but wisdom isn’t underground, nor on a mountainside.
where am i to take myself?  there’s no place here to hide. where can i hide?
all across the universe the stars are fadin’;
seems i’ve gotten lost on my way.
all i want to do is try to find myself.
come and let me look in your eyes.
come and let me look in your eyes
come and let me look in your eyes.

 

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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space-space. [merely-a-thought monday]

john glenn high school.  typing class.  rules.  rules.  rules.

one of them:  two spaces between sentences.

earlier this week, pryce re-posted, “out of an abundance of caution, the ap style book and the chicago manual of style are reinstituting the two-space rule between sentences to support social distancing.”  it literally made me laugh aloud.  my friend mona commented, “hard habit to break.  no going back.”  exactly.  it’s ingrained.  the red pen was generously applied to typing papers without two spaces; it was a rule sans excuses.

but the word “reinstituting” caused me some consternation.

i loved typing.  i even typed my high school science lab reports and poetry i transcribed out of composition notebooks that kept me company at the beach, in the tree outside my bedroom window, in the wee hours of the night.

my undergrad and grad school years happened by the mid-80s.   all of my undergrad papers were typed on a typewriter.  my grad school papers were on an early apple 2E, with sprocket-holed printer paper. type type type.  lots of typing.

and i have never-ever only used one space after a sentence or a question or an exclamation or a colon.

i cannot believe what “reinstituting” implies.  somewhere on the punctuation train, i stalled.  i realize formal changes may be due to typesetting and the difference between typewriters and computers and some debate over the ease of reading sentences, but how are we supposed to find out these things??  i asked d how many spaces he uses after sentences, to which he replied, “one.”  what?!  i wrote to joan-who-knows-these-things to settle this mushrooming problem.  though she said using two was out of habit, she sided with me.

and so i just went upstairs to dig out-of-the-depths my old APA book – the third edition of the publication manual of the american psychological association, copyrighted in 1983, which was both the bible and the biggest pain in the ass for writing papers in graduate school.  here it what it says on page 140:

APA spacing copy

i feel vindicated.  heartened.  validated.  my two-spaces, although archaic, are supported by a rulebook.  at least they w-e-r-e supported by a rulebook back-in-the-day.  the newest APA book is copyrighted 2020 and is the 7th edition.  here’s what that says about spacing:

new apa

ugh.  (eye roll)

i don’t know if i will try to incorporate this “new”rule.  like kevin, who said he was taught two spaces and is sticking with it, i just might not be able to do it.

at this point, i hardly think anyone will whip out their red pen.

but i can hope that people – in reading my two-spaces-after-a-period-that-says-over-40-writing – will assume JUST a-wee-bit over 40.

ok, ok, that’s doubtful.

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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things i learned at the little red schoolhouse. [merely-a-thought monday]

a bar owner

the little red schoolhouse on cuba hill road was the place i went to kindergarten.  built in 1903 it was a place of important early learnings – the stuff you learn at five and six – things this back-in-the-day first teacher, who you fall desperately in love with, would impart to you through kind, objective, steady lessons.  it wasn’t that my sweet momma or poppo weren’t teaching me kindergarten-level-rules, but learning them in a place where i was surrounded by other children and could practice them immediately in-real-life i would guess had more impact.  lasting lessons are often those that come through experience, through feeling and doing rather than simply hearing.

share your toys.  take your turn.  say please and thank you.  wash your hands.  do your own work.  hold the door for others.  keep your hands to yourself.  be kind.  help others.  listen when others speak.   be respectful of your elders.  follow the rules.

i don’t specifically remember days in kindergarten but i know that i have always been a rule-follower in school and would not imperil another’s playground time by not paying attention, by disobeying, by being impervious to an adult’s directions for work that needed to be done or instructions for safe practices.  i would not have ignored the be-absolutely-quiet rule during fire or duck-and-cover drills.  i would not have continued talking or wreaking havoc were my teacher – or any other teacher, for that matter – to have asked for silence.

