I am going through a long writing silence. It started halfway through the pandemic and the inspiration never really came back when things started getting back to more or less normal. I felt that I had nothing to say at the level that I wanted to say it. I’ve been waiting, perhaps, for profundity.

Lack of profundity never bothered me before. But what DO you say when global warming is coming true, criminal charges against a politician increase his popularity, racism and book bans are all the rage, Putin and Ukraine, and on and on.

Yes, I am a despairing, snowflake liberal, firmly on THAT side of the divide that seems to get deeper and more recalcitrant.

I don’t know what to DO about any of this. Enough doom and gloom is being written. Reporting on living a good life despite everything can sound pollyannaish if I write it down. Hence, I feel like I have nothing to say.

A friend urged me to write about the silence.

The silence starts with a dim sky and the faintest whiff of smoke from wildfires hundreds of miles away.

The silence moves into the hottest week ever in the world.

The silence meets a bee, visiting a bouquet of wildflowers from my backyard.

The bee meets a tiny green worm who’s been hiding on the campanula.

The green worm waves at the bee but the bee ignores it.

The silence waves at the green worm