As you probably know, I’m a look-at-the-bright-side, if-life-gives-you-lemons-make-lemonade kind of person – in my real life, and also in my writing. But yesterday, as I was trying to write my blog for this week, I was having more trouble than usual seeing any “bright side” in the world right now.

A new, deadly virus that originated in China has killed hundreds of people and is starting to spread across the globe. Every day brings news of more cases and casualties, and included among the dead is the doctor who first sounded the alarm about it and was originally silenced by the government.

Dangerous weather is still threatening many parts of the country. I spent a good portion of Thursday listening to Emergency Alerts on my phone, warning of tornado watches and warnings, and flash floods. Although we didn’t experience the worst of any storms, we did spend much of the day watching our back yard start to resemble Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes. And the next day, we saw a number of downed trees – most likely from the combination of Thursday’s rain and Friday’s wind.

For other stormy news, we have only to look to the Continental Divide, also known as Washington, D.C., where the cold front grows worse every day, and the continuing deep freeze makes me wonder if our government officials will ever work together for our benefit again, or just continue fighting each other and doing whatever they think they need to do to get reelected.

I’m doing my best to come up with a “bright side” to write about, but I’m still not feeling it, especially after spending part of this morning and most of the afternoon on the phone – on hold, actually – trying to get to the bottom of a problem with the new computer we bought just a few weeks ago.

The problem seems to be fixed now, so maybe I should start there and be grateful for that. And I should remind myself that, as the saying goes, “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” So if things seem to be at their worst right now, they have to start getting better soon.

With that in mind, I will hope and pray that the global medical community is working diligently both to stop the spread of the coronavirus, and to find a cure. I will hope and pray that both Mother Nature and our political leaders will soon – or at least sometime in the foreseeable future – bring us a pleasant forecast and weather that is much calmer and more agreeable than it is right now.  And I will hope and pray, with as much optimism as I can muster, that we are all able to look forward to safe and sunny days ahead.

February 8, 2020
©Betty Liedtke, 2020

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