the rules seemed simple at five.  we were each individually and as a group asked to follow them.  those easy rules were designed to preclude chaos and our freedom to learn and have fun was never sacrificed in the process of following them.  the consequences of disregarding them seemed dire – staying in during playtime.  one child’s misbehavior often led to the whole class missing playground.  to be THAT child was not a sought-after title.  instead, we would work together – in our five-year-old beehive fashion – to clean up the classroom and desks and chairs so that we were all ready – together – to go play.

it’s the way i feel about masks.  it hasn’t been recommended to us by medical and science professionals to wear masks as a lark.  this recommendation comes with passionate imploring.  it is a simple rule.  if this, then that.  conditional.   if we wear masks, we will dramatically lower the transmission of this global pandemic raging through our country.  it is a proven fact and other countries have shown their adherence to mask-wearing has flattened the curve of the disease.  pretty simple, yes.  a mask.

instead, there are those people who flagrantly ignore this simple if-this-then-that.  we see them everywhere.  it’s breathtaking.  and their display of arrogant individualism at a time of an intense need to care-for-community means one thing:  we will not get to go out to play.

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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“it matters not.” [merely-a-thought monday]

we all fruit

i never let it stop me.  it didn’t matter to me the title someone held or the notoriety they had.  i always reminded myself that this person i needed to call or meet with or contact was human.  “this person breathes in and out, just like i do,” i would think.  i felt this person – whoever it was – must have some human quality in common with me, regardless of a possible overly-amplified ego or the protected life bubble they might live within.  “it matters not,” my momma, a lover of language, would say.  in the end, nothing really separated me from this person, him or her, human-wise.

and so, my slightly-dialed-back-new-york chutzpah would dial the phone and expect nothing less than speaking with the person i was calling, no matter what rung on the ladder that person clung to, no matter how high the ladder, no matter the pecking order or the person’s perception of self.

because:  people.  we are all people.

now there’s a starting point.

but you wouldn’t know that looking at this country these days.

my sweet momma would be 99 today as i write this.  99.  even in her time on this planet – which devastatingly ended five years ago now – she had seen a lot of change.  “it matters not,” she would say.  we are where we are.  she read, she researched, she asked questions.  and she always arrived at the same place:  people are people and should be – in the crux of all things – equally treated as such.  period.

empty words ticked momma off and she warned me of people who would talk the talk but not walk it.  her sixth sense of intuition was often caution enough in friendships and relationships where people would get all virtuous and principled and, yet, be the same people who could clearly not see the irony in their supposed loftiness, the empty in their words, the do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do-ness, the falsity in their stance.

my momma, our beaky, subscribed to kindness.  it would be to her horror to see the hateful rhetoric nowadays.  she would have no patience for it.  she would point to the horrors that hatred had produced in years past.  she would state in simple terms:  “it matters not,” she’d say, “be kind to each other.  in all things, be kind.”

if momma were here today, she’d wear a mask.  not because she would be in a high-risk category, but because it is the kind thing to do.  a lover of math and science, she would point to the words of scientists, researchers, epidemiologists, medical professionals and she would insist on listening to them.  “it matters not what you think,” she’d point out.  “what matters is what they know.”

if momma were here today, she might protest.  she’d point to inequity and ask what we could do about it.  she’d not draw lines of color or race or gender or sexual orientation or economic status.  “it matters not.  people are people,” she’d insist.  she’d wonder at a country, with so many smart people, continuing to head down such a dark road.  she’d question, she’d challenge, she’d debate, she’d be stalwart and she would hold steadfast to being kind.  period.

it may be oversimplification, but gus had it right in my big fat greek wedding.  “apple and orange…we all different, but, in the end, we all fruit.”  he and my momma would have been grand friends.

because in the end, we are all human.  we breathe in, we breathe out.  we can reject hate; we can choose to love.  nothin’ wrong with a little oversimplification.

