On Sunday, Clio and I went for a walk in the garden, which thanks to the unusually warm weather is about three weeks early.
Clio basked in the sun while I dreaded many things, including a flight to Indianapolis scheduled the next day.
The flight was uneventful except that my glasses fell out of the seat pocket during takeoff and I spent the next two hours anxiously looking for and failing to find them. You can picture me crawling up and down the aisle using my phone as a flashlight. The flight attendant told me we could 'scour the plane' after everyone else had exited (sigh), which was not an enticing prospect on the verge of a global pandemic. But after we landed, a woman three rows back found them, and I felt happy to have them as I drove through the bracingly flat Indiana landscape. Living in New York, it's easy to forget that much of the country is flat and severe (yet still beautiful).
On first glance, the city seemed very generic, defined by highways and a cluster of skyscrapers. Rather than fixate on the eradication of what was apparently once a vibrant downtown African-American neighborhood, I admired the clean, wide busway and thought about a recent tweet (from a satirical account: the New York City mayor but good) announcing the creation of several new bus lanes to build on the success of 14th Street.
Imagine Broadway closed to cars — or at least private vehicle store — so that buses (and bikes) could fly up and down the island. It feels like a pipe dream, but why? It would clearly benefit more people than not. Why is it so difficult to get anything done in our country that doesn't involve weapons or punishing the poor? Incremental change is more frustrating than no change at all during a time when -- for any number of reasons -- more radical change is needed.
On the morning of Super Tuesday, I ran along the canal and thought about the primary elections unfolding all over the country. I had high hopes for Bernie a week earlier during the five seconds he was begrudgingly acknowledged as the front runner. ‘Anyone but Biden,’ I had thought countless times over the past eight months and then South Carolina happened. Now here we were, stuck with Biden, the most uninspiring candidate since John Kerry.
What could I do? The sunrise was beautiful in Indiana.
Back home, Zephyr enjoyed the March light.
And Elektra made plans for a future she wanted to see.
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