After a long absence, civility is returning

My father had a philosophy concerning tight shoes. The sum of it being that you suffered them because it felt so good when you took them off. I, and many others, with shoulders hunched against the president’s latest impulse or insult, or with disgust at one of his childish rants, have gone on with our lives as best we could. Limited by the coronarius and the innumerable, unnecessary deaths, we, who instinctually recoil at each threat to our democracy, may now draw deep breaths and sleep. For, aware or not, a part of us has been awake watching no matter how carelessly we breathe and sleep.

With our nation’s tradition of individual freedom, exercise of compassion and promotion of the general welfare, removing children from parents and incarcerating them; tear gassing nonviolent protesters; running roughshod over accepted protocols of proper presidential behavior; and insulting former allies are foreign acts from an elected leader who is meant to set the example.

There were high stakes in this past election. And for a time, it did seem as if the powers of hate and destruction had too solid a foothold. The question, of course, being when and if enough disgusted citizens would stand up and say, “enough.”

In the end they did. And the pinch of those painful shoes is fading.

Already I feel it in my shoulders, which have begun to relax. I feel it in a sudden lightheartedness that begins to plan and look forward rather than continually note the president’s latest outrage. Each violation of the sanctity of decency, decorum and civil rights promises to no longer be the focus of the day’s news cycle.

The sun is shining again and social progress and our best intentions can move forward. Sensible solutions promoted by those with education and experience may earn respect. And those equipped to offer them will no longer be scorned. Masks will be worn; the virus taken as seriously as its lifedestroying powers warrant.

Unfortunately, there still lingers a strain of distrust and wariness surrounding Joe Biden. He is too gentle, too softspoken, too accommodating of other’s points of view. He is too old. Age alone with its frailties and foibles should be enough to disqualify him. But the above qualities, which will sometimes try our patience, are precisely what is needed.

This country is ripe for healing after four too-long years of fever and fears. And in the seemingly boring four years to come, we may breathe and recover. President Donald Trump has been an aberration. He has been a cataclysm we checked in time. Above all, by his disregard for human dignity and the rule of law upon which the foundation of our democracy rests, by default he has shown us what we prize by its long absence.