an end

and a

beginning

I bought the lilies on January 11 to mark the death of Sheldon Adelson – a one-percenter who has funded the worst in our politics. And today, one of those worsts, the 45th president, became gone.
But then, by 11:59 am, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had been sworn-in to become the new President and the new Vice President.

By today, all the blooms had opened and for two days, I’ve lived in nasal congestive hell. But I wanted to have the lilies there for the inauguration; I wanted something that I had purchased to celebrate a death, become