Day 231

​Day 231 in the time of coronavirus and another three weeks have elapsed since the last entry. We’ve been in level one for nearly six weeks now and with the relaxing of restrictions and freedom of movement I have found it harder to find the time to write.

The American election has been and gone and I am glad the reign of Trump is over. The endless reporting on the grotesque and repugnant, the bizarre and unconscionable that has been the Trump media circus these past four years has been harsh on the spirit. Truely it has felt like harassment. I think the worst aspect of witnessing such negative content is the corresponding sense of helplessness as Trump has sought to influence the results of the 2016 election, to avoid paying his taxes, while paying hush money to silence the women he has defiled and firing others who have called him out while hiring right wing, dodgy henchmen to stack the major influential positions of power and authority within the land, with his cronies. Again and again I have been reduced to speechlessness at what this man of the highest office has got away with and the incredulity that none of the law enforcers seem able to touch him and rein him in. There’s something very wrong with a constitution and a legal system that allows a president to be above the law and unimpeachable.

This assault on our innate sense of what is right and decent erodes our ability to trust in democratic process. Now we wait to see whether he will fall from his pedestal and finally be found guilty of his many crimes and have to face the consequences?

If I was brave enough I would have the opening words of 'Desiderata', written 93 years ago, by American writer Max Ehrmann, tattooed on my chest. 'Go placidly amidst the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be silence.'

This afternoon as I sat writing out these thoughts, expelling them on the page here in this lovely setting, doors wide open to the sound of blackbirds in the pohutukawa just below, I felt a shift in humour, a sense of contentment settling in. Further out the silent sea seeps in on the incoming tide filling up the muddy inlet with shining water.

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