it’s pretty much a ritual – at the end of fall – to store the front and back rubber doormats away into the garage. both make it more difficult to shovel snow, so, rather than ramming the shovel into the mat while moving snow on the deck – having forgotten it was there – which hurts one’s shoulder – it’s best to put it away. it can also cause problems when there is ice – making it nearly impossible to open the back screen door, which is level with the deck with only a thin rubber mat’s thickness to spare. so, we are usually pretty diligent. there are several things, i’m sure, we all agree on – in preparing for winter. the yard furniture, the clay and ceramic pots, deck decor – it all needs to be stored.

i’m not sure, then, why the back doormat didn’t end up in the garage. somehow in the midst of this fall – miserable in all that fun lighthearted time after the election and such – we forgot. or maybe we just didn’t have the energy to pick up the mats and bring them to the garage. later in november – we were holding out hope for one more beautiful day – we put away the deck rugs, the table and chairs, the decor, the adirondack chairs. but we forgot the mats – at both doors.

so when i opened the back door the other day and stepped out to admire the snow i was surprised to look back at the mat. the snow peeeeeeeled back. it didn’t smush back or get lodged under the screen door – which ceases all door movement and is just slightly annoying when it happens – but it peeled back over itself. in one piece. pretty much unbroken. like peeling back the chocolate icing layer on a hostess cupcake.

we were lucky. there have been times that the snow and ice – because ice damming is a thing – have accumulated over the mat to such a point where the door will not open and you have to exit out the front door. that doesn’t sound like much of a problem until you hear that – for years – there was no way to unlock the front door from the outside as something had gone wrong with the barrel of the old door handle and lock. now that that has been repaired, we are not faced with the can’t-get-in-the-house crisis we had before if the back door is blocked and unable to open.

nevertheless, it was somewhat astounding (remember we are easily amused) to see the snow folded back on itself. and i gave myself a little talking-to about preparation and the perils of the winter.

a few days ago i spent several hours taking screenshots of every single thing on our student loan accounts. because – well – preparation and all. i had come across a recommendation to read a forbes business article about how prudent it would be to capture all this information just in case the department of education was dissolved or imploded or blown up or whatever, which would take out all its websites. it was the practical thing to do – even in the midst of my growling about the predatory nature of d’s student loans which have been nothing shy of criminal. i just couldn’t believe what i was doing and the reason i was doing it. preparation not for winter, not for snow or ice, but for the destruction of the department of education along with every other thing in the constitution.

i don’t honestly know what else we should do to prepare against what’s coming. i am horrified by every single thing we are seeing from this administration. i read a few comments on a meme that was posted by someone in alliance with this destruction of our country. it was – frankly – shocking. the stuff that people have been fed to believe goes beyond any adjective i can think of. it makes me wonder if they have prepared, for the malfeasance of overtaking our government – the one supposed to be of-the-people-by-the-people-for-the-people – and the shattering of our constitution will affect them as well. they too will be caught in the icy snowstorm with their mat out.

the back doormat was a good reminder. in two ways – one, that we might vigilantly stay in one piece – unbroken – and bend with the time (or the back door, whatever, just go with the metaphor) and two, that there are things we might need do in order to avoid being locked out of our own home – this country and its freedoms and rights.

this will be a long winter.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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