Crazy

I haven’t been writing lately, which is often the case when I can’t find anything positive to say. This page is only about being positive. Foro, my little stuffed cow, is about allowing myself to be childlike and to see the world with hope and love. Sometimes it’s harder to do than others.

I was sitting next to a rather beautiful man on the train today. He had a huge Afro of the kind I haven’t seen since the end of the ’70’s (yes, I’m that old). He had a sort of stylish look, designer casual. He started talking to himself. I thought at first that he was on the phone, but then it became just the diatribe of a crazy person, spoken in quite good English with an African accent (just by looking at him and hearing his voice, probably West Africa, Nigeria maybe). There is lots of space on the train today, so I just got up and moved to another compartment without engaging with him.

Today I had pity, and no anger, and I just wished the poor man had help from someone. Who knows why he was crazy (why is anyone crazy?) Sometimes I get huffy about people talking loudly on the train or making more noise than is polite in a public space. Today I had sympathy.

There is so much hurt going on right now with COVID. There are those dying, getting sick or losing their jobs. There’s a lot of stress and fear and changes. Trump won’t leave office in the US, but he’s no longer governing, which means the pandemic is running free over there. In my country, my school is staying open with a sort of individual lock downs; as students are quarantined we try to teach them at home at the same time we are teaching in class, which is hard. In the area where my school is, the pandemic is raging, with the highest infection rates of all of Europe.

It’s a scary time, but if we can remember to have sympathy, and care about the people around us, even the crazy ones, then we might get through this without it all blowing up in our faces. That is my message for today, remember have sympathy. Remember to care. Remember to have patience.