End of the Beginning

Peace out, for now!

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. "

                                         —Winston Churchill, November 10, 1942

My fellow blog readers,

I sit before you today, not as the famous, eloquent prime minister of war-torn England, though I am shamelessly using his idea to begin this post. I am not about to make a pronouncement about a battle won, or give a soul-stirring call to action. The only battle I have won so far today has been deciding what to write. The only action I call you to, is to spend however long it takes you to read 500 words, with me, your virtual friend.

The Churchill quote could certainly apply to our current situation. As much as we all want to rejoin the rest of the human race, re-entry has to be slow and it has to be safe. I know it will be a long time before I am comfortable in a grocery store, even after the toilet paper is finally re-stocked. I read that it is a distinct possibility that the handshake will disappear from our culture, and that makes me sad (though I suffer from cold, sweaty palms, so perhaps those I encounter will be relieved when they no longer have to shake my personal hand). Along with the rest of the world, I await Vaccine Day with more eager anticipation than a child on Christmas Eve.

But I do feel we are reaching the “end of the beginning,” Phase One of the Nightmare. At least I hope that’s true. If, as the great philosopher John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans,” we’ve all gotten a heaping dose of Life recently.  

I, too, am today marking an ending, or a beginning of an ending, or…marking something, anyway!! And that is: this is my 400^th blog post. This is my 31^st daily blog post in my Pandemic Write-a-thon. My idea bank has been overdrawn, and also I don’t want to wear out my welcome in your heads. So….I decided I am scaling back to less-frequent postings. You will hear from me once weekly, on Saturday mornings (that’s the goal at least), and the rest of the week you’ll have to struggle along by reading actually good literature. It will be OK, I promise! If you, like me, have an approximately 500 word attention span, start with Hemingway, and work your way up to Proust! If even that is a stretch in these distracted days, you can always read the ingredients list on the cereal box. I bet you’ll be amazed at what you have been putting in your mouth all these years! And the teensy print will be a great vision test!

In closing, some pearls of wisdom from the Lysol spray can: This product disinfects and sanitizes whirlpool interiors. Also salad bar sneeze guards.

With that, friends, fans and random browsers, I bid you a fond, temporary farewell!

Lysol: promises made, promises kept