The times they are a-changin'

It’s been an unsettling kind of Fall. Rain and more rain. Cold nights, warm days. Feels as if we’re on a precipice of some kind of change, and I have no idea how to prepare for it. Very odd. I’ve reasoned that my disquiet harkens to the still-persisting pandemic that most people have decided is over. Gone. Finished. And it’s not. We’re still facing the Monster and the Monster hasn’t blinked.

I, too, would like to go back to the pre-pandemic “normal,” but I know it’s not possible. Empty shelves in grocery stores, difficulty in buying cartridges for the printers, no new cars to shop. . . ah, the problems of a rich society. Maybe it is time we go back to basics, live on what we can grow, wear what we sew, huddle close to the fireplace when the temperatures drop. It’s not going to happen, and I, for one, am grateful because I lived through two weeks with no power after Hurricane Isabelle. Not fun. Not fun at all, boiling water, no refrigeration, hot, sticky weather you couldn’t escape - the list could go on and on and on. I would have killed for a bag of ice and a quart of ice cream.

We’ll face whatever comes and handle it as we always do. Some complaining, some wonderment, some gratitude for what we still have. Scratch that - a lot of gratitude.