hope for tomorrow

Today was a rough one with Calvin. My patience tested, I feel emotionally battered. And yet, today feels markedly lighter. Tonight I wager I'll sleep better. Days are getting longer. The future looks at once brighter. Words like unity, light, renewal, democracy, decency, optimistism, give me hope for a better America. Rhetoric matters.

Tomorrow, I will worry a tiny bit less about the pandemic. I'll fret less about loved ones' safety, well-being and healthcare. I'll have more faith that social justice is coming. I already feel great relief seeing the mouthpiece of greed, deceit, selfishness, contempt, conceit, hatred and division fade in the distance. I'm eager and excited for a return to decency, experienced governance, sound thinking.

Last night I watched the documentary Crip Camp, about a summer camp for disabled children and adults in the 1970s. Through much of the film I wiped away tears. Scenes of institutionalized disabled children—hungry, half-naked, neglected—are raw and deeply disturbing. Other scenes of people pulling together and helping each other are uplifting. Unforgettable, too, are the scenes which show paraplegic kids and adults abandoning their wheelchairs and literally dragging themselves up the steps of the Capitol to protest inequality—the same steps on which, two weeks ago, smug Americans, most of them White men with a false sense of entitlement, staged an attack on democracy.

At today's inaguration, I saw a man with a stutter assume the presidency. I saw a uniformed, Black female fire captain recite the pledge of allegiance in English and sign language. I saw the youngest poet laureate recite her gorgeous words from the inaugural dais. I saw the Nation's first Latina supreme court justice swear in the Nation's first female, Black, South Asian vice president. 

Even as my son still seizes, and at least two Americans die from Covid-19 every minute, and the chill of winter is still gripping, the Canada geese are heading north. Spring is coming. I feel great hope for tomorrow.