When 2020 keeps handing us lemons
When Mother Nature issued a stay-at-home order this week by blanketing us with harmful wildfire smoke there was time to ponder 2020, also known as a dumpster fire of a year.
Months ago we became familiar with the phrase essential work/workers. Rightfully so we appreciated those who carried on while we stayed at home and made brief, furtive trips to gather supplies. Curbside and contactless became adjectives that described everything from groceries to pizza to home improvement.
As we watch the beautiful forests and farmlands of the West burn we grieve for the lives and lifetimes lost and worry for those fighting fires on the front lines.
I don’t do work that would be considered heroic or essential. Sometimes for someone who weaves words, observes and documents, life can be so overwhelmingly complex or stunningly simple that words become elusive. In either event those moments, including happy birthday wishes, deserve to be etched.
I’ve enjoyed and appreciated even more the small things that have made me smile, brought a tear of joy or gratitude and a reminder that great or small it’s all a mirror to who we are as a community. We may shake our heads at the inhumanity and unbelievable cruelty we see in day-to-day life, at how people are talking at and treating each other. I try very hard not to be so consumed by those things that I fail to see the simple beauty and innate goodness of those I know and meet.
For a cock-eyed optimist and a hugger, 2020 has been a real test. As my friend and fellow weaver of words Garrison Keillor recently observed about a New York friend ... “She is proof that aging, though likely to be fatal, need not be dull.”
I shall aspire not to be dull.
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Dr. Don Schmitt retired from private practice a year or so ago, followed by his wife Sharmon’s retirement from Avista. Since then they’ve been living their best life with family and friends, on the road and camping.
In August Sharmon showed a photograph of a little project Don completed while they vacationed on Lake Pend Oreille. He collected rocks in the shape of each of the lower 48 states in the USA. She said her hubs doesn’t like to be idle. Don glued the rocks to a board, creating a beautiful piece of Western folk art. Perhaps a new career for Dr. Don?
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Only 100 more sleeps until Christmas Day. Then again, it’s 2020 so I hesitate to get my hopes up.
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Happy Birthday today to Jeff Thompson, Courtney Hurt, James Hoialman, Charollett Morehouse and Terrie Lynn Gonzales. Steve Widmyer, Betsy Martin, Jeff Crandall, Harmony Conley, Connie Evans (70!), Russ Giles, Mary Riffe and Lynda Wright share Sept. 17 birthdays.
Brad Peugh, Ellen Delavan, Jaimee Cox, Eric Benjamin, John Holm, Jennifer Schroeder and Debra Smart blow out the candles on Friday. On Saturday Steve Eller, Rich Kempton, Kara Fredekind, Debbie Sala, Jeanne Wright, Brock Morrow, Marshall Baltzell and Karen Lindbergh do the birthday dance.
On Sunday Julie Chadderdon, Hank Martin, John Stevens, Craig Brosenne, Haley Walker, Joe Roope and George Balling put on their party hats. Katherine Ekhoff, Stacy Hudson (40!), Dina Hourland (60!), Cliff Slaney and Haley Walker take another trip around the sun to start the week. Jerry Lyon, Vic Slater, Amy Reagan, Scott Livingston, Rosalyn Martin (60!), George Beebe and my baby sister, Ronna Park (60!), blow out the candles on Tuesday, the first day of autumn.
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Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press and Kerri can be contacted on Facebook or via email [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @kerrithoreson.