Electric Boogaloo: We know it's coming

High school graduation has been ongoing. They're doing it drive through style, with everyone piled up in a car. The graduate is the only one allowed outside of the car, and only 3 cars are allowed on the football field at a time. There's been about five hours of this a day, since Tuesday. With precious little to celebrate recently, seeing all the cards decked out in signs, balloons and streamers has been really, really nice. 

The neighbors' nephew graduated yesterday and all the kids hung out in the front yard, music blasting, encouraging honks from passersby and fellow graduates. They cheered every time a honk came through. I sat outside on the porch , pulling dried thyme leaves from their woody stems. I was drinking wine and smiling at every cheer and slightly weirded out by how out of touch I am with what the kids listen to these days. (I swear to glob, Baby Shark is a damn symphony compared to some of that nonsense.)

There are events scheduled for the coming months, our favorite restaurants have opened up and people are starting to gather again. I'm nervous and a bit scared. I can't help but want to embrace these things, cautiously but embrace it. If distancing and caution is a new normal it makes sense to learn how to find joy among others under those circumstances. Community is still a big part of my brain and emotional health, and I have been really lonely without it. It would be nice to figure out how to participate again while keeping our loved ones safe. (It would be really fucking nice if the people required to work through the re-opening could be guaranteed protections and still make a living. But that seems to be too much to ask.)  

...This was going to be a reflection on trying to find my way back into communities In These Trying Times. However, my brain realizes there are people required to help you do that, and those people work in small confined areas, maybe following OSHA standards, at the best of times. I'm really trying to avoid a rant on capitalist ideology and the dollar over all, but those attitudes reflect why "normal" life feels hard to attain right now. I like to think that this can push some overall change in how what we think of as valuable work. But I see very little evidence of that. 

I guess it's a matter of creeping out of the house with kindness and mindfulness, tipping well and voting our pants off. So yeah, wear a mask and go vote.