I’m beginning to believe my husband’s theory about a four year cycle of bad years. This year began with a death of my bunica, a woman very dear to me who played a big role in my upbringing and is coming to a close with a loss that was so unexpected I’m still trying to understand it.
In between all this the world outside our home feels like a pot trying to boil over. Peripheral problems that have been building for years have been brought to a head in ways so utterly predictable its almost funny. If only it weren’t so tragic. Maybe its just the wine this evening or the rawness of my emotions, but nothing about the world this year has felt unpredictable. Most of what we have all had to live through this year with COVID, government scandals, innumerable tragedies linked to police violence and the much needed conversations that should follow, was either preventable or inevitable. The long history in North America linked to slavery and colonialism was bound to bubble up at a time when one of the most divisive and hateful people came to power in the United States. How could it not, when one person can show all the crazy in the world that they should be as vocal as he is. Suddenly the fringe behaviours seem acceptable and we see an escalation of violence everywhere. But, destructive and at times terrifying this all seems who’s to say extreme wasn’t needed. Without this boiling point would everything we know now have been brought to light as quickly or as effectively? Or would it have remained just below the surface, ignored because there was not real “issue”. All these problems already existed most of us were just never uncomfortable enough to care if they didn’t directly affect us.
So we find ourselves in November, watching our neighbours vote, knowing that even if its not our country what they do ultimately has some effect on the environment we all live in. By Monday maybe it will all have come to a close. By January maybe I can be ready to think about a rainbow baby on the horizon.
Dice 