Member-only story
Despite the Wrenches: As 2021 Crawls to a Close, Acknowledging Reality But Digging for Appreciation
I don’t know about you, but I’m finding it hard to feel optimism over this last month. There’s the expected change that comes with the rain and cold. There’s Omicron. There’s my own body, which was “boosted” last Friday, while I was dealing with what was either a cold-sinus situation or Omicron or whatever we want to call the thing that makes us drag our bodies around, and use hundreds of tissues when our bodies would rather be in bed. Omicron has weaved its way into every aspect of life as the virus and its variants have done since March 2020.
There’s also the fact that the “Build Back Better” legislation that we’ve been waiting on all year is dead. The Senate, stuck at 50–50, has been held hostage by two senators who we officially call “Democrats” but may as well call “Human Wrenches” as in “Throw a wrench into any plans of legislative progress.” Like most of the non-coastal United States, West Virginia and Arizona are semi-functional, highly conservative states…why would we assume their senators would help the entire country get back on track when they can throw wrenches all day like the rest of the Republican party?
Despite the wrenches, in order to fend off apathy and general malaise, I’m determined to think about ways to appreciate this past…
