These days in through the looking glass.

Some days it feels like things just keep getting worse. Like every glimmer of hope just gets extinguished by some new, previously unimaginable tragedy. And even when things go right, when they come to a satisfactory resolution, even then the relief is only momentary. It lasts until my mind recalls all the other difficulties, the difficulties temporarily neglected because the current crisis demanded all of my energy.

I’ve been let down so many times that it’s hard to let myself think things are actually looking up.

But…

I decided to walk on 2nd Street on my way home from the library today. It’s on the edge of the current Capitol perimeter, the sidewalk an obstacle course of fencing and tree boxes and streetlight poles. I found myself leaping and twirling a path through it, headphones on, arms raised, the warm sun glinting off the barbed wire, inches from armed Guardsmen on the other side of the barrier. David had just texted. He had been on the standby list at his office, a longshot. But today they called him up. He got the vaccine.