I subscribe to Mary Trump’s blog, “The Good In Us.” I learned about her in 2020, when the pandemic was ravaging communities and her uncle was trying to convince everyone he was doing a wonderful job and that he should be re-elected. During that time her book “Too Much and Never Enough” was published. She is a clinical psychologist, so when she says her uncle is a narcissistic sociopath, she is not merely name-calling.Anyway, in one of her posts following this year’s elections, she remarked that the air felt different. I feel more or less the same way: We are now, in some ways, in a different world: The House of Representatives now has enough of a majority, and the Senate looks as if it will have one, to—one hopes—rein in some of Donald’s worst excesses and hold him and his cronies accountable. While I feel some optimism, being in midlife, I’ve seen and experienced enough transitions, in politics and elsewhere, to know that we may have to go through some difficult times in order to make the changes we want and need.
Perhaps it’s fitting that elections, especially the ones we’ve just had, are in November. You know that the days will be shorter, darker and colder for the next few weeks. Then, just before Christmas, the days will grow longer, a couple of minutes each day, but the cold will bite deeper for another two or three months before Spring. But we know Spring, and longer days, will come.
