One flower is enough today for what I have on my mind.  For weeks I've been trying to avoid writing about the President.  My mind has been programmed to ignore what is happening in the White House. When I'm off by myself I find myself wondering if the stuff that is happening in my country is really happening or if perhaps I have wandered into a dream that I'm having a difficult time shaking myself free from...  something as impossible as the last few days have been.  

Last Saturday in Charlottesville was a turning point for me.  I thought surely the events of that day in that place would shake the President from his need to feel as if he is right when all the people around him in his family are saying something is wrong with our country.  His daughter and his son-in-law and their children are Jewish.  I thought surely the Neo-Nazi elements in the absurd events in that quiet city would force him to see the ugliness and the danger that others are seeing.  From this day I will not try to ignore the ugliness and the danger that is present in my country.

When I was walking from the building where I live over to the place where my friend Jim lives, I saw a simple, white, beautiful rose.  It is what it is.  There is nothing anyone could say that would make this rose less beautiful.  It is pure. The White House is going to become white again in my thinking about it.