Outside is cold and rainy here. As of one PM today, yet another young man would be out on the street, if a couple had not accepted to shelter him tonight and tomorrow. Someone else will take over for the three nights following that, plus we’ll try to sort through the legal problems with him and a lawyer, while attempting to get some educational program going.

In the slew of shocked reactions to the American presidential contest, one anonymous someone called it a “victory for the dictatorship of cash”. An apt bit of verbal shorthand.

Prior to that – yesterday, in fact – I was reading about the hospital workers striking in Toulouse, following four suicides in their ranks. There, like everywhere else, the trend is to so-called “lean manufacturing” i.e. squeeze the staff until it croaks – sometimes literally – in the name of lowered costs. I don’t know that you can talk of profits in the hospital system but, who knows? What’s certain: money rules, everywhere. Meaning glut for a few, comfort for some, then a descending scale of misery for all the others.

***

Revising a depressing scene in depressing times: eh. Getting it right is what counts for the writer. Same as getting a drawing, a painting, a sculpture or a piece of music “right”. Getting it right because you can’t will ugliness away. Some forms of ugliness are the enemy. You can’t ignore the enemy, unless you’ve conceded the victory to him. (And why would you do that?)

***

Shelters from the storms. At the two monthly meetings I attend where we discuss the tougher situations we encounter as social workers, school nurses, teachers, teachers’ aids or other caregivers, I find myself pulling out the colored crayons when the topics dip down below depressing. I draw colored borders around my notes. Frames, geometrical patterns. Art? No. Color. Order. Patterns. And, sometimes, bits of resolution, paths to explore. Solutions, even? Sometimes.

***

Bottom line: Don’t let the boogymen get ‘ya. They don’t deserve your soul or anyone else’s.

This was a pep talk to self. A kind of word-shelter. (Ah? the rain has stopped, at least for now).

Allez.