Life has been overwhelming the last couple of years. My
personal experience has been that the isolation brought on by the covid
pandemic has made me starved for human interaction, but it is difficult to get
out and be with people when you know you might catch covid and die as a result.
Yes, I am vaccinated, and boosted. So were both my kids when they got covid, and
they are young, but I am old, which makes me vulnerable. I find that fear of
death puts a real damper on my enthusiasm for socializing.
Then there is Mr. Putin’s war. I am heartsick, as are
millions of people – heartsick that this irrational, pointless aggression is
causing the deaths of thousands of people, many of them innocent civilians, and
destruction of the Ukrainian homeland, and for what? So Mr. Putin can have the
pleasure of waving his little Russian dick around? This is not reason enough to
die or kill. But here we are.
Then there are the shootings in America, of which we have a sporadic
flurry of awareness, which soon gets superseded by another news cycle or
singing competition, so we forget until the next time. Right now the slaughter
of innocents in Uvalde, Texas, is uppermost in our minds. Children. Beautiful,
innocent children, cut down by another child with an AR-15. What will we do
about it? I’m waiting to see.
The January 6 hearings in Congress remind us of the
brutality of that day. What we have here in this country is a lot more than a
mere division of people, but what may be a terminal illness of the American
experiment.
I almost forgot to mention climate change.
Whew.
Life is difficult – an easy day is the exception, not the norm
– but this persistent, ongoing high stress and dismay, and the way it keeps
piling on top of our regular lives (which are hard enough) is wearing some of
us down, adults and children alike.
But now comes Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. God bless her. She has served seventy years on the throne. She promised to dedicate her life to serving her people, and she has done that.
She grew up with parents who loved her, and for the first
ten years of her life did not bear the weight of expecting to become the
monarch. Her Uncle David, Edward the VIII, screwed that up, although that may
have been a lucky escape for the world, considering his sympathy for Hitler. In
Edward’s place we got Bertie, Elizabeth’s father, who became George VI, and
when he passed, we got Queen Elizabeth II.
When I say “we,” I mean the whole world, not just Britain. She
is the only British monarch I remember. I was born in 1948, and by the time I
was aware that there was an England, and she was its queen, her presence was
something I took for granted. She has always been there, steady, gracious,
non-dramatic, doing her duty, surrounded by people whose lives are all about
serving her, protecting her, making sure everything runs smoothly. She is the
center of what her family calls The Firm, and all the people who depend on The
Firm for their livelihoods.
Many Americans are fascinated by the Queen and her family,
including me at times. I got up in the middle of the night to watch Charles and
Diana’s wedding. Years later I got up in the middle of the night to watch Diana’s
funeral service, with my mouth hanging open as Diana’s brother Charles, Earl
Spencer, tore the Royal Family a new one for the way they treated Diana.
The Royals. They distract us, amuse us, outrage us, remind
us of a time and a way of life that has been dead and gone for decades.
Centuries.
I speculate that many Americans today would prefer to be happy
subjects of the crown, with all the questions that would answer, knowing royal
rule as familiar and comfortable. It is fun to watch and feel ownership for
people who live lives so different than our own. Apparently. When I think of
all the political scandals and wars over which QEII has reigned, I am sure that
America’s political and imperialistic hijinks would have been usual days at the
office for her.
Our story would be so different if there had been no
Revolution, although I think that we might have done as most of the rest of the
British empire and declared ourselves independent nations by now. I like to
think I’d be living in the country of Baja Canada, with its three states,
Oregon, California, and something other than Washington, because he was a hero
of the Revolution.
Anyway: Queen Elizabeth II. God bless her. She has given
seventy devoted, stable, consistent years as Queen. Seventy years of living her
life in service to her people, inspiring us and being one stable fact in this
unstable world. She will live in history as an example of the best of us.
If we have a history.
