The time has come. It is time, too much so already. One looks around and wonders just where the time has gone and where it will be going next. More important, what will it bring with it, leave behind, and what will change so drastically that we will forget what came before or wonder at it.
Whoever thought that a normal landscape would now include people with masks, with face shields on top of that, or goggles and gloves. Whoever thought that to give a hug would be considered life threatening. Whoever thought that to see family members would become nigh onto impossible due to that same danger. Whoever thought that now a scheduled appointment for ZOOM would become a regular standard of life. Whoever thought that life changing events would take place via that same path. Whoever thought.....
"We grow accustomed to the Dark -
When Light is put away -"
Emily Dickinson
We are living in that time, that time wherein we put away the Light, that time wherein people fight over every last little damned thing and for what? That time when partisanship has taken over the country; hence, we are no longer a 'United' States. That time wherein we have lost sight of our goals, aims, ethics and moral values. That time wherein we have stomped upon the basic fabric of our lives, the goals of The Founding Fathers, returning instead to a time that should long ago have become nigh unto impossible to revive.
We have moved backwards, turning to the Dark, emulating whom? Darth Vader? The enemies of the X Men? Or more likely the enemies of mankind through the ages, men like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, all the 'little' people who enabled these villains and others to proceed apace with their aims and desires.
"I don't trust these people" a citizen says. Another states that the government no longer represents the people, the plain everyday people. Instead it is back with a bang to and for the small percentage at the economic top rung of the ladder, while the rest of us, we just do not matter. Just look at where the bulk of the aid to companies has gone. Look at the empty mom and pop stores, never to return.
Look at the divisions, the life changing divisions rent upon our lives. Look at this young generation who are being told that basically their lives will suck, never ever really having a chance to rise in life, to expect a steady salary, enough to marry and raise a family, buy a house, or even rent a decent place, whose ambitions will be thwarted, shoved aside - for always.
It is time to stop and take stock. How has this happened. How have we reached a point where after a record number of candidates, we are left with the would be almost successful at achieving it dictator, one, who along with a petty dictator of horrendous actions, called our pandemic just "a little flu", and a senior statesman, nice, decent, but not the best of the lot, though our only hope to restore anything , salvage something, from our past, fix our present, and build for a future such as America always symbolized.
It is time that we return to regular headlines, not banner ones wherein we understand that the time is not right. Not banner ones over and over again detailing the egregious violations of the law, of tradition, of humanity, that Trump et al commit, and the awful one of today, where 1% of the 100,000 dead in America from that same "little flu" are listed, along with a line or two about them.
Imagine an edition listing all 100,000 rather than a 'mere' 1,000 and still that is not enough, for the deaths continue. We have allowed these deaths to continue because we have a dangerous man, a man of immense stupidity along with some mystifying element like Hitler, to hypnotize the thinking part of brains, convince them that right is wrong, that left is right, that hate is okay. That complete corruption, malfeasance, lies upon lies, incompetence, cronyism, nepotism, stabbing allies in the back, making love to enemies and then daring them, playing chicken with them, that all this is okay. IT IS NOT!!! Manifestly not.
So what do we do in a time when the greatest invention of all is a hug glove, wherein one can get close to another, hug them, yet never actually touch. I, for one, think okay, but I want the real thing! I want to kiss that cheek, hug that body, wrap my arms around them, not plastic. I want to share, together, in the life events of graduations, from nursery to Ph.D, parties, weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and anything and all else. No glove - just reality.
A reality that we have been robbed of due to that same incompetence and ignorance, purposeful misuse of governmental funds, refusal to recognize danger and words of warning, willfully neglecting to fill the nation's reserves of equipment and then, as usual, blaming it on all else, but never where the buck actually stops.
It is time. Time to renew ourselves. Time to fix ourselves. Time for children to actually wish to imitate our leaders. Time to hear children actually wish to be president and help people. Time for our best and brightest to step to the plate, to honor public service, as a privilege, not an opportunity to line one's own pockets.
"Know you? I wonder do I know you? Before I could answer that, I should have to see your soul."
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
On this, Memorial Day Weekend, let us remember those who have gone before, are still with us, who will walk in the footsteps of those heroes, those everyday people who simply do what Fate has asked of them. Let us all be heroes. Let us all look deeply into our souls, as people, as a country, as Americans. Let us hope that we find that soul able to be rehabilitated.
It is time to do that and all that we need. It is time to take the steps we must, to go bravely into a new world replete with changes. It is time, always, to Be Well and Stay Safe, within the bounds of the musts of life, the necessities of life, the soul nourishing values of time and grace.
It is time.
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