My neighbor is the Republican county chair. His house, as usual at election time, is surrounded by Republican candidate signs. He rode by on his bike yesterday carrying some asking if I wanted one. Notably, he doesn’t have a sign supporting a presidential candidate. As I was chasing fall colors in southern Illinois this week, as in rural northern Wisconsin and Michigan a couple weeks ago, vast numbers of Trump-Pence signs and flags covered the landscape. Such displays are vigorous expressions of political wishes.
I don’t understand how wearing protective face masks becomes acceptable political expression. I stopped for water at a grocery store which was likely the only one within 20 to 30 miles. A couple elderly people were wearing their masks as they got off a social services bus to get groceries: Critical essential public and private services on display. Coming from the other direction was the first person I’ve seen entering a indoor public space in more than seven months without a mask. And so it continued inside, filled with men without masks, one talking with the woman preparing food behind the deli counter wearing a mask—below her chin so she could talk better. I hurried out, dismayed that people believe it is appropriate political expression to put fellow citizens at risk to go grocery shopping. I went back to seeking solace in the colors and shapes on the surrounding Shawnee National Forest.
Bell Smith Springs
What is better than autumn colors and still water?
Fairy circle
Bay Creek
I see these scenes, and then reflect on words from a math teacher:
I just feel like I'm working 20 times harder than I was last year and I have 1/4 of my students who have grades below a 50% and I'm being accused of not helping students and just not feeling like I'm doing my job well. It's just emotionally and physically and mentally draining right now.
Devil’s Backbone
“...the trees were actually dressed in their coats of many colors — the real scarlet and gold which they wear before they put on mourning... I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house. So I have spent almost all of the daylight hours in the open air.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1842
Hill Branch Springs
He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Bay Creek, Bell Smith Springs, Shawnee National Forest