Unexpected Nostalgia...

I've been listening to Levar Burton Reads while I work out. I used to listen on the treadmill at the gym. When we stopped going to the gym in March of 2020 I stopped listening. And when we got the home treadmill it has a program with it so I listen to that. I really liked the short stories that he picked and kept meaning to go back to it but... me.

So I finally started back up this summer and it's been...

Odd.

See I moved on in time, but the podcast, of course, didn't. So I've been listening to him talk before and after the stories about being in the midst of the lockdown and reminding people to vote in November because it's so important. Today was the first set of stories, and an interview with the author, that happened after the election in 2020 and you can feel the relief in both of their voices. Like it's a weight that has been lifted.

And I just want to reach back into the past and hug them and warn them. What you thought was terrible you will one day feel nostalgic for. As sad and as terrible as the pandemic and the lockdown was, it's going to get so much worse. You think Biden's election marks an end to Trump, but it's just a pause. And it's a pause where the people around him are regrouping and planning and like a bacterial infection that wasn't treated with the full round of antibiotics are going to come back stronger and more deadly.

I never thought I'd feel any sort of positivity around that time period. But I do. Even as horrific as it was. Even with losing Brent's mother. Even with spending almost two months locked in a small room with Tig while his leg healed. Even with watching people refuse to do the simplest things to protect their neighbors. That November. The election. Biden winning. And winning decisively. Man, bottle that up and let me drink it down. That was hope. That was the feeling that we made it. That it was going to be okay.

(Ron Howard's voice, "it was not going to be okay")

But we did have a small stretch of time where we thought it was going to be. And that was great. The author he was talking to today (five years ago), Nnedi Okorafor, mentioned that she was always hopeful about the future. That she had to be because if she wasn't she would have to give up. I wondered is she still felt that way. If she was still hopeful for the future.

I hope she is. I hope she's still writing speculative fiction where the future is better than today. I hope she's holding on to that spark with both hands.

Because...well...

We don't really live in the hopeful timeline right now.

Charlie Kirk was shot today. Just got the news from Trump that it was fatal. There is the expected outpouring of "this is unacceptable" and "all political violence should be condemned" and my favorite chestnut, "This is not who we are."

Well, this is who we are. We are an angry nation that is heavily armed. Violence is to be expected. It might be sad, it might make you angry, but it's going to happen. Sadly his death is going to inspire people to more violence. It's a cycle we've been in for as long as I can remember. Violence begets violence. Justification upon justification.

I would love to be in a country where political violence was not the norm. But it's so normal here that the political assassinations in Minnesota earlier this year disappeared from the headlines so quickly I had to google to see if it was Minnesota or Wisconsin. We don't live in a peaceful country. We don't live in that timeline. It's just going to get worse before it gets better.

We are heavily armed and very angry. And that's going to lead to unfortunate consequences.

Don't believe me? Take it from this guy:

"I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."

Yeah, that was Charlie Kirk in 2023.

I hope his family finds peace.