BE KIND MASKS – in honor of the wisdom of my sweet momma ❤️

FACE MASKS

BE KIND small print face mask

BE KIND large print face mask

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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“a little normal would be nice.” [merely-a-thought monday]

normal with frame

normal is up for grabs.

in the middle of my meltdown yesterday, i’m sure i uttered, “i just want normal.”

but normal is subjective now.

there is a deep schism between the normal of the of-course-i’ll-wear-a-mask-maskers and the it’s-against-my-constitutional-rights-to-make-me-wear-a-mask-non-maskers.  a deep schism between the sides of the aisle.  a deep schism over this global pandemic, the economy, healthcare, equality, blatant racism.  a deep schism over confederate monuments.  a deep schism over basic respect.  a deep schism over truth.

a chasm of difference.  it makes me wonder what, if anything, can bridge it, what can create a common story, what can make us a populace that cares about each other?

scrolling through facebook is depressing.  there are people ‘out there’ in our pandemic-riddled country doing normal stuff:  eating at restaurants, having drinks at bars, gathering with friends, going on trips, boating, fishing, at the beach or the pool, all without masks and without social distancing and without, seemingly, a care in the world.

driving downtown is depressing.  there are people ‘out there’ in our pandemic-riddled country just-down-the-road doing normal stuff:  eating inside and outside at captain mike’s, gathering at eichelmann beach, hanging out at the lakefront, all without masks and without social distancing and without, seemingly, a care in the world.

trying to plan anything is depressing.  we need to go to see david’s parents.  i desperately need to see My Girl and My Boy.  there are so many details to keep each other safe.  there’s nothing normal.  it’s freaking confusing.  we plot the trip west, a roadtrip, thinking about 19 hours across the middle of the country, thinking about arriving at my at-risk-in-laws’ house, having not picked up any additional possibility of passing covid-19 to them.  where do we stop safely?  where do we get gas?  where do we use restrooms?  how can we be sure they will not be recipients of anything we bring along?  we care.

and yet, there is the rest of the country – the ones screaming at city hall meetings, the ones seeking judgement against requiring masks-for-safety, the ones who throw pointed word-daggers arguing against the danger of this pandemic, the ones arguing for other causes of death, the ones voting out all precautions for the state of wisconsin, the ones who stand in front of the entire country and arrogantly (and without a grain of truth) state, “we’ve flattened the curve!”  how is it that the leadership of this country gets away with this?  no wonder half of the country wears no mask, states and does whatever they damn well please. WHAT pandemic?

it’s depressing.  missing the moments that make up life – chances to easily be with family, friends.  chances to have a bite out without worrying about aerosols.  chances to sing with others, to sing for others.  chances to go to concerts and plays.  chances to gather around a kitchen table or the island at your best friends’.  chances to stop and hug your decades-long neighbor.  chances to hold your grown-up children and kiss them and make them roll their eyes.  happy hour with friends crowded onto a deck.  parties in the backyard.  normal stuff.

it was on a marquee outside a store, “a little normal would be nice.”

i couldn’t agree more.

i told tom i had a really hard day yesterday.  he said, “you have to grieve.”

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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“it flies by as it drags on.” [merely-a-thought monday]

it flies by as it drags on

we cleaned the garage this weekend.  our garage is old-old-old.  it has a little bow in the front and there is a bit of an issue with the walls no longer in alignment with the foundation.  the decades-old automatic garage door opener no longer opens it.  que sera, sera.

there was the usual assortment of garden tools and clay pots, chairs-in-bags and chairs-without-bags, the wrought iron table and umbrella we hadn’t put out yet, random bags of potting soil, milorganite, sand, a plethora of spiders and their webby homes.  there are old doors in the rafters, the tricycle My Girl and My Boy rode, a red wagon, the hammock.  there are jacks, a snowblower-that-doesn’t-work-but-we-should-have-repaired, a wheelbarrow that has seen many trips down third avenue.  our bikes hang on hooks; we wonder if i will be able to ride this summer – the whole two-broken-wrists-thing has put a damper on things.  there is a woodpile rack waiting for us to re-stock, have a few bonfires in the firepit or the chiminea.  and there is my old vw bug.  smack-dab in the middle of this tiny one-car garage is my well-loved 1971 super beetle.

