The Tale Poorly Told

 

Trump is coming, Trump is coming!  

And I am conflicted.  I want to go take pictures at his rally near my own hometown, but is it worth it?  I have no idea how close I would be able to get, and if I did, I don't know how likely I would be to get the virus.  Like many, I've become more skeptical about the dangers.  Everywhere I look, people are shopping, drinking, eating, and I think I am being paranoid.  Then I'll read a story about those hospitalized with the virus, and I grow paranoid all over again. I just don't know if a few pictures of the campaign is worth the risk.  And yet, there are people out there covering the campaigns.

I don't know.  I can't make up my mind.  

My cousins came to my mother's house yesterday.  They are not careful.  They go to restaurants, casinos. . . just another day to them.  My mother was not going to let them in the house, but she said she was feeling guilty.  I said I couldn't advise her on this.  In the end, she told them they could stay.  I went over for an outdoor takeout meal yesterday, and I felt the Covid virus in the air.  My chest got tight right away.  They talked loudly and laughed, and I could practically see the germy vapor hanging in the air.  

I'd probably better not go to the rally.  

But sitting alone in the house for months and months has given me cause to reflect on the meaning of life. Funny, right. . . I mean seriously, can I really make such an asinine statement as that?  Yes.  I'm not saying I figured out anything profound, but I do know that mere existence is not satisfying to me in any way.  All the mystical hippie shit I read and spouted all my life about the world within, etc. has been put to the test and found to be wanting.  Spiritual answers?  Nope.  I have concluded that I do less harm to others and to the world sitting alone in a room, but I do no good, either.  The neutrality of existence has not brought me great peace or joy.  It has brought me profound ennui and anxiety.  

My cousin asked me how I was doing.  Like everyone else, I said, knowing it wasn't true.  But the conversation lagged.  What do I have to talk about?  Something I saw on television?  A book I have recently read?  There is no real tale in such things.  Then my mother mentioned the letters I had found. She wanted me to tell the tale.  I told the facts of the thing, the cleaning of the attic, the surprise those boxes held, finding out that the girl in those letters had become a woman and died.  

What I have not been able to tell well, or maybe even at all, is the symbolism of all that, how the experience is metaphorical for something much larger and profound. I've tried and tried to write it, but I haven't been able to get my arms around it.  It still comes out as simple facts, sweet and sad, but not what I intend to say.  Maybe it is too big for me.  Perhaps I am too small.  But I'm going to have to put it away for awhile.  It has become a weight too profound to bear.  

The day is bright.  It will get hot soon.  I don't even know what time Trump is supposed to arrive.  Maybe I should just drive in that direction and see.  Or I could stay here, safely away from the possibility of danger.  

Seems to be my M.O. now. 

Avoiding, I mean.