Saturday, July 16, 2016

Something Nice to Say


I wish I could write something nice today. Most of my life is nice. Tomorrow is a special day for my bride and myself, a landmark, her 65th birthday. I am a year older than she, and I feel grateful each day that I have air in my lungs and blood still pumping through my veins. I have aches, I have tired muscles and bones, I don't sleep nearly as long as I would like, and I have to enter the TMI zone at least once and usually twice in the middle of every night, but I am alive and I am happy and I have the chance, if I take it, to sit down and write stuff every single day. Life is good. But. There is always a “but” somewhere. It's like that proverbial shadow always following you around, even in the middle of the night. The umbra, part ghost, part monster, part reality-check, part companion and friend. “But.” The larger world, the world outside my own yard and neighborhood, is going through hell. It seems the world is always in turmoil, somewhere; that people bring turmoil with them wherever they go. My problem is that so many innocent people, unsuspecting people, good people with full and open and happy hearts, get in the way. That scares me. But what scares me more is that they are often specifically targeted. What scares me most is that their deaths are so casually accepted as part of the cost of doing the business of war. It doesn't matter what side is waging what battle. Civilians are killed. We cry for a while, then the next batch of civilians is attacked and we cry again. And the circle remains unbroken, and that is why I find it hard, today, after a particularly difficult and brutal week, month, year, decade, century, to find something nice to say.

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