it was father’s day yesterday when we moved it out of the garage, me behind the wheel, clutch in, gear in neutral, hand ready on the emergency brake as david pushed.  it hasn’t been started in years and i could hear my sweet poppo groan with me from another plane of existence as i looked it over.  dirty from a few years of garage-sitting, it sure-enough wouldn’t start and i ticked off a list of things that likely now need fixing.  these are things i can’t do anything about right now, so i did what i could do something about.

i got a bucket of warm carwash-soapy-water and a good sponge and my dad and i washed our bug together.

i could hear him telling me about when he and my mom picked it up brand-new in germany for their roadtrip around europe, about how it was shipped back home to a port in new york.  i reminded him about how he ‘sold’ it to me in the mid-70s and how i drove that little car everywhere – rain, sleet, snow or ice – and it always kept me safe.  i reminded him about how my little miniature-collie-mixbreed-dog missi used to ride in the well (i could hear him laughing when i retold how she one day actually pooped in the well.)  we talked about its color iterations – it was born baby blue (marina blue, they called it).   somewhere along the way we had earl scheib’s paint it navy and later on down the road it was painted white, its current color.  i drove it with my best friend sue back and forth to florida, a trip where she learned how to drive a stick shift.  it lived in new york and then florida and then wisconsin.  it’s been dragged behind tow trucks and up on flatbeds.  it bowed out of the drive moving up to wisconsin, so we pulled it behind us with a tow bar.  it’s had a couple engine overhauls and lots of tires.  i know how to adjust the timing and the carburetor myself.  i’ve played countless john denver and loggins and messina cassettes at full volume in this little car.   the heat was either stuck on or stuck off.  my poppo reminded me that it had 455 air conditioning – four windows open at 55mph.  i drove it to get both my degrees in florida.  i drove it through a drive-through to get a milkshake the day i went into labor with My Girl.  it’s been around the block.

i gently washed the dirt off of my little-white-vw-bug yesterday and realized how time had flown by.  i was struck by how – right now- in the middle of a pandemic and unrest – time seems to drag.  both are true.

yet i know that one day, as i ponder this time – in all its dragging chaos and emotional upheaval – i will look back and realize time, precious time, was actually flying by.

i sat down on the rusty metal bumper and missed my dad.

“on the road of experience…and trying to find my own way…sometimes i wish that i could fly away.  when i think that i’m moving…suddenly things stand still.  i’m afraid ’cause i think they always will…” (john denver)

IMG_3370

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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“keep the fire burnin” [merely-a-thought monday]

keep the fire burnin

short attention spans. we americans seem to have eclipsed the rest of the world with these.  we are a newsclip-sitcom-youtube-radio-cut-text-tweet-snap-insta society; often anything less than fast-paced will bore the viewer-reader-listener.  we have reduced lengthy research to reading cliff notes and have lost interest in the documentary series in favor of the 22 minute-plus-commercials sitcom.

enter a global pandemic.  three months now, we don’t have to go far to see that the novelty has worn off.  just down along the harbor, up on the sidewalk tables, in the stores and the bars with doors swung wide open, it’s as if it no longer exists.  pandemic-shmandemic.  the attentiveness of many has been worn down; it is no longer possible for what-seems a vast majority to pay attention.  they have moved on.  the fire of fear and, thus, responsibility has reduced to a flicker.

we watch crowded streets with people protesting, begging for change, asking for the country to turn around and face itself and the underlying racism that has prevailed for centuries.  we march, we chant, we write, we listen to speakers, we read books.  it is the latest in the viewfinder for america.  it is three weeks now.  there is action.  can we keep this necessary fire of change lit?

masks-and-distance-for-protection-of-all, action-and-change-for-equity-of-all, step-by-step, learning-by-learning.  we all have to stoke the flames of transformation and push back against the ever-inviting-lazy-attention-lost backslide into complacency.

