2020 Life Logs, Day 149: Saving the Soul of Our Country
Date: Friday, May 29, 2020
Weather: Rainy Day; High 67, Low 61 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
For the past three months we have been living through a time of political upheaval here and around the world, while also living with a world-wide pandemic. It has seemed almost surreal. And in this country, we have had no national leadership to help us through this. We are all doing the best we can and those of us with governors who have risen to the occasion are very grateful for their leadership. But we need a captain at the wheel of the ship. Now we have the protests over the brutal and needless murder of a black man by a police officer. People are angry, and rightly so. We have all watched the video of this police officer kneeling on the neck of man gasping and saying that he can’t breathe. And then when the man became unconscious, the police officer continued kneeling on his neck for another two minutes and 53 seconds. I know more violence does not right the problem, but I understand the frustration of the protestors. George Floyd’s murder is national tragedy. The video of his merciless killing finally makes it crystal clear to everyone that chooses to look that we have a deep and fundamental problem in this country. It is not just one bad police officer. We have got to face racism head on and find our way forward. Again, I say, we need national leadership. But in that void, each of us must come forward and do what we can to erase hatred at the same that that we are trying to survive the ravages of the coronavirus. I hate seeing the images of the protestors and the violence from around the country, but they are doing what they feel they have to do. They are screaming for help. They know we have to find a way to save the soul of this country, one person at a time.
It was a dreary, rainy day here on the Cape. It wasn’t a hard rain, just drizzly, so you could be out and about. It was a grocery shopping day for me. The Goldstones and I have been making it for long periods of time between supermarket outings by having food delivered, but once every couple of weeks it becomes necessary for one of us to go to the supermarket to get things you can’t find elsewhere. I offered to do the shopping today. I left home at 11 and went to their house to get their list. After shopping, I delivered their things, ran a couple of errands, and headed home. When I got home, I saw a notice on my phone that my weekly Misfits delivery had come. But it wasn’t here. I unloaded the car and drove two doors down to the house where my things are continually misdelivered. And there was my box. So, I carried it to the car and headed home again. By the time I got everything put away, fed the puppy, and had a very late lunch, it was almost 4 pm. At 5 pm, I had a Zoom meeting with my wine group and afterwards I checked in with Heather. So goes a day in the time of coronavirus.
