Don’t Let Us Get Stupid…All Right?

I stepped outside yesterday, and the sky said don’t despair.

I got on my bicycle, and I pedaled along, and that old pleasure didn’t disappoint.

Monte braved the farmers’ market, and we have fresh veggies, and our neighbor caught some rockfish and left a piece on ice for us.

My 94-year-old mother-in-law thinks we’re very fortunate. She says that anyone who lived through the Depression and World War II understands the need for rationing, sacrifice, patience and restraint. And what about those in Third World or war-torn countries? For those folks, she says, life has been way harder than this all along. It’s a time to relearn values many have ignored or never acquired.

My inconveniences and deprivations are minor––miniscule pieces of a vast whole. I am mostly thinking of my daughter, so faraway, and of all the people I love.

A line from a tender song by the late Warren Zevon is repeating in my head like a prayer: Don’t let us get sick.

“The sky was on fire
When I walked to the mill
To take up the slack in the line
I thought of my friends
And the troubles they’ve had
To keep me from thinking of mine

Don’t let us get sick
Don’t let us get old
Don’t let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight”

We’ve already seen too many examples of defiant stupidity and denial. That hurts us all. We can take this seriously without panicking.

In some ways, we are more together tonight than we have been in a very long time.