Often Bittersweet

We gathered with family at a road race, spent the time between Start and Finish sitting at a long table in a cozy coffee shop in town, enjoying the company of folks we don’t see very often. Seems idyllic in comparison to headlines involving deprived behavior and relentless bombing and a lack of electricity as winter approaches. A generally atrocious, heinous treatment of fellow human beings. Talking about you, Vladimir P., you fucking scumbag.

Such dissonance, such melancholy, such hateful, disgusting behavior. It brings us all down, or should. But we get to sit in the warm glow of coffee and baked goods, walking off a gluttonous meal, enjoying unabated family time uninterrupted by gunfire and assaults on our lives, if we’re lucky. We should be grateful every minute of every day.

Thanks giving? It must be really hard sometimes to find a silver lining, or the heart for gratitude.