Today life magically went back to normal despite the chaos yet to come. Teddy and I walked to Kroger and sat outside with our lattes and celebratory snowman cookie. A lady sat down at the next table (6ft or more away from us) and asked if she was far enough away. “Of course”, we assured her, smiling widely. Shortly after a young woman came out and started YELLING down her phone. It was obvious that her card had just been declined at Kroger and she was pissed. There was sarcasm, “I am SO sorry you are having a bad day, Boo Hoo”. There were endless expletives, unusual in our wee forest. Our eyes and our neighbors got wider at this unexpected display – maybe she voted for the loser?? Finally she stopped yelling and turned to enter the store again. Just before she did, she apologized for the ‘show’. I said, ‘it’s okay, we all have bad days”.
This hilarious exchange provoked conversation between us and our neighbor. She told us that she was looking up scriptures to calm herself because of her relatives. I burst out laughing because I know the feeling. She was a black lady about my age and I just had a feeling she shared our political viewpoint even though our forest is very Red. I said, “Have you seen that car?” She burst out laughing and immediately took a photograph as we did. Has he escaped to Texas? She asked me what the passengers looked like and they were remarkably normal. Two white females.
It has been a terribly anxious week for all of us and we now have 1 million cases of Covid-19 in Texas so it is hard to truly celebrate. I literally risked death to vote – the election lady greeted us with NO MASK. There were no gloves or sanitizing of booths. There was one INCH between the voting booths and they made us vote for every bloody judge, township director and their dog instead of allowing us to just choose Democrat or Republican. I ran out of there like there was the devil on my heels.
May we be a kinder and more integrated society; there is no malice in my heart for anyone with a different political opinion but I need my leader to be decent.
Postcards from Kerry 