My neighbor woke up at 2 am a few days ago to a crashing sound. In the morning an inspection of their yard showed broken fence rails. A sighting confirmed a full grown black bear was wandering along fence lines presumably looking for a late night snack. I think it had come out of hibernation only find the surrounding woods had been turned into houses, streets and sidewalks. There is a lot of new construction in our area.
Like the bear looking for a meal, I found this harder than I thought it would be. To write this blog. I haven’t gone quiet on purpose. It just sort of happened. I wrote several draft posts that I never finished. I was struggling with the crack that occurred in our nation with the 2016 Presidential election and the widening divide with the Presidential inauguration. I live in a liberal area of the US and political unhappiness poured into my life.
And then, the rain. Well, that poured into my life as well. We had so much rain this last winter in the Pacific Northwest that I started asking if anyone had spotted Noah loading his boat. We got a year’s worth of rain in 5.5 months. I think I kind of went into a writing hibernation. It was easier to say nothing in this space than to write a post that might be ill received by my few (try few) readers. I took a lot of naps.
What I have wanted to say is this: “Show some tolerance people,the same tolerance you are preaching, for those who vote differently than you. Respect an individual’s personal choice.” Only every time I wrote it, everything came out loud and harsh and might have included all caps and several exclamation points. From my view, the liberal stance is ‘you are welcome to your own opinion IF it matches mine’. The idea of spreading love, acceptance seems only to embrace like minded. The venomous labels being pasted on non-Hilary voters are, well, surprising. I had to look up the definition of misogyny. I had to learn how to pronounce it. I also had to look up the spelling…guess I missed that topic in my college courses.
You know, when that bear woke up and discovered his world had changed he had to adapt.
And then the sun, the glorious sun came out. My garden started blooming, gray skies turned to blue for a few days. I felt like I was coming out of hibernation. And I felt like it was time to say my piece and move on.
Yes, President Trump is the head guy for 4 years. No, you don’t have to like it. Even if you don’t respect the man, please respect the office. (Talking to you Kathy Griffith.)
We make America great by living our best lives, today.
Jo you are the most amazing writer…. you have such a gift of putting feelings into written (& spoken) words… I’ve missed your posts! Thanks for sharing your incredible gift with the rest of us – everything you wrote resonated so much with me and how I’ve felt! It’s good to be on the tail end of hibernation and on the front end of hopefully many sunny days that shouldn’t be squandered, eh? 🙂
Friend, thank you, thank you. I so appreciate the feedback and appreciate your encouragement to ‘carry on warrior.’