The sky is gray, with tinges of smokey black and off-white. Wind gusts, bending bendable plants nearly to the ground, spraying falling leaves like missles released from fighter jets. Rain comes in splatters and squalls, slinging cold, wet needles of water everywhere.
I am at my sister's place in the pretty town of St. Marys. She is away on volunteer duties, with a paid staff member. The house hums with life support to run the heat, humidifer, refridgerator, stove clock....all things that operate via electricity, which is pumped without interruption into each and every home.
Earlier we walked to the Community Center to swim in a bromide salt pool to the tune of $4.75 a pop. How do people with less disposable income access these facilities? Apparently they can go to whomever is in charge of such things, cap in hand, to say they want to have their children/family/themselves enrolled in an aquatics program. Imagine, if you will, just what it would be like to have to beg to swim in the local pool ~ the pool that your taxes help to maintain. Yes, you have a job. Yes, you pay rent. Yes, you can cloth and feed your family. But. There is little left over for outside activities. Like swimming.
The sky is gray, as is the day and my thoughts, as they turn to the many people who scud across the vast sky of indifference to those who struggle, daily, to make ends meet.
