Deny, deny, deny. You name it, and someone is out there disbelieving in it, whether it’s systemic racism or a killer virus. It’s rather like a Laurel and Hardy sketch in which a truculent moving man actively does not believe in the grand piano dangling above him perilously by a fraying rope. He will still be smashed flat when it falls on his head. Only it won’t be funny when it does.

The only remedy for these maddening times is to surround yourself with people who support you, who understand and nurture you, yet challenge you to keep your eyes open to hanging pianos and societal ills. Folks who help you work to make things better.

I am lucky to have a blessed few of these friends in my life, including (and especially) my co-bloggers, Ruth and Sue. There are times I think I’d go quite mad without them. Who keeps you sane? Why not give them a proper blessing today?

You may have to sort through galaxies
to find them, sift stars through your fingers
like glitter to hold and heft those
with the proper weight and gravity,
the right amount of sparkle,
the habit of making you glow,
illumined from within,
suddenly a sun.
You will know
you have found them
by the way your soul grows
to match and meet them, the way
you exceed yourself incrementally
under their care. Hold them close.
Though black holes loom, your constellation
will hold, delighting the heavens and luring wayward
planets into more stable orbits.