Lost The Plot

 January.  What a month, in a long stretch of awful months. It was such a dreadful month, in fact, that I lost the plot entirely and couldn't write a thing for weeks. It's hard to believe we're approaching one full year of this pandemic with almost no end or relief in sight.  The vaccine isn't rolling out as quickly as we'd hoped, and now with the mutations happening across the globe, it might not even work anyway in the long run. The horror of over 440,000 dead today in America alone just makes me want to scream and rage.

One of my old neighbors in Edinburgh passed away on January 7th, from Covid.  It was heartbreaking news.  We'd been friends for years, even after I returned to America.  We'd emailed just before Christmas when she told me her husband had the virus and was in the hospital; she was in quarantine at home with a negative test and no symptoms.  Then I sent her a New Year's email, expecting to hear that she was fine and her husband was home but when I didn't hear back after a few days, I got worried.  On New Year's day she went into the hospital...and never returned home.  Her husband recovered. I'll miss her newsy emails about the old neighborhood, stories about her family, and her wry Scottish sense of humor.

The insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th was--and wasn't--a shock.  This country is so messed up I really can't imagine how we can recover from the damage Trump and his Reptilian cronies and enablers have done.  If nothing else, they awakened us, and the world, to the depth of corruption in politics; systemic and overwhelming racism; far right radicals spewing hate and their deluded myth of white supremacy.  And we can't forget the anti-reality nutbars with their bizarre conspiracies, apparently based on the SciFi channel, of lizard men in suits, laser beams from space...and stolen elections.  (And Teflon Don will escape unscathed from his second impeachment, just wait and see).

The highlight of the month goes to January 20th and a new president/woman vice president.  Historical and wonderful...and gave me just a tiny little glimmer of hope for a better year ahead having true leadership and actual concrete plans for America's future.  Would that we actually had a Congress to help in those goals.

Then, to add insult to injury, I got sick with some sort of bacterial gut thing that has laid me low for a few weeks now.  Stress, the final frontier.  I think, with the virus, lockdowns, politics, Trump, endless election lies, the insurrection and my friend's demise...my body finally had enough.  I'm still struggling to get my gut biome back on track though it hasn't been easy.  The media/news just keeps on giving, doesn't it?  I'm trying to limit my intake to just mornings and it has helped a bit.  Tomorrow I'm back to yoga every day, barring gut interference, and that should help too.

What I need is a very, very long vacation, somewhere far removed from America, the internet, worries and viruses.  I know I'm not alone in this.

So, for just a moment, let's close our eyes and pretend we're somewhere warm and tropical, listening to the quiet sound of waves rolling over white sand, soft breezes stirring the palms overhead.  And not a care in the world...for just a moment...