"What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise."
— Oscar Wilde
Day seven of the beginning of the end arrives in the Southern Tier raw and windy.
We had a few brief snow flurries on the way down the hill from the Cliff at 4:30 this morning, but now it's in the low 40s with a damp, brisk breeze. The Harris-Walz flag is down now, replaced by our old Buffalo Bills standard. No use being reminded of such a bitter defeat.
We rode up to the condo yesterday thinking it would raise our spirits. I'm not sure we succeeded. We then decided to spend the night up there, curled up and watched television, but the program we chose featured John Oliver in an extended rant about how ridiculous it is that we now face four more years of mendacious, incompetent governance, at the hands of a majority of our neighbors.
It's taking its toll on both of us, no doubt about it. This feels like a death in the immediate family, and that's a challenge for any married couple.
At the same time, we're trying to reframe the disaster as an opportunity. We needed to make some changes in our life, and this has forced the issue. No more Facebook--we're both signed off indefinitely. No more doom scrolling through news that gets worse by the hour. Time to take those guardrails that necessarily emerged on this overseas trip, keeping clients from roaming around in my head and on my phone all the time, and extend them into this new world in which we find ourselves. Time to lean into learning how to do something different, and leverage what's left of my brain on something other than these endless courtroom wars of attrition. Time to get back on the exercise horse.
Of course, it's been time to do all those things all along. Only the utter defeat of last week, and the end of our country, has forced us to get serious about the next phase.
Over the last few days I've been reading, among other things, Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, by Oliver Burkeman. I read a review of the book in the NYT maybe a month ago, and was impressed by the premise that if we wait around for things to be perfect so we can do what we really want to do, if we wait until our to-do list is caught up and all the emails read, we'll never actually get there. The book is divided into twenty-eight days of meditations on specific subjects, a structure that appeals to an old Episcopalian steeped in the cadence of Advent and Lent. This morning's meditation was on the premise that every decision has a cost, as does the decision not to act at all. Once we realize that there will be losses and pain and risk no matter what we do or don't do, it becomes simply a matter of weighing those benefits and burdens, internal and external, to arrive at a choice regarding what path to choose. Sort of a utilitarian version of Jesuit discernment, I suppose.
My first call is in a few minutes, the beginning of a packed day as I lean into my return to work. I've already done tax class, vacuumed, and put away clothes, so it's not like I'm starting my day at 9 a.m. For whatever that's worth.
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