Survived the Week (Almost)

"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." 

— Matthew 24:37–39 (NIV)

There's a scene toward the end of Don't Look Up, a movie you've probably not seen but should. A comet is hurtling toward earth, and for the better part of the movie Republican politicians urge their constituents to ignore the peril (hence the movie's title) because there's nothing to fear. But it does arrive, this comet, and in the scene that comes to mind the astronomer who predicted the impact rejects a seat on the billionaire's spaceship that will whisk the elite away from the catastrophe, and instead goes home and sits down with his family for a final, quotidian supper at home just as the shock wave comes and vaporizes them all.

I think that although there's a very real possibility the Trump era will end in a nuclear conflagration, the chances of that are pretty remote. But we are in fact living through the worst political crisis of my lifetime, a Civil War era feeling of discord and doom hanging over everything. How does one live one's life when the world we grew up in comes to an end?

Well, for starters I guess you, I, remember that change is and has always been in the nature of things, right down to these molecules I'm borrowing during my lifetime that were once part of an elm tree or a glacier. The changes now seem more momentous and consequential, but if change is the norm this era we're living is more like society running a fever. One can't get consumed in the moment, which will pass one way or another.

And home life right now is very, very good. Last night P and I cooked supper together, as she tried to figure out what to do with a container of butternut squash puree she'd made for a soup a few days ago. She settled on homemade squash ravioli, using wonton wrappers instead of making the pasta. None of them exploded in the boiling water, and we topped them with a smoked turkey and cream sauce Peg dreamed up, again as a way to use up some leftovers.

The result? Okay . . . pretty good . . . but that's not the point. Working in the kitchen together was sort of fun; we haven't done that in I don't know how long. Why did we stop?

We ate supper watching the Daily Show, then the last episode of Widow's Bay, and then settled in for the wild card game between my beloved Braves and the Phillies. Mostly we just talked, staying up way too late and having maybe an extra glass of wine as the Bravos held off the Phils to advance to the NLDS. It was all very comfortable, with Dean and Slane draped around us on the couch.

Most weeknights in Corning we end up in the giant jacuzzi tub for a bubble bath and the late '50's jazz icon of my choice, maybe Nancy Wilson or Chet Baker or Mel Torme. That's kind of nice, as well.

Tomorrow we fly to the farm, inshallah, taking the cats with us for a week split between Perry and Panama City. Wyldswood formally exited the real estate market yesterday, and now we're thinking of bringing in chickens and goats and spending more time there. It's the middle of nowhere, to be sure, but the very best part of life in a time of great crisis is home, and I reckon in the end that's it.