I have loved and learned from them. Geography with the states, countries, capital cities all framed as pieces for small fingers to fit together and to recognize the world, to visualize countries, hemispheres, oceans, continents, polar regions.
Now, a thousand pieces turned onto a cleared off table. Different ways to start. Turn all the pieces over? Find all the edge pieces? Separate by color? Have another beer? Put the pieces back in the box for another day? Sit back and stare at the birds and squirrels?
I thought of these puzzles today, a metaphor to get my head around the most puzzling of realities, that piece of property known as Washington, D.C., and its inhabitants most particularly those inhabitants we sent there to represent us, to form a government following the Constitution, to protect us from all forces that would destroy a 250-year old mandate.
My spouse always insisted that everything is political. I argued against that but today I know she was right even when I fight against liking it.
How to understand? How to “see” this reality? A puzzle dumped on my table with those ways to start.
Turn all the pieces over. A convicted criminal as president. A cabinet peopled, one-by-one, by those least qualified to be there. A court corrupted by politics, old age, and money. A senate unwilling to use its own brain individually or collectively. A congress of cowards afraid to set foot in their home districts. Billionaires directing policy.
Find the edges. There are none. Libraries, schools, universities, parks, prices, healthcare, family planning, income, food for children, farmers, skin pigment, weather forecasting, disaster relief, women’s rights, international relations… no edges, no limitations to the wanton destruction. Nothing they won’t do to grab money or power.
Separate by color? Ah, we get to the flabby old man in his silly red cap.
Have another beer? Probably the best choice as we watch one fascist president meet with another fascist president – one who dares not travel to many countries as he would be arrested – on our Alaskan shores, once purchased from Russia that would like to have it back.
These two criminals will meet to discuss the fate of a sovereign country, Ukraine. They will smirk into cameras and Ukraine will suffer.
And at home, masked thugs wander the streets in hopes of sighting a suspiciously dark-skinned worker to be carted off in order to save our country.
I met an old friend in Holiday Island today and asked how he was doing. He said, “Safe.” We could have been in some equally small town in Germany in 1942. I apologized.
How to handle this insanity, how to keep my sanity. I know it’s necessary. We can laugh, talk, keep our wits, be glad we live where we do, stay healthy, be kind, share our strengths, and know we have the strongest piece of all, the piece someone always hides so they can put in the finishing touch. We each have that piece—-our vote.
And vote we must and will. I am determined to stay alive until the next election to vote out the flabby fascist and all his silly red caps.
Today, birds, squirrels, democracy, and maybe a jigsaw puzzle.