I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW THE RAIN IS GONE

Even since that Saturday, the afternoon presidential election was declared for Biden, this Jimmy Cliff song, with that cool reggae beat, has been going around in my brain...

 

I can see clearly now the rain is gone

I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It's gonna be a bright (bright)

Bright (bright) sunshiny day

It's gonna be a bright (bright)

Bright (bright) sunshiny day

Oh, yes I can make it now the pain is gone

All of the bad feelings have disappeared

Here is that rainbow I've been praying for

It's gonna be a bright (bright)

Bright (bright) sunshiny day

 

Truthfully, realistically, the odds are not exactly good for a bright sunshiny day most days in November, in Vermont, anyway.  But it is nice to feel that a weight has been lifted.  A weight that's been hanging overhead since November of 2016, and that year most certainly wasn't a good one.  In that January, Ken and I had spent a few days in to New York City.  He tired more easily by that time, but yet we managed museums, walking, eating out.  He was more or less okay.  A few months later, in the spring, we visited a good friend who was living in Seville for a few months, a trip that had its complications, although it had a number of lighter moments, some fun, even.  (See "The Rain in Spain" post of 5/23/16)  It would be our last trip together.  After a dismal month or two, Ken died, just days before the election, having cast his final vote for Hillary Clinton.  He never knew Trump would become President. Had he known he would have been as astonished as everyone.  

But this year, this strange year, surpasses any I've known for sheer all around horribleness.  It's possible to see more clearly now much of what was hiding behind the curtain of daily Trump outrages.  The oh-my-God news that happened almost hourly, overkill insanities, sapped our mental and emotional energy.  Laid bare now, with that constant assault out of the way, are the issues we should have been seeing.  Issues like our changing climate, the alienation of our former allies, our global pandemic, our national pandemic, myriad humanitarian concerns across the globe, institutional racism, poverty here and elsewhere, student debt, cyber security... I could go on, but I have already overwhelmed myself. All this doesn't exactly promise a sunshiny day.

Yet...

There are sunny days, but clouds demand one's attention at this time of year.

It is literally clearer here now, too, for it's easy to see things with the foliage out of the way.  Not prettier, but more transparent.  I don't really dislike the change, partly because it is a change, although hunting season discourages me from venturing into the woods, even wearing hunter's orange, and that is disappointing because that openness is so inviting.  It doesn't help that there's a family further up the road that doesn't pay enough attention to hunting regulations.  Last year, on one day after the end of hunting season, when the previous night had laid down a thin layer of snow, the path we made, Skyler and me, were the only prints to be seen. Until we came upon some very disturbed snow behind this particular family's land.  There were streaks of blood on top of the snow and drag marks showing something heavy had been pulled to a place where there were tractor marks that led directly to their house.  Skylers sniffed out a pile of entrails right nearby where an animal had been gutted.  Such evidence of a deer shot after the end of the season may be circumstantial, but it is damning, like what Henry Thoreau called "finding a trout in the milk."  After the end of the current rifle season rifle shots have been heard coming from the same direction once again.  So, I'm not going into the woods just yet, clear and inviting as they are.

Three does came to visit very early one morning, days before hunting season began. 

This extra visual clarity allows me to see the rocky hills behind the field, as if a green curtain has suddently been removed.  It helps to a degree with deer hunting, except that everything looks some shade of brown or beige, so it's more likely a rustling sound that you listen for.  More often than not, that turns out to be squirrels messing around in the dry leaves.  Also newly visible this time of year, or possibly newly created, is the line Skyler makes in the grass, the line that Skyler believes limits his area.  Why it only appears in the fall is a bit of a mystery.  Skyler's line is actually off by several feet from the "dangerous edge," but he's taking no chances. It's an electric fence, but I don't even put his collar on any more, so nothing would happen if he crossed over.  (Don't tell him that, though.)

The ridge that summer hides.

Why Skyler creates the exact same path is a bit puzzling.

The lack of rain in late summer and early fall exposed things, too.  A few weeks ago I took a walk that led to Bittersweet Falls, a secluded den where a broad waterfall normally cascades.  But sans rainwater, there was only a mossy cliff.

A dried up Bittersweet Falls, although a recent rain may have helped.()

Sometimes looking back makes events look clearer, too.  I recently watched a documentary about Ronald Reagan.  I remember his presidency so I thought I already knew everything there was to know about him. What I didn't know was that "Make America Great Again" was his 1980 campaign slogan.  That message was accompanied by many of the same racial dog whistles.  Not exactly original, DJT.  And–this one I did remember–Reagan selected cabinet members who were put in charge of organizations they would aim to destroy. Probably the worst of a bad lot was James Watt, Interior Secretary: anti-conservation, anti-wilderness, anti-environment–you name it.  Not exactly original, DJT.  Deregulation, too, "getting "government off the backs of the people."  You rode that as well, DJT.  To top it off,  Reagan was also the first media persona (B-movie star, TV host, etc.) to become President.  Not the first, DJT.  A fervent but probably vain hope I have is that he be the last. 

We can always look beyond the clouds and hope for better things, right?