Yesterday, November 3 was Election Day. (This is not news to most of you) I was up early to drive my granddaughter to school.  Afterwards, I stopped at the park where I often go to walk.  It was originally called "Garbage Hill" because that area was the depository for debris from major road construction.  Years ago you could go sliding there in winter and we did.  I remember seriously injuring my tailbone and having to face the loss of joy in sledding and the vulnerabilities of getting older.

Now, however, the hill, covered with grass and substantial trees, is incorporated into a park with a lake and walking paths with the lyrical name of Lochness Park--sledding is no longer allowed.  I have mixed feelings about that.  

The sky was cloudless; a blue-sky, apple-pie, crisp and cool autumn day; I couldn't have asked for better.  Where the path split I took the path to the left; it seemed like the better choice.  I passed a grove of aspen, the wind stirring the leaves and allowing me to overhear their gossip.  I climbed the hill and found a bench.  Except for the hum of the traffic in the distance, all was peaceful and quiet.  How long could I stay removed from what was really happening outside of this oasis of peace?  

Today, I wish I had just stayed there, something organic, gradually returning to the earth, my molecules mingling with the soil. Something natural and fundamental. I do not like what I read in the news.  I am grieving.  We do not know the final vote count, but I do know this; Trump received more votes than his performance as President deserves.  Take any issue you like; as a teacher with him in my classroom I would give him all F's.  Character, deportment, doing his homework, respecting the rules. Without a doubt, he fails science in his response to the pandemic.  A large proportion of my fellow Americans are accepting, even lauding his failures which resulted in a quarter million deaths, including 700 that can be traced directly back to him because of his rallies.  We've heard those numbers so often, they are meaningless, unless one of those people were your family member or friend.  So we really don't have to care?  We don't have to care about immigrant children taken from their families and locked in cages.  We really don't have to care about self-serving corruption, alienating our allies or destroying our planet because....because.

I've got to tell you, I don't understand the" because."