Balance

The world is a mess.

America has as a head someone mentally incompetent and Britain's PM is buffoon. Israel hasn't been able to form a government and Venezuela and Brazil have major problems. Never mind problems in Poland, Turkey and Philippines. Hong Kong demonstrations make the gillets jaunes in France look mild.

Forest fires, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes (many from fracking) abound.

Flint, MI still has poison water. Much of the earth's drinking water is bad never mind the oil being dumped into the Gulf of Mexico.

Mass shootings are much too regular.

Kids are in cages, Yemen kids are starving and the best spokesman for climate action is a an articulate 16 year old Swedish girl who has a better command of English than some Anglophones.

Just scanning the news is depressing.

Trying to sane and to live a life worth living is hard against this backdrop.

I am one of the blessed ones that are not suffering any of the ills, not through any action on my part but by being born in the right place at the right time and making some good decisions by accident.

I can wake next to my husband and dog. We can cuddle and read (not the dog, he chews on a toy), drink tea.

I can wander down the street for bread still warm from the oven and whatever fresh fruit and veggies. I will pass cafés where I might see friends from France, Ireland, England, Scotland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and even the US and stop and share a cuppa and conversation.

I will be able to spend the day reading, writing, (no 'rithmetic unless paying bills which I have the money for), being entertained in a variety of ways. Household chores may about the only personal downtime. Oh darn, the dishwasher needs emptying.

When we go home to Geneva, I walk out our door and look at the Jura and Lake Leman. I turn the corner to see the Alps.

In both places the world problems are the same.

I do care about the ills of the world. I've taken on some causes and kid that I should be renamed Donna Quixote. I will never meet the little Swedish girl standard. I try and be a kind neighbor. We share what we can.

The secret is to try and find inner peace and gratitude for all that I have while not doing a ostrich-sand thingie. This balance can be hard to locate.