dual personalities

Yesterday’s news about Queen Elizabeth came as something of a shock, although upon reflection one couldn’t really be surprised. After all, she was 96. It’s just that for my entire life Queen Elizabeth ruled. To put that in perspective, someone on a Listserv I belong to wrote, “It is said that that less than ten percent of the world’s living population has known any other British monarch.” She was an anchor, the very pillar of normalcy. The parasitic media will talk about her endlessly, and I don’t want to add to the noise except to say that I feel very saddened by her passing. It feels as if we have been cut off not so much from the queen herself, but from all that she lived through — the Great Depression, WWII, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Swinging ’60s, the embarrassingly bad ’70s, Glasnost — and now we are stuck, rudderless in this crazy, warped, and weird present. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like feeling as if the 20th century has receded into unreachable history because that means that the greater part of my life has as well.

Whatever you think about monarchy or the royal family, no one can say that the queen did not earn her rest. She served her people unselfishly and with great devotion throughout her entire life. Into paradise may the angels sing thee.

In oddly related news, our very own Chris and Nicole head off today to start their two week honeymoon, starting in England, then moving on to Scotland and Iceland. We hope they travel safely and manage to have fun despite the disruption of national mourning. Make no mistake, most people in the UK loved their queen and will feel lost without her. King Charles will have a hard time taking his mother’s place.

Have a good weekend and keep the faith. The world is a strange, sad place, but there’s plenty of good in it as well. Let’s go find it!

*Horace, Odes (1st cen. BC)