It’s 8 pm and it’s already dark. Tomorrow, the youngest child (by 2 minutes) begins online classes. The weather has begun to cool a bit, but not too much. This morning, it was 59° F at 6 am, cool enough to need a sweater while sitting on the porch with my coffee.
I am beginning to identify with the memes that say things like “March lasted fifty years” and “If 2020 were (fill in the blank) it would be (insert something terrible or catastrophic.)” Supposedly, in New Jersey, some shuttered retail businesses (indoor dining, gyms, theaters) can re-open at 25% capacity. I doubt that this is enough to make it worth it. So many theaters have cancelled their entire seasons, though the Barrington Theater in Pittsfield, MA is having something of a season, I suppose.
It was Mother’s Day when we last had cool, almost cold, weather. But the seasons are turning, and you can begin to feel it – this Sunday morning on the canal towpath, the distinct smell of autumn leaves filled the air, even as the wild hibiscus bloomed canal-side. I’ve been hearing geese on the cooler mornings, as well.
When I was a child, this was my most favorite time of year, the beginning of school and the oncoming cool weather of fall. New notebooks, pens and subjects of study. New academic challenges to master and new friends along with the old. Nothing made me happier than a new school year. Fall always made me think of new beginnings, even as nature becomes mature and winds herself down into winter.
But it is 2020, and that means it won’t be the same wonderful start of a new school year: kids are either online entirely or sequestered in their dorms; people are still terrified of dying from a virus that is no more under control than wildfires or hurricanes or derechos that have sprung up as a consequence of climate change; cities across the country reeling from the continued use of excessive force against black men by police and the fallout from the double-hit of protests and so-called militias armed with all manner of assault weapons. Millions are still out of work, millions still without housing security and our Dear Leader is either golfing or spinning some bullshit about how only he can save America from – wait for it – the chaos he created.
Every day, I still cannot fathom how anyone who calls themselves an American can endorse this absolute disaster of a criminal enterprise administration. Our choice is not difficult. We either choose our nation and its citizens, or we choose more chaos, destruction and anarchy. Yeah, the thing Cheeto Satan says he will save us from is exactly what he has created.
How I long for the autumns of my youth, when we could look forward to chilly weather and gatherings, new books, new notebooks and pens, and the regularity of (relatively) respectful political discourse. May we make it through the next couple of months and rid ourselves of the orange stain on this nation.