A Perfect Day

This is January.  I remember many bitter cold winters in Chicago.  Now I live in Dallas, where today the sun shines, and the temperature is in the 70's.  A perfect day.  On television the weather man tells me a cold front is coming next week.  Once again I will wear my heavy black, padded jacket to go out into a windy day with the thermometer rising only into the 40's at midday.  But I am determined to enjoy this beautiful weather for as long as it lasts. 

I will do tai chi.  I am still surprised at how a few quiet minutes doing tai chi strengthens my muscles and clears my head of all worries.

I have a set of folding metal lawn chairs that I took from Illinois to New Mexico thirty years ago, and which now sit on my patio in Dallas.  They still hold my overweight body comfortably.  I will sit on my patio, where the view over rows of garages does not compare with the view of the Sandia and Monsano Mountains from my house in Albuquerque.  Instead of looking at those dismal garage roofs, I will focus my eyes on the book in my lap.  I will not read anything serious.  I will choose  a book just for fun.  (Have you read “Mama Goes to Paris”?

Obama failed as President.  Idiots support Trump and Cruz. I will not get upset over politics.  I remember history.  Our country has survived many mediocre and/or incompetent Presidents.  Warren G. Harding.  Benjamin Harrison.  William McKinley.  Franklin Pierce.   

John McKinley, who lives on the fourth floor in this retirement home, frequently tells me how proud he is that he is a direct descendant of President William McKinley  At least he knows his great-great-grandfather President..

Shortly after my son Karl was born, his godmother, Margie Douglas, came to see me and the baby at that tiny, cramped “studio” apartment in Chicago, where I was happy, delighted with my baby son.  When I mentioned to Margie that my husband, studying history as a graduate student at Northwestern University, was writing a paper on Franklin Pierce, Margie, who had a master’s degree from Northwestern, said, “Who was Franklin Pierce”?

Next week when that cold wind comes down from Canada, I will have a lot to say about the current political situation.  But I hope you and I will both keep in mind that the voters, who elected mediocre and/or incompetent Presidents, were the nicest and kindest of people.  Mary Adams, the Albuquerque psychologist who gave me lots of good advice, told me, “Don’t say they are ignorant.  I say, ‘They are mis-informed.’”

The U.S. has survived.