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Four years ago on this day we had snow which was normal. This afternoon’s temperature is expected to top out in the 70’s which is likely, given that at 7 am it was already 63F/17C.
Great for the heating bill, but quite apart from the fact that I prefer cool weather, I find this disturbing.
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Today there is no hint of that chill in the air that comes at summer’s end.
It feels distinctly oppressive.
This is November!
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At the pain clinic I was slightly unsettled to find myself talking to someone new. The physician’s assistant I have worked with for four years has helped me so much and I have come to depend on her.
So, unexpectedly seeing someone else felt like having the rug pulled out from under me.
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The parking lot and the waiting room were empty, mid-morning. Another patient came out but I remained sitting long past the time of my appointment.
When the clinic is busy, I think nothing of having to wait but that day I felt irked, the more so finding myself with a different practitioner.
After a 3-minute chat with her, I was off to deal with my phone issue.
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At the boost Mobile shop I learned that the phone’s problem was not the sim card itself, but simply that it needed to be updated, something that could have been done at home, if I had known about it.
For everything else I get notifications and while I always dread updates, I always activate them.
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Dread.
From the time I first became aware of such things, I most dreaded the day of my mother’s death. I could think of nothing that would be more awful.
It has been 27 years since that day and because she was ill and distressed, my mother’s death was something of a mercy. I got through the pain of it by reminding myself that our parent’s deaths are inevitable, part of a cycle.
Over the course of one’s life, there are likely any number of dreaded occasions. For me it was things like having to speak in front of a class, attending a social function, being interviewed.
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As I’ve aged, fear has changed. Many of the situations that caused anxiety have gone for good with the people who created them.
The uncertainty of life’s end floats uncomfortably in the back of any older person’s mind, but for me it doesn’t yet class as dread.
Every other concern seems to have been swept aside this year by my dread of the coming election and its aftermath.
It is like watching a runaway train and being powerless to stop the catastrophe.
We are holding our breath.
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If Trump is elected I fear for the stability of the whole world, not just the USA. Although as FDR said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.
10C here, and I have the heating on because of a cold wind. It has been dark since 4:30pm and feels more like winter than autumn. Glad you got the SIM card sorted.
Best wishes, Pete.
All those red trees — how spectacular are they? Luckily, our weather patterns are still pretty much the same – we had our first good summer rainfall and our surroundings are now starting to show more greenery again. I don’t know what to say about your elections … maybe that it’s not going to be as bad as everyone expects it to be.