In my last post to this blog, I wrote: "Now we can look forward with hope to the beginning of the long, hard road ahead, of making things better again." As it turns out, that journey has not yet begun because, one week after the election, our current President refuses to concede as every other modern President has. Without any evidence, he is claiming darkly that there was massive voter fraud. (Why that fraud would not also have resulted in more Democratic Senators has not been explained.) In retrospect, it was naive to expect otherwise.
Even more worrisome is the thirty percent of the country that believes him, and the majority of the Republican Party who have refused to accept Joe Biden as the legitimate winner of the election. Martha and I have speculated how this kind of attitude would play out in the next road race we enter (whenever that might be). I will simply claim outright the First Place Overall trophy. "But you came in way behind most of the other runners," an exasperated Race Director might tell me. "Doesn't matter. It was a fraudulent race. I refuse to accept that I did not win. And if I don't get that trophy, I will file a lawsuit."
So instead of enjoying watching the huge nationwide celebration that took place Saturday night, where there was literally dancing in the streets, and listening with interest to the details of the progressive programs Joe Biden might have to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, pass a stimulus bill to help all of those who are hurting so much, and protect health insurance, we are listening once again to a Trump administration sucking up all the news. It doesn't look as if this nightmare will end until January 20.
I had a good six-mile run yesterday during which I tried not to think about all of this. And this morning I planned to run again, but was met with drizzling rain that increased in intensity on my way to Town. I sat in my car for awhile, torn between getting soaked to the skin in a "character-building run" that I did not need after yesterday's six miles, or having to consider that I have indeed become a wimp. I actually decided the latter, and started driving home, when the rain suddenly diminished, enough so that I turned the car around and returned to Town. "I'll get in a mile, maybe two," I thought, but conditions remained nice, and I ended up completing three miles in thick fog. I love running in the fog, just as I do in the snow! And in mid-November, there are still bright blazes of color - Japanese maples, burning bushes - that seem to pop out more boldly than usual from the thickness of the fog.
But this is a familiar story to readers of this blog. A window of opportunity opens for the hesitant runner, and he climbs through, sometimes being rewarded with the kind of run I had today, but often just the opposite. The daily struggle with weather, terrain, and self.
Returning home, I noticed that our own burning bushes along the road are perhaps at their very peak of beauty, the leaves soaring upward through a rising spectrum of color, blazing crimson. It is a beautiful time of year in Highlands!
There is good news, too, amid the drama of lawsuits and election recounts and the obstructionism of Republican Senators. Pfizer has developed a vaccine that is 90% effective, and it will be available soon. With competent people in our government once again, we can hope to return one day to some kind of normalcy.
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