Book Worm: a Sort of Autobiography

Interlude - From Beginning to End

I'm home.

A hospital emergency room in the era of Covid 19 is not an ideal place to have been, but diabetes has taken me on a few detours since my diagnosis in February, just weeks before quarantine hit. Since then, I've lost fifty pounds, given up junk food and alcohol almost entirely, embraced healthy eating with the fervour of the newly converted (although I can't say I love it) and taken up walking regularly to ensure variables are controlled.

After Thanksgiving I somehow caught the flu. Tested negative for the coronavirus, but the flu. Funny. We're all working and learning from home. Que sera.

After two weeks I was in ketoacidosis, which is very unusual for a Type 2. Perhaps I'm more of a Type 1.5? I had been struggling to manage my sugars and illness can do this. So it was off to the hospital for me.

I've spent the last three days and two nights in a rather uncomfortable hospital bed (worst AirB&B ever but at least they served egg salad. I give it a Yelp rating of 4/5, IDK), following updates on the 2020 US Presidential Election with the alacrity of an optimist hoping for change, and the anxiety of a teacher in a province run by social conservatives determined to destroy all we care for. I only mention this because it's relatable. Obviously Alberta isn't part of the Union (although some seem to think we are).

We are not at all different in Canada. We have division that runs deep.

But now that my sugars are mostly managed thanks to insulin, I'm feeling much improved, and still eager to see a definitive result from this political contest to the south. It has been marked by acrimony from the start, enflamed by hot heads when what we all need are cooler heads.

But I believe cooler heads will prevail.

I came home.

The kids are asleep. Cats are curled at our feet. Foster pups are settled on the floor. And I decided to continue reading From Beginning to End - The Rituals of Our Lives, by Robert Fulghum.

He's telling stories about telling stories, of firsts. First time one guy shoplifted, first time another guy parted his hair the opposite side, a woman telling of her first period and how she and her mom cried and laughed and then went shopping for women's clothes.

Then Fulghum talks about his first time voting in the 1960 election. This was a close one, and really mattered. And the young people of post-war America were eager to have their say (sounds familiar). It was Nixon or Kennedy. Robert Fulghum was 21, and he speaks of the feeling of responsibility and maturity that came with casting his ballot. He says he continued to carry his voter registration card and speaks of it as a sort of symbol of his adulthood, his initiation into that greater place of decisions and consequences that marked him as a grown up.

This one between Trump and Biden has been a nail-biter of a contest, but it's no game. Democratic elections are a privilege that must be extended to all. They are powerful, for every individual person counts when we protect this freedom to choose in secret. Every single person. Every vote.

The Republicans have shown that they are almost precisely half of the population, and the Democrats have done likewise and may have a chance, slim though it may seem, to govern once more. But both sides must look closely at one another and see how balanced the table has become.

Divided, yes. But balanced. Almost perfectly down the middle.

Whomever they choose, Republican or Democrat, for this country that is coveted by so many around the world, those leaders must listen to both sides fairly, equitably, and with a cooler head. Time to put the campaign signs away. It's over. The President will need patience and skills of diplomacy. They must project calm, so that Republican and Democrat alike may be heard, even as they disagree.

Imagine two children of yours fighting for a seat at the supper table. As a parent, could you neglect one while you feed the other two platefuls? Of course not. Both deserve to eat and talk and be treated with dignity.

This is a moment in history, but aren't they all? In this moment, I don't watch to see whom they choose. I watch to see if the one they choose gets it right.

And I hope a little of that same mandate to govern all the people with fairness influences us north of the border. Right now, our parent is taking our plate and handing it to the favourite child.

- Graph, 11:11 PM MT, November 5, 2020