Sunshine and Olly

by Jonathan Blaustein

Quick one today.

I was just out walking the dogs, on a sunny-blue-sky morning.

Man, does good weather make a difference.

I got to thinking, and my mind wandered to my trip to Amsterdam, in late February 2020.

I was there to supervise publication of my book, and Covid was making its initial march across the globe.

So little was known.

This was two to three weeks before global lockdowns began.

Each time I came back to my hotel room, I carefully took off my exterior clothing, and left it by the door.

Then, I washed my hands furiously.

Every time.

Yet as I walked the streets and enjoyed myself, I’d stop into crowded coffee shops, and smoke weed in the company of strangers.

We were pressed together, sharing air in small spaces, which was infinitely more dangerous than anything on my hands or clothing.

Within a month, people were wiping down their mail with bleach, but going into crowded grocery stores without masks on.

Like Rummy once said, it’s the unknown unknowns that get you.

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However, when you think about it, every day we live with a fraction of the information available to the world.

Even the smartest of us knows nothing, compared to all there is to know.

Much less all the things that nobody knows?

I was thinking about this the other day too, after Theo and I drove down our dirt road, returning from town.

A huge red-tailed hawk swooped into a neighbor’s field, and then rose with a snake in its mouth.

Like, right in front of us!

We watched the bird land on a tree branch, up above, with the snake dangling down.

Theo said, “Make America Mexico Again,” and I laughed so hard.

It’s a brilliant joke.

As Mexico City’s founding was based on the story that Aztecs, heading down from Northern Mexico, found an Eagle with a snake in its mouth, sitting on a cactus, and thereby founded Tenochtitlan.

We live in a part of America that was Mexico, up until 1846.

Little did my neighbors’ ancestors know a tide was coming, back then, which would change everything about the context of their lives.

Seriously: who the fuck knew the country they lived in would change, based upon the whims of some greedy politicians?

Or that my son and I would be living on the land, nearly 200 years later?

Let’s end this one here:

Life is big and complicated.

We don’t know how it will turn out.

So don’t be afraid to take a chance, now and again.

Live a little.

Catch you next time.