There is little about my present day to day that resembles me in past decades. Transitioning into something quite different than holding my babies tight, those busy years where the washable wall calendar held a live or die schedule of schooling, sporting and musical events, each directing every moment. A life that revolved around the immediate. A life that didn’t lose sleep over what billionaire screwed up yet something else. I mean, I knew that they were, because, well, don’t they always? but I was too busy with the stuff you just had to do before you could lay your head down. Nowadays though it does seem prudent to pay attention to the white house criminals who flout court orders, disregard constitutional law and are running about like mad dogs biting our collective jugular. I miss those years when a chubby baby demanded I stay in the wonderful present and I didn’t ferment over the rich and coiffed ladies who lifted off the planet for 11 minutes of fame. Why do they command our attention while the planet burns?

There is no question of my good fortune. That is not to say I do not know want. I have, like most Americans, had to borrow from Peter to pay Paul. I made the tough decision to go it alone with three. I’ve run along dark paths. I didn’t shy from the painful truth. In the heat of challenge I still stood. I thankfully knew who would always be there to buoy me. In my core I had that. But in this new world where Homegrowns are next, EPA regulations are dismantled, Autism is grossly misinterpreted, and Don’t say Gay is everywhere while background checks for guns wane, we all suffer. Try to buy a house where you might be able to get a job that pays a living wage. Try to buy two dozen eggs. Try to remember when a person could get ahead. Feel pride in honest work. Those are now myths all displaced by a cruel and corrupt autocracy shifting like an ominous evening fog across our horizon. Changing us.

Certainly the reign of retribution dominates those careless and callous Signal users, but even in our snickering we feel both incredulous and frightened. Can we exist in this new kingdom of despots like the dystopia it is? Without living like those Germans who watched the hundreds of screaming trains roll by yet turned unfazed to tend their own gardens, how might we navigate their Project 2025 and not bury our ability for civility and debate, our humanity? It goes against my nature to feel so much despair that sunlight is obscured. And so, I lift my sad soul up to the memory that holds much of us in hope, that of untarnished love.

Stepping out of the fray for a week always does some good. My recent trip north filled me with that very love. One does not need any more evidence that we have entered troubled times; there is little that will be remembered from this administration beyond ineptitude. One does not need to be a scholar to make such a prediction. But I am always grateful to have been educated, guided, and shown by example how the principled might chose to live. Equalled delighted that my children did too.