“and let us not stop learnin’.  we can help one another be strong.  let us never lose our yearnin’ to keep the fire burnin'” (reo speedwagon)

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

bonfire website box


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the new bowl. “what now?” [merely-a-thought monday]

what now bcat

we put out a different water bowl in the kitchen for dogdog and babycat.  neither one of them will drink from the bowl.  we put their old water bowl in the next room, filled with water, so that they will be able to hydrate, but we were hoping that they would adjust to the new one.  neither one of them will drink from the bowl.  in the world they inhabit, one that must have low level anxiety frequencies they can feel from the-whole-outside-world, they do not like change.  it’s been days and neither one will drink from the bowl.

“what now?”

in the past months and in what now feels like a broken world, we can face forward.  we can set intentions and take one baby step at a time, all in unequivocal love of all humankind.  we can be light for each other and we can hold fear tenderly.   we can look newness of change eye to eye as we learn, challenge the status quo, embrace compassion and principle and stride confidently into a new time.

we can sit by the new bowl, encourage our dog and cat to drink from it, recognize their fear of the unknown, of change, and just love them.

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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exit. stage right. [merely-a-thought monday]

exit

metaphorically speaking, the gravel hadn’t even settled after we pulled out of the parking lot and our newly-created-recently-released website had already been changed.  david warned me about this, telling me how tom m used to tell him this very thing about the moments – even just mere moments – after you leave a position.  you are forgotten, your ideas are left behind in the dust; you are the person who used to do the job.

i had spent hours and hours and hours and weeks and months designing, branding, carefully trying to portray this unique place in a fresh, interesting, vital-to-the-community way.  i painstakingly chose fonts and always included “xoxo” in posts.  i pored over hundreds of pictures i had taken there, looking for the right imagery to represent this performing arts center to which, just over a year ago, i had felt an instant attachment.  TPAC, a beautiful 253-seat theatre on a tiny island.  i added a small heart to advertising, social media posts, communications.  my heart was attached and it seemed apropos to subtly include love from TPAC in everything to the residents who have shared their island with it.

for the last year – until the end of the day yesterday – we, two people with lifelong immersion in the arts, have been the co-managing directors of this theatre.  on this island-you-cannot-drive-to, across death’s door from the mainland of door county, we weathered our way through waves of challenges.  we were brought there to create, to bring TPAC into next, to carefully elicit change in a place that pushed back against change.  we made dear new friends; we gauged our days and our progress by the greetings at the grocery store.  my fondness grew.

managing a performing arts center is not for the weak of heart.  it is not, as some would think, simply about booking performers into the space.  instead, it is weaving the place in which it exists into its very fabric, acknowledging the importance of the local arts organizations and forging relationships with their people, listening, working together to make the theatre accessible and intrinsic – necessary – to all.  it is fundraising, addressing personality issues, graphic design, ad sponsorship, strategizing, gently and firmly guiding.  for us, it was seeing the infinite details (i’m the detail one) and the arcing scope into the future (he’s the big picture one).  it was sitting-on-the-edge-of-the-wooden-stage-dreaming at its best and cleaning-the-backstage-refrigerator at its most practical.

we lived in the littlehouse on the water, a place we still cherish.  every morning i took a photograph over the lake; every night we marveled at the million stars in the sky.  we walked on quiet roads and hung out laundry to dry.  in the middle of enacting progressive forward-moving dreams, we had also returned to a simpler place, a simpler time.  washington island is indeed away-away and the ferry that makes it possible to come and go dictated our few comings and goings.

