Sunshine and Olly

by Jonathan Blaustein

Hello there.

How’s it going?

Is Spring almost upon you, as I opined in Monday’s post?

It’s coming here, rapidly, but in all honesty, that’s not a good thing.

April is typically one of the two grayest, windiest months of the year. (Which goes great with taxes, and community ditch-cleaning.)

Normally, it’s something to bitch about, but then quickly get past, as other than April and November, here in Taos, we get plenty of sunshine and blue skies.

Famously, Taos Ski Valley used to advertise 330 days of sun a year as a part of the marketing materials.

However, there’s this pesky phenomenon out there called Climate Change.

And it happens to be… you know… changing the climate?

I fucking hate it.

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Back when we lived in New York, (which was admittedly a long time ago,) I used to sing a song to Jessie.

It was all about despair, and hope, in the midst of the long-ass winters.

It went something like this…

“Waitin’ for the sunshine. Waitin’ for the sunshine. Tired of the gray days. Tired of the gray days. Oh, but it ain’t comin’, it ain’t comin’ soon. No, it ain’t comin’, it ain’t comin’, soon.”

I gave it a bluesy, country twang, and to be honest, I was not a very good singer.

(Slightly better now, but not by much.)

Lately, Jessie and I have been discussing how hard it is to feel good, after the sun has been gone since November.

No lie, I can remember about 3 truly gorgeous days, in nearly 5 months.

It is gray for weeks on end now.

Thanks a lot, Climate Change. You fucking asshole!

Now I’m wondering if this is the new normal?

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I admit, a lot of people have it worse.

There are floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, mud slides.

It’s bad out there, in a lot of places.

Hell, the NYT just did a story about climate change refugees moving to Duluth, MN, seemingly oblivious to the lack of sun and extreme cold. (Shout out to Jenn Ackermann for the great photos.)

One sucker admitted to moving there, to escape Colorado wildfire smoke, only to discover a fresh batch in MN, which had wafted down from Canada.

As I’ve previously written here, everything is connected.

Ecosystems.
The Universe.
Humanity.

If we accept that obvious reality, it makes everything easier.

Because it’s definitely harder to be as anti-social as Americans have been, the past few years, if you accept we’re all in this together.

(Except for Elon Musk. He can fuck off to Mars.)

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