Coping strategy for the writers out there.
I will never remember this story exactly how I read it, but I will try. It's a major life lesson for people who love to write.
In the day prior to the attack of Pearl Harbor, a newspaper in California sent a reporter to Hawaii, along with a California little league baseball team. He was suppose to watch the game, and write an article for the paper.
And then Pearl Harbor happened. It was a day before things settled down and the reporter was able to get back home. And, when he went back to the newspaper company, his editor called him into his office.
"So, where's the article?" asked the editor.
"What article?" the reporter said. "The game was canceled because of the attack."
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And that's the lesson I'm going to take, now that it feels like we've been fragged by our own country.
I am going to write about finally severing ties with as many MAGAs or Republicans as possible, which is a healing experience because they always took more energy from me, than they ever gave back.
I am going to talk about the walk we made around the neighborhood yesterday, where there were so many people doing the same things we were doing, just trying to shake off the glum by producing some endorphins. I am going to write about how a couple of older white guys looked angry and never even glanced in our direction, or how a suspect MAGA couple were a bit surprised when we got off the sidewalk and walked on the street to avoid them. I am also going to write about the young man with long hair who was riding his bike and tried very hard to get our attention to smile at us, and how much I regretted not being quicker to return it. I am also going to write about the guy who usually walks with his wife when he's walking their dogs, and how he beamed when he saw us, and I suddenly felt like he must have known how we needed reassurances that there were still good people in the community.
I am also going to write about my experience with my stolen campaign sign, where the AirTag revealed that the thief lived in the next development over. How the police took my report, signed with a request for prosecution, but just hoping for an apology and restitution, and how I didn't get a return call until after a progressive site posted my account, including a screenshot of the house that the AirTag had flagged. Or that the police officer reached me to tell me that they visited the house and the mother said that it was probably her son, and she would talk to him after she picked him up from school, and how I haven't heard a word ever since.
See, this is what writers do. Whether we're good or bad at it, we just have to write. And every time something terrible goes wrong, remember they are giving you something to write about.
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