Written 21 January, 2021.
For weeks, I worried with the world that it wouldn’t happen. That Trump with his 69 court cases would wrangle a way to retain power and the virus deaths would rage on and on, and another half a million people would unnecessarily die- 400,000 by today. More than America lost in the second world war. That one of the maddened rioters Trump told lies to about how he’d really won would assassinate Biden on inauguration day.
So worried, I knew by the time i went to sleep that the inauguration was at 3 am our time and my heart woke me up at 3.05 all by itself, my little heart. And so I saw the ceremony, and suddenly I relished American ceremony, so different from the British with their prancing horsemen and thrones and crowns and aristocracy built on privilege and wealth from hushed-up slavery and piracy. My heart wept through Kamala Harris’ pledge, through Biden’s speech, through Lady Gaga singing their anthem in her wonderful black and red tutu, and the Republican country and western star Garth Brooks with the best ever rendition of” Amazing Grace”. At 4.15am I woke GG.
Biden’s safe and he’s in, I told him. GG groaned and turned over. He’d known Biden would survive. I hadn’t.
By the time I checked at lunch-time, Biden had already mandated masks on all federal land and hastened the vaccine, including manufacturing it – Trump”s “Operation Warp Speed” was’t living up to its name – re-joined WHO – Trump had stormed away, blaming WHO and China for the virus problems in the US – Biden had re-joined the Paris Climate Accord- another Trump tantrum – Biden had stopped hounding immigrants, stopped building the wall, to keep poor Mexicans out, stopped the ban on travel entry from Muslim majority countries….
In the UK, the highest number of deaths in one day, 1820, bringing the total deaths to 91,640. The hospitals, it’s said, are like a war zone.
Here in NSW, Gladys the Premier at last mandated masks a week ago and perhaps it’s a co-incidence but we’re on the 4th day of no new local virus cases.
And on the river, a storm: (this is a colour pic)
And then, a rainbow.
Tomorrow, we go back to the city on the way to Professor Kim Cunio’s music and creativity weekend retreat in the Southern Highlands. I’m to teach a session on Sunday morning.I’ve always shyly loved music, shyly because i never learned it, though I auto-didactically tinkered on a piano abandoned in a house we had all my childhood- it was my second love, second to books. I”m looking forward to meeting these musicians. it’s a dream come true. 