I smiled at a baby girl in Trader Joe’s market on May 20, 2021: my first mask less, face-to-face contact with an unidentified fellow human since March 2020.
At about a year old and sitting tall in the cart, she was game on, giggling and squealing at my attention. I told her dad, a tall man in dread locks and still masked, (presumably not yet vaccinated against COVID-19) of my delight. He took my interest in stride, making me suspect I was not the only vaccinated stranger going Ga-Ga over his precious child.
I wonder about the developmental effects on infants of a year without smiles and figure scientists have launched their studies. As our shopping carts advanced from Dairy to Produce, this rolling bundle of joy squealed each time our eyes met. Marvelous as it felt, I turned down an aisle, and we did not meet again.
The encounter reflects how I've felt since March 2015 whenever readers let me know the words I've written touched them. At Blog #100, it’s time to turn a corner, move to the next aisle, content with exchanges as they happened and with what’s to come. I’ll smile when I recall you.
Moving Right Along
Since the summer of 2020 when I activated a Twitter account to campaign for the Biden-Harris ticket, I’ve come to appreciate the decent humans who abound across social media and have something enlightening to say. Several are self-described "resisters" to the debacle of 2016 to 2020, not yet at ease as rightwing extremists muscle the Republican Party to back a vanquished president.
Most days on Twitter, I seek posted images of the world's colorful birds. Cat and dog videos amuse. Views of the planet, flowers, architecture always eased the isolating effects of the lockdown. Several Twitter people are funny. Pun-master Doc inspired a way to connect in Yo, Grammy joke exchanges with my grandchildren. Kind people blunt the anxiety over ongoing attempts to topple our democracy. So pervasive is the sense of foreboding, I am reminded of the verse I wrote when the sky fell:
For the Life of Me
by Reggie Morrisey
I can’t write that poem,
the post-election ode
to Madame President.
November 9th
stands in the way.
All that Middle American hate
is here to stay.
The lies have it.
If they forgot
the war of 2003
and Great Recession,
how can they fear their
Civil War plunder?
What delusions this crowd
operates under.
A failed billionaire
upends the orb.
As if caring a whit for them.
A lower primate
hulks to the White House,
and we must let him settle in.
Bare-knuckled Republicans …
in charge again.
Is It Safe Out There?
Having heard Twitter is full of crazed MAGA-types, I've been spared their attention and do not tweak noses. Despite identifying myself as the wife of Vincent Mancuso and displaying his paintings on my profile page, a few odd fellows sent me direct messages (I did not open). Bitcoin agents lumbered aboard as followers, then jumped ship. Lost souls comment like ghosts in George Saunders Lincoln in the Bardo.
Since August, if I tweeted or retweeted and received a Notification of a Like, I thought, "Well, that was nice." It didn't occur to me until January to explore the Twitter Analytics where I discovered Impressions, a tally of the times a tweet was seen in that universe. I'm happy to share ideas with thousands of like-minded people, some who've opted to follow my posts.
The Point
A few people tweet their aim to grow the numbers of their followers into thousands, if not millions. I hadn't noticed them expressing any ideas or views, just asking to add follower, so I am bewildered.
Like the Sesame Street's black-caped Count, I'm into counting. Even wrote a poem about it: But Who's Counting? I count laps I swim. In the past, I gleefully counted earned vacation days. The word-count for six years of blogs is 62,650-ish. We humans add and subtract all the time.
One anomaly: Surveyed Republicans refuse to count the seven million more votes (80,033,996 total) the Biden-Harris ticket got in 2020 or the 60 failed court cases contesting that win, each tossed as fast as it arrived. The party is hellbent on ballot recounts - to win. Bewildering.
This month, curiosity led me to open an Instagram account, joining 1,084 billion users worldwide. I recommend the platform as a feast for your eyes and rest from the tumult. My involvement will consists of posts of Vince's Earth Portraits.
Vincent Mancuso & Reggie Morrisey
Grazie, Mio Marito
Vince has my gratitude for sharing his Earth Portraits here since 2015. I look forward to posting on Instagram so more people will become acquainted with his body of work. Thank you, readers, for approaching my blogs with your game on.
Since Instagram only allows posts via cell phone, and I create graphics online, I'm researching how to post such graphics from the phone. Have yet to crack the code. Assume user error. When I do post, it will be the beautiful and serene. I'll leave my words of resistance to Twitter until 2022.
Signing Off Blogging
Please continue to visit http://www.reggiemorriey.com for poetry and prose and the Gallery of Ed Morrisey Art honoring my late brother.
I also welcome you to follow:
- Twitter: @reggie_morrisey
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oftwominds2/
Pretty Baby by Ed Morrisey