August

It has been a week. I (thankfully) have had 6 straight pain-free days, which leads me to believe that (finally) I may be recovered from the effects of my late June/ early July mishaps. However, though I am better, it is clear that the world is not. Iraq and Missouri, far from the "unrest" cited in TV headlines, seem to be exploding with anger and violence, along with the Middle East in general. D.C. has had a rash of shootings, including a three-year-old who was in the right place at a very wrong time, when an argument over clothing (which is too absurd to credit) erupted into an episode of random gunfire. What (I ask yet again) is the world coming to?

The world has additionally been seized with grief over the suicide of Robin Williams, and the recognition that depression is a dangerous (and virtually unaddressed) reality in our lives. Before all of these distractions, Virginia at least was voyeuristically following the ethics trial of a former governor, Bob McDonnell, and his extravagant wife: a soap opera of greed and  consumerism and influence-peddling gone crazy. What (we ask again) is WRONG with people?

And in the midst of all this, in the midst of this horrifying mashup of guns and geography, protests and police, deaths and destruction, Ebola is terrorizing Africa, and, here at home, water mains are breaking and our infrastructure is being compromised, and nature is gracing us with deluges that flood our streets and parking lots.

Here is my wish (and yes, I understand that it's an impossibility): one week without murder, without guns, without protests, without natural disasters, without advertised pain, without strident political posturing, without stupid reality programming,  without prominent evidence that the world is indeed 'a tale told by an idiot', without pictures of children (or anyone else) suffering and dying here or anywhere else in the world, without even the SPCA ads featuring abused animals.  One week to catch our collective breath.

I wish for a week of what I'd LIKE  to believe is normal, a week without what I FEAR is becoming the norm.