EDLM
October 20, 2025
This writing has been most difficult.
I begin.
I stop.
I begin.
I stop.
I don’t have the words to put down on paper to express what I want/need to say.
Life is far from simple. It’s always been complicated and intertwined. Today is no exception.
There are the routine, mundane activities of the day: changing a truck tire, gathering trash to take to the county sanitation department, shopping for fabric at a quilt shop for my new project (“Trail of Tears”), appreciating the colors of our fall leaves, a nap.
But there’s a whole other world swirling beneath the obvious. There’s a deep sadness that cuts to the core. It’s a great sink hole as if the bottom has dropped out from beneath and there’s a slurry that has seeped up from depths below. That slurry, also, consists of governmental/political issues shared by a growing segment of our country’s population topped with personal struggles.
Fear is part of that cesspool. Distrust of our neighbors is felt along with anger. In a time when we have cell phones, texts, chats, podcasts, YouTube and other venues of social media there is so much noise that as a population we can’t hear each other. Too many lies, personal agendas, greed, thirst for power and attention, people trying to outdo the other, distractions to cover up real issues, attacks on character, briberies – this all sounds like a horror movie. But it seems we’re living it day to day. We’re in the midst of this chaos and there seems to be no way out.
On the bright side – there seems always to be a bright side if we’re looking for it – the trees are showing their yellows and reds and colors in-between. This is the fall season bursting with color. There’s a gathering of friends. There are opportunities to help neighbors and those we care about. I called a friend who might be able to help out an Afghani friend find a house to move into. There are interesting projects to be created but are only living in the mind at this point.
The slurry/cesspool is composed of remaining grief over my late husband’s death, grief of missing laughter, joy, companionship that use to be, loss of time and aging, an ended marriage by divorce my wife nor I had anticipated years before, her more recent death, a felt loss of a future, potential loss of our country’s democracy, loss of freedoms our country has already experienced as potential growing possibilities, loss of social respect and truth, loss of trust in our society – country – leaders – political system we’ve depended on.
There is gratefulness, the beauty of the day, music that stirs the soul, friends who consistently are present and the determination to make it through to another day.
Chaos? Yes!
Rollercoaster experience? Yes!
New? I suppose not.
Just another day.