Better, not great…

I still can’t hear the term “president-elect tr…” without my bowels loosening and my chest tightening.

All of the past hostile and toxic environments I’ve been in, stalkings I’ve gone through, rictus grins through mansplaing and talkingovers, and yes, even getting my pussy grabbed in broad daylight on the way to work and when filing a police report about it being told that I could be charged since I punched the man and thus likely left a mark and he didn’t….

is all coming up GERD-like and simmering at the back of my tongue.

So fiber really isn’t on my mind.

And the wind is howling like January.

And my computer is possibly in its death throes, so I’m busy backing it all up.

Here’s a less stressful time – I’m sewing 4-B flags for our sister 4-H group in Botswana – complete with tomato pin holder, yarn bows on pigtails, and my mom’s early-mid 1960s Singer sewing machine in the background, and of course, a perfect example of the absolute worst decade for eyeglasses (not to mention the mole I had surgically removed after I was sick of being called “moleface” but then became “scarface” but that was more badass and not as bad, but I regret removing it now unless it ended up taking over the whole side of my face like the kids said it was doing…). Our 4-H club was called “A Better America” and I think of it every time I hear “Make America Great Again.” And both bother me because most “Americans” aren’t actually including the whole of the Americas north and south, continent-wise, when they say it, but tr… means us, just us, just our jaggedy wide midsection of North America and only those citizens who worship him, but our 4-H club included the whole shebang and beyond, and meant that we as Americans needed to do our part to make it a little bit better for everyone. We welcomed new immigrants and citizens, helped out our poor townspeople, mentored youth, played entirely too many games of Uno with our elderly and mentally handicapped (somewhat warehoused in hindsight) neighbors in group homes, and connected with others in the world (along with the typical 4-H litany of farm animals, bake-offs, forestry projects, and camp).

 I (think, hope) I still have the letters that my 4-B penpal from Botswana, Bertha, wrote over 30 years ago, but I’ll never forget her first which she opened with: “My country is not as beautiful as you may think.”

I’m feeling that about mine too.