~a column by Colleen O’Brien
“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” as Mr Rogers always said. The early morning pink sky is deepening into the day’s blue, revealing puffy sheep pretending to be clouds gamboling past. It’s mid-October, and a dazzling autumn it has been – at first too hot to breathe, then suddenly too chilly to get out of bed. But once dressed and coffeed, knowing the crip morning will turn by 10 into a fall day of clarity, full beauty, green leaves changing attire in front of our eyes as they sneak into their red and orange outfits – I am happy to be alive.
In our corner of the world the endless rolling acres of corn and beans are being flattened to fields settled down for winter; the scene changes daily as monster combines and corn pickers do their monstrous job of harvesting the wealth the farmer and his earth make happen.
A farm is the oldest, most planned and plotted for, and least predictable endeavor known to humankind.
It all seems well this particular year in the ancient scheme of hard work, luck and hope, except who’s going to buy the bounty? The tariffs have altered who buys what from whom. The Greed Guy couldn’t rely on the weather, or bizarre climate change (since he doesn’t believe in it), or an attack from outer space, he just had to go and make sure Some Bodies had to suffer.
I have not better solution to getting ourselves out of this quagmire than anyone else in the country – so far. Any day now, I’m hoping to be led out of the increasingly faltering life I lead, along with those who are not among the top 1 percent financially.
Mostly, life seems normal, but when I go to the store or the clinic or the dentist or the auto repair gal or the plumber, I lose my breath at the bill.
“They” say the economy is booming. “They” tell retail places that pennies are no longer accepted in retail stores, nor are they returned to us as change. I either make a little or lose a little on each cash transaction. And here I am after all these years with more pennies in jars than dollars anywhere. “They” are annoying the goodness out of me. Aside from succumbing to chronic cynicism, I live on hope and goodwill and watching out for the old guy down the block. It helps me if a make soup – a really easy leek and potato in chicken broth will last two or three days, especially when the neighbor comes over with a bowl of his giant tomatoes. Reading a good book, even one I read years ago, takes me into another dimension for a bit. Weeding my garden has always weirdly absorbed and quieted my mind… until I pull out a really long-rooted, nameless something. It is then that I pretend it’s something, or someone else. There is righteous delight; there is glee involved.
