“I’m tired, boss. Tired of being on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. I’m tired of never having me a buddy to be with to tell me where we’s going to, coming from, or why. Mostly, I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world…every day. There’s too much of it. It’s like pieces of glass in my head…all the time. Can you understand? …”  Stephen King, The Green Mile

Stephen King is masterful at putting words together in such a way that we can viscerally feel them. Right now I find this quote from The Green Mile speaking to how I feel on some days. I too am tired of people being ugly to each other. It is contrary to who I am as a person and yet it seems to have become so pervasive in our society of the moment. The most horrific peddler of ugliness is our President of the United States who enjoys insulting people over and over again, most especially women and people who have the temerity to disagree with him. 

I am so tired. I have enjoyed a good life and for most of my days on this earth I found ways to be optimistic even during the most trying times. I seriously had no idea that there was an underbelly of pain in the world so horrible that it would one day reveal itself in the poisonous taunts of a man whose job should be to help us live together, listen to one another, and find mutually created ways to insure that all Americans enjoy the fruits of our democracy. Instead I watch the horror of the undoing of our common decency and willingness to work together while seeing the growth of the hatefulness that no longer festers in the dark. 

I recently returned from a sojourn in Maine, the home of Stephen King. I was enlivened there in the beauty that seemed to to surround me. I stayed in a little cabin with the windows open both day and night so that breezes swept across my face. I heard the wind whispering through the pines and listened to the everyday voices of people staying nearby. I had a bed, a two burner stove, a small refrigerator, a bathroom and a heater to chase away the cold at night. I realized that it was all that I really needed to feel comfortable and happy and I began to wonder why we humans seem to require more and more luxury to feel the joy that I realized in that tiny place that took me back to the basics of what we humans need. It made me realize that all of us may a be a bit too selfish in terms of sharing our good fortune. 

I thought of how that small cabin might become a haven for someone who is homeless. I realized that most of us only need a tiny bit of the riches that we have to feel safe and secure and satisfied and yet we fight over the idea of contributing for the welfare of all. We want to keep as much of our wealth as possible even as it becomes more and more apparent as we grow old that we cannot take any of it with us. 

I stood on a rocky shoreline not far from that cabin and witnessed the glory of nature as a strong wind from the ocean blew across my face. I thought of the thousands of years that those rocks had been weathered by forces that carved and changed them. I wondered about the people who had once stood where I was in the long ago. I somehow believed that what they wanted from life was probably not that different than my own desires. Somehow as our lives became easier than ever before in history we seem to have become too focused on artificial ways of being happy, methods for medicating our feelings with things. We party in extravagance while somewhere in the world there is great poverty and suffering and we only shrug at the suggestion that maybe we might spend less on frivolities and more on lifting others out of the horrific situations that seem to be drowning them. 

I suppose that I am a far too serious person. I lost the innocence of my childhood when I was eight and my father died. I felt the yoke of responsibility descend over me. I became more and more aware of how the people around me were feeling. I was able to channel my old soul into the profession of teaching where I shared my hopes and beliefs that everyone has the right to a safe and secure life. 

I felt good in that little cabin in Maine. I thought of Stephen King while I was there and understood how that place has always provided inspiration for him. Life was slow enough and simple enough to rest and clear my head. It is only in returning to the hubbub inflicted on the world day in and day out by a wealthy bully who somehow became the leader of our nation that I grow weary again. I witness his ugliness and how it inspires an underbelly of our society to be just as cruel and and I feel that glass in my head. I too am tired of the pain. Can you understand?