Politics, Heroes and Victims

So this is what I wrote 12 months ago on July 9th. A lot has changed and nothing has changed. In Australia, it is Sydney, not Melbourne in Lockdown and facing a new, more contagious form of the virus. I know a lot more people in Sydney than I do in Melbourne and I hear more of the strains of the Lockdown. It’s not easy. But, having been a bit self congratulatory early on, I think Berejiklian has knuckled down and accepted that this is going to be harder than she thought.

Biden is now president in the US and I gather that, in terms of COVID, things are improving.

But personally, last year seems like a doddle compared to 2021. Everything is relative.

Reposted for Fandango’s Flashback Friday

Out of the Cave

As Victoria rushes to stem the tide of COVID, other Australian states look on, both sympathetic and protective of their own safety. Borders are closing. The Queenslanders (with the whole of New South Wales between them and Victoria) even suspect Victorians of smuggling themselves across the border on freight trucks. Maybe it’s true but it seems unbelievable to me.

This year is unbelievable.

World politics is unbelievable.

In the US, the numbers are terrifying. Over 1600 deaths in the last two days and 61,848 new cases just yesterday. P showed me the graphs.

He made the remark that during two days in April, more people died of COVID19 than died in the September 11 attacks in 2001.

And yet Trump still glosses over it and congratulates himself on saving thousands of lives.

Will the dead be remembered every year in memorials all over the country? Will the doctors who tried…

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I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way…

Fandango’s Flashback Friday (only I’m late because we were away for the weekend) suggests posting a blog from this date on a previous year. I don’t have Friday’s exact date but this is only one day out. I hope you enjoy…

Out of the Cave

I
hate this wind and the brown sky and the pluming brown dust and the
brown, brown oval… except where the sprinkler has leaked and there
is a patch of rich green – a puddle reflecting what used to be.

The
scraping leaves exfoliate my heart like an acid. On days like to
today (today, when it was supposed to rain) I find it so hard to
believe that everything will be okay.

As
I walked this morning, a few spats of rain found their way to the
ground, like salt on a meal. When I got home I looked at the radar.
Down south, there is rain. So that is something.

Yesterday
at the fruit shop, the cashier lady, just returned from 6 weeks “at
home” in Bhutan commented that “compared to home, Australia is a
desert”. She landed, on Friday, in Sydney, thinking it an overcast
day, expecting…

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