The World is Alive with Hope

Over the past twenty-four hours a great deal of stuff, let us call it stuff because it is hard to come up with a term that adequately identifies what comes out of the political process, has been happening in Washington. Whether any of what is contained in the “largest, biggest, grandest” bailout ever has any lasting value, only time will tell. 

I have tired of watching the political process grapple with is first and foremost a medical/scientific problem. Watching a bunch of xenophobic, classist, racists try to comprehend what life is like for people who are not wearing $1,500 suits and $250 ties on the floor of the United States Senate is repulsive. And to the Lieutenant Governor of Texas who said his grandparents would be willing to die for the economy, “GO FUCK YOURSELF ASSHOLE”. We aren’t willing to die to further enrich over leveraged billionaires like your native son who owns Landry’s dining establishments. 

To combat the mental health issues that come from rage at the government and from isolation (probably just a me problem for I am a relatively social person) I have been walking. Occasionally, I will talk to a neighbor. No worries, I always maintain the six-foot barrier.  (Why am I reminded of Maxwell Smart’s Cone of Silence?) Mostly I look for signs of spring; early blossoms, buds on trees, the trilling of songbirds.  A good 35-minute walk helps clear my head.  At the end of the walk I feel freed of the baggage of the internet.

One thing I have seen on my walks has struck me, the young are creating images of joy and hope.  Normally, when I see sidewalk chalk art, unless it is somebody doing a reproduction of a Rembrandt painting at the corner of Yonge and Bloor with a hat out for loonies, I just pass it by.  On a normal day I don’t even see colored chalk marks on concrete.  My sense of time has changed.  These days I have lots of times to look at the placement of bricks in a retaining wall, plies of brush cleared out for the spring plantings sitting on a blue tarp and for side walk art.  

All over my neighborhood are positive messages.  “You are loved”, “You can make it”, and “We are in this together,” stand out.  Some pads of sidewalk are covered with hearts.  Some pads are covered with abstract forms.  Each and every segment that has been marked seems to say to me, there is hope.  A mere piece of chalk used judiciously can lift our souls from the realms of fear of the virus and distaste for what is being done and what we must do, to a place of hope and joy. I hope these messages keep coming.

We just have to keep in mind what the scribbler has urged us to do.

We have to believe the chalk messages.