However, nature has seemed out a whack this summer and autumn. My much loved habit of going to a quiet beach at about 8:00 in the morning and walking for a hour each day, sometimes with a pause for some Ti Chi Easy, was very much interrupted. Each week seemed to have two or three days of gray, unwelcoming mornings. I actually didn't get much tan. And I didn't find the usual calm pleasure in my habit. Furthermore the horseshoe crabs which I love -- really it was just their molted shells which drifted up to the beach from early August through the month, were very few. Something had happened to those ancient crustaceans -- at least along this shore. That was sad.
The unsettled weather has continued into the fall. We had four or five truly beautiful Indian summer days last week. But for the past couple of day we've had fog, gray skies, rain, and last night a serious wind storm that, the radio say, left several thousand Cape Codder without electricity. This morning I drove a short distance and saw two young trees down across the road. My elextricity was not affected and I slept through most of the storm -- actually because I had done some unusual self-medication. My boast of "I never get those things that go around" has proved untrue with a Something -- not the Flu, not a Cold -- maybe we could all it the Creeping Crud as I might have in high school. Three friends I see often have been felled by it. I haven't exactly compared notes, but mainly it is a cough (I speak for myself only) -- a very bad, raspy, gasping, chest wrenching cough to free the tonsils from feeling impacted with that "crud".
I fought back as valiantly as I (unacccustomed as I am) could with OTC decongestant, cough drops, various varieties of tea (I even pulled out some quite old slippery elm tea), and Tylenol PM which is my go-to sleep aid on the rare occasions when I think I need one. So I missed a lot of the storm and I have barely any voice. But I did not wake up coughting during the night and have had only a couple of coughing spells today.
This unusual turmoil in the ecology/atmosphere and in my own little body, seems to me a echo of the unprecedented turmoil in our political world. I feel something almost beyond despair at the actions of Trump and the apparently "head under the pillow" attitude of most of Congress, the uprising of hate groups and the home-grown craziness of men who create tragedy and terror with guns. This is not a "something is rotten in Denmark" moment -- it's beyond anything Shakespeare with all his brilliance, could have conceived. The world is not right. When one world "leader" becomes a taunting 8-year old callong another "rocket boy!" taunting him to use his nuclear capable rockets -- we are not merely on a dark heath or a storm at sea. I've temporarily lost my voice -- it is not a voice that carries far anyway -- is this the "whimper" that is all one can do?
No comments:
Post a Comment