Sunshine – blue skies. Our long greyness has dissipated. That is a nice word, dissipated. It applies to fog, to misspending youth and vigor, to melancholy, to a circle of friends… There are so many ways to use such a lovely little word. I like words that have a lot of applications. In the case we are concerned here with, ‘a gradual evaporation — a slow waste — a plodding dilution — vanishing uselessly — scattered’. I love it. Our long greyness has disintegrated, evaporated, scattered itself to the four corners. Without anyone being fully conscious of it or realizing it, the sun has been allowed to light the earth in Leamington, Ontario for a day. How very nice that is.
The grey has lifted, dispersed, eased away. With the grey has gone melancholy for a while. The fog has crept away on it’s ‘little cat feet’. That is good, that is a relief. Endless cloudy skies drag the spirit down, depress the soul, remind us of where and how we are living. We need a break from such drear. Break out the jugs of joy-juice, strike up the band! Give that fellow on the mellow guitar an exuberant hand! Ah life!
Washington, D.C. has dissipated for me on this bright day. The twitter-verse fell silent. Hate got a slap in the face by it’s own hand and we can breathe a moment. Maybe it would be more accurate to say ‘we can gasp for a moment’? Yeah, that. We are fish and have been hooked, scooped out of our comfortable lives at swim. Now, the struggling is finished and we are on deck, mouths open, relaxing in the sun while the next horror is prepared for us. “The freezer for you, buddy boy!”
The next horror comes not as a freezer, exactly but more in the form of ad nauseum discussion. Enough of that to dull and slow the metabolism of the mind. In the coming days, weeks, months a slew of opinion editors will rise to mark recent events. Talking head after talking head will endlessly repeat the obvious, political types will roundly and earnestly discuss prevention of future such happenings. Sociology professors, political insiders, psychiatrists will be consulted. In-depth analysis of the perpetrators of malfeasance will come to the front of the ‘news cycle’. We will see the sad stories of the ‘bad’ people. Some of that is already here in the case of the woman who was shot by police as she attempted to burst through guarded doors. Y’see…her poor business was on the ropes, nearly bankrupt. No wonder she took up with the likes of Qanon and stormed the capitol! Any reasonable person would do so.
But… it is a quiet, sunny day today. I shall go for a walk, then maybe play guitar. All of the riotous behaviour is over for a moment, the news trucks can take a break. Maybe they will purchase some ‘street-food’ from a covid-crippled vendor? Oh, yes…there is that other story. Maybe folks will go back to that one, since so many have died interim. As a rising news item (with the other analysis in the background) the spotlight will surely return to dead and dying – businesses and people. Before you know it, Trump, antifa, white supremecy, Sexy Buffalo Horns Man will all have dissipated and the covid catastrophy will rise again. In valiant effort, praises be, CNN never stopped for a moment. Theirs is a non-stop, 24 hour panic. Fox, of course continues it’s panic in another fashion with undertones of “Oh my gosh…the ‘alternate facts’ got away from us!
I am ok. Through all of this, most of us are ok. Nearly 7 billion of us survived night on earth and are up ‘n at ’em again today (whatever day that is where you are). Many hundreds of thousands or even millions died during the evening or passed out drunk in the ditches of wherever. Some were horribly treated, some suffered political pogroms or disease of other types, some died by their own hands. Some folks fell in love, some had the best climax ever. Some were laughing loud, just before the car smashed into the guardrail and flipped them into oblivion. That continued as it has for the eons we have been borrowing earth. As proof, I give you my blogging, my eating an apple, my drinking a tea, my pooping, my breathing. Even though I am dissipating (I can feel it) I continue, for now.
I wonder sometimes, about events and conditions like the ones we are traveling through and taking our brief break from. When there is major disruption, war, famine, disease, Is it earth, cleaning house? Or, horrors be, God (just like Mom said)? We seem bent on destruction as though by some other hand. Every news cycle there is a case to indicate we are dissipating, that we will be gone in a bit. I don’t think that can be denied. We are, as cloudy-brained humans, evaporating. We watch ourselves in the mirror without seeing the image. Fortunately, there are days like the one here, at my doorstep. Today, I can take a break, turn it off a second, enjoy the sunny day. I am going to. Maybe there was never crime to witness. Maybe it is simply the nature of fog, to disappear.
Robert On The Air 