Musing

 Navigating the February Leap Year 

A favorite X follow @OurShallowState begins his posts rather like this:

“Good morning, there are blue skies, my dog is a very good boy. The snow is melting…” and then curates the day & events, posting analyses & observations. I may have to nic that first paragraph. It invites me and maybe us into relationship and oddly, conversation. I admire how he applies deep knowledge & relates it in so many aspects of our lives, actually.

So for tonight, 27th day of a Leap Year, political news junkie that I am, here are some things from today waking up in me about moving thru life right now: 

In this evening when the sun begins to glow low on the western horizon, when I fix dinner and absorb the news of the day as best and thoroughly as I can, Gunnar is a very good boy. I have managed to avoid falling on the ice, and there are swaths of green for now, appearing thru the melt. 

The SAVE Act is dead, with a nod to Majority Leader Senator John Thune for that (not ditching the filibuster). Hon James Walkinshaw (D-VA) is amazing. Big media mergers/buyouts are in question (goal for oligarchs' control of narrative up to midterms?), and Epstein. Epstein. Epstein. The courts are holding. John Roberts is up to bat again soon. We are assaulted every single day with issues that DEMAND our attention, our visceral learning, our self-reflection. 

I’ve taken many a beating for my untamable optimism. Can’t help it, I’m wired this way. My wiring has gotten pretty frayed and stretched, but some days I’m able to encapsulate feelings for the day, just not everything of course. I find scaling back what I can take in makes room for my reaching up to that notion of hope a bit. Find nuggets of hope in the wildness, and therein find some calm and equanimity amid the swirling landscape.  I sleep better with hope. 

Gunnar is the best boy. We’ll get more chickens in the spring. I fancy I’m soon to start looking out to my barn beds for the first peep of daffodils. 

~2-27-26