there were moments, as you would suspect, of difficulty, for no tiny place is immune to that, to agenda or powerplay.  indeed, no dense urban city is immune, so a somewhat homogeneous island with generations-long-standing residents proves no different.  when we accepted this position we put on our ‘what’s best for TPAC?’ hats and, with more objectivity than those who have been immersed in the politics and life of a place for most of its tenure, we were determined to leave those hats on, despite all odds, regardless of any pressure to bow differently.  we brought heart to TPAC and we leave pieces of our hearts behind in it.

every journey has meaning.  today i grieve the inevitable exit from this place.  they will continue on, outsiders-be-gone, with one of their own at the helm to take them into next, the island way.  TPAC will continue to grow and change; there is so much potential there.  we can see it.

and today, as i close my eyes and see the traditional red-cushioned theatre seating of the house and feel the wooden stage under my boots, i know my heart will mend a bit as the dust settles.  and the key sticks in the lock of the backstage door just as it always has.

(a farewell video post to TPAC)

read DAVID’s post this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

sunsetonisland website box

©️ 2020 kerri sherwood & david robinson

 


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“tired.” [merely-a-thought monday]

tired

bone-weary.

we just read/watched the new york times interactive article from may 24 called ‘an incalculable loss’.  tiny people on the screen of our laptop, nearly 100,000 lives were represented – deaths from march 8.  the visual is mind-boggling, staggering really.

100,000

bone-weary.

we paused at every descriptor on the screen for people who had died.  a man who loved to wear suspenders.  a woman who always smiled.  a composer.  a mother of six boys.  every one of them with lives and circles – concentric circles reaching out and out and out.

one hundred thousand

bone-weary.

of the excuses, the justifications.  the inadequacy.  the gross miscalculations.  the ignorance.  the comparisons to the flu, car accidents, natural attrition.  the opening-up push-for-the-purposes-of-an-election despite the fact that whole-cities-numbers of people (PEOPLE) are dying in short order.

a city of 100,000

bone-weary.  of the division, the based-on-nothing arguments, the dangerous political game-playing, the i-don’t-wanna-wear-a-mask-so-i-won’t whining, the inability of those “in charge” to focus, the heinous lack of regard for truth, the gross name-calling, disrespect and distraction from the president’s mouth, the dogged inaction of that same office to quell the spread, to actually even the playing ground for all and address the real issues, the zealousness of those who have his nationalistic vision in their rose-colored glasses of divisiveness, of inequity, of apathy.

goodmornings and goodnights

bone-weary.

these are lives.  people who never expected in march to not be here on memorial day to recognize and honor the fallen, those who actually have protected us.  oh, you say from-the-‘other-side’, that’s everyone – no one has any guarantees on life, you argue.  ahh.  but we can expect that we live in a place that has our best interests at heart.  that we live in a country that will do all that it can, with all of its armor of knowledge and research and its vast fortunes, to protect us all – every one of us – from something like this – a mere global pandemic.

i write to both My Girl and My Boy every night to say good night.  i have since the day they left for college.  that’s about 4,380 times for my daughter and 3,285 times for my son. i’m quite certain that they have rolled their eyes multiple times along the way.  but the idea that these 100,000 people no longer have the option of loving their child – or anyone they care about – with a nightly goodnight wish stuns and breaks my heart.  this could have been different.

100,000

bone-weary.

we passed the park down by the beach yesterday.  we passed by the marina.  we passed the irish pub.  we passed by the bar with wide open doors, people spilling out onto sidewalk seating.  we counted four masks.  in all those people, all those crowds, all that bustling humanity – up-close-and-personal-no-social-distancing – only four masks.  this is one of the very towns – kenosha, wisconsin – used as an example of a whole city wiped out to illustrate the number 100,000.  it makes me tired.

bone-weary.

“you keep thinking people are going to wake up, but they never do,” said a friend yesterday.

bone-weary.

tired and disheartened.  alive, wide-awake and pissed.

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

read NY Times article AN INCALCULABLE LOSS

k&dbw backs website box_