Innocence

Inspirational song: End of the Innocence (Bruce Hornsby)

I am still in shock watching this country come completely off the rails. I sort of saw this coming early last year, when the joke candidacy stopped being funny, and I said it out loud then. People were still laughing, still going on like nothing was wrong. But I, and a few people I pay attention to, stopped giggling and started glancing around furtively for someone who saw behind the spectacle to the serious game being played. I still believed that good would prevail in the end, but I started getting very afraid of what I saw building. Most of last year and all of this one so far have felt like I have fallen through the looking glass, and up is down, in is out, and evil is out in the open. I want this to stop now. It isn't funny. It never was.

Yesterday we stopped at Five Guys on the way home from seeing our sick friend (at one of the few places I can trust to minimize cross-contamination). After our burgers, we lingered over the french fries, and the piped in music played Band on the Run by Paul McCartney and Wings. In a flash, I remembered the exact moment I heard it for the first time. I was in my brother's tiny bedroom in base housing in Zweibrucken, Germany. He either had a record player in his room, or we were listening to it on the radio. I was instantly in love with the song. I couldn't have been older than seven. I told Mr S-P about the memory, and how unusually strong it was. And then I wished to be back in those innocent times, not having the slightest clue what a Nazi was, even though I had been living in Germany for more than a year by that point.

I'm exhausted. It hits me at every level, and it makes it hard to write each night, even when I have a whole lot to say. But my soul is so tired, dealing with everything that has needed facing for years. I need to find something that is both soothing and not a time waster to refresh my soul. I'd like to spend time and energy on wholesome, innocent pursuits for a while. I want to feel clean again, all the way to my core. There is going to be a lot we have to go through over the next year or two that will make me feel brittle and hard, or at the best rangy and stringy. I will work hard to keep an inner lining of goodness and love, but I will need help. Lots of help.