Disturbing world events cloud the bright spring light. Beyond sending money to the Red Cross and thoughts to affected friends, I feel powerless. Worried about Japan and now Libya and anxious for word on the 4 missing New York Times journalists, I check the news almost obsessively. In recent years, my dose has been kept to a minimum fix of BBC, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert – but these days I find myself switching wildly between the network news stations. Tricky how commercials are timed to run simultaneously – the mute button the only way to avoid the advertising bombardment.
When I lived in Croatia and Bosnia, CNN and the British, Sky News were the only available international new sources. I appreciate the 24 hour-ness of CNN – but what’s with the scary, music constantly playing as the news people talk? And the bizarre touch-boards of maps and charts? Colbert and Stewart have spoofed this high-tech nonsense, so now, when John King enlarges, shrink, circles and stars, images of the Japanese nuclear plants, it seems comical – although the subject is anything but funny. It’s too much – the constant sound effects and nerve wracking music amping us up to “Be afraid! Be very, very afraid!”, not so subliminally. Flipping over to BBC, a perfectly nice and normal woman with a too-shiny purple shirt (obviously, and refreshingly they seem to have no wardrobe people) sits at her desk and delivers the news, shifting, without fanfare, to field correspondents. No charts, no holograms. Same thing with the PBS stations – while sometimes soporific, they just present straightforward news. Everything is scary enough these day, we don’t need these guys yelling at us.
I feel a little guilty looking away from it all and feeling pleasure at the shift of the seasons out of winter. But there is so much to be done in the garden and family and friends need attention – and it is okay to feel the joy in this. Didn’t I learn that already? In any case, I need to catch up on things. Like clearing last year’s leaves, planning this year’s garden. And yesterday, I was reminded about — forgive me for being so mundane — clothing.
Although only March 18, yesterday turned into a weird, way-too-warm, too-early day. Dressing for work in the dark morning hours, I pulled on wooly socks, corduroys and a sweater. By the time I left the bookstore in the afternoon, everyone was in shorts and flip-flops. How did they make the switch from winter fleeces to summer frocks so quickly? My plastic bins of summer clothes are buried in the basement and the shifting-of-the-clothes is a major weekend undertaking. Anyway, although I can see from my window, a patch of daffodils in bloom, I am cautious and will not bury my sweaters just yet.