If I told you that I don't particularly enjoy bringing you daily updates from the front, would you believe me?
There are hundreds, thousands, millions of topics that would fill this space rather than continue to mine each fresh disgrace, each new scandal, each massive challenge to the human spirit that I could choose to write about rather than fishing around in the drain for the freshest goo to lay out in front of my dear readers.
I had this inkling that I could use this space to bring some much-needed fresh air to a world that is sorely lacking just that. I also had a notion that I could spend the summer trying to stop the wars that rage across the globe. I could campaign to keep fluoride in our water supply.
I could try to solve income inequality.
Instead of pushing on all those buttons that we already know, I could be striking a blow for the have-nots. Instead of languishing in the doldrums, I could be shedding light. I find it difficult to be waking up in the wee hours of the morning with an axe to grind. Sharing my own attempts with tilting at windmills seems like a noble pursuit if I am not simply rehashing the fetid reality that lurks just outside all of our front doors. I want to be part of a solution.
So I am going to try and pursue some happy stories for a while. Like the one where my son sat down with his parents last weekend for just a few minutes, thanking us for being dependable. We have maintained a place for us, for our family, in a world that doesn't always reward that kind of mild consistency. A home where thoughts and feelings can be expressed and we still say "I love you" when it's time to part ways.
This does not feel like I am putting an end to conflict in the Middle East, but it will have to do as a start. There is a crack in everything, Leonard Cohen once wrote, that's how the light gets in.