’Tis the season
In some contexts, this is me. As a programmer, this is my image, onscreen, my avatar; a muppet-like evocation of alien life, posed as a wizard, incantatory, forbidding …sitting on someone’s finger, hoping for the future, always flying into the light.
These little moths should be showing up about now, and they haven’t. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s been too dry. Maybe last year just didn’t provide good enough conditions for repopulation (something little critters like this must do every year). Not so many good mates, too many predators; maybe the final metamorphosis has been delayed, and they will be along. They are a favorite part of spring. I miss them.
While I was in college, I operated a small farm on which I and my family engaged in animal agriculture to help with expenses. It was hard work, rarely highly profitable. Frustrating and difficult. I got to know the animals well, though, and the plants. The intentional ones, and those that lived there in spite of us. We all waited and hoped for spring together.
I am not as hopeful for this spring, this summer. The world seems less able. The politics of my country are vicious, unforgiving. I have always thought of “my people” as being measured, careful. I like to believe we will reach out and help first, then move on with our wants. That is not how my country seems to me just now. My friends insist that I must move to one side of the fence; that I must choose a side.
I am a centrist. I like being in the middle. It feels rational, safe. I believe people can, by and large, make their own decisions correctly, especially if they are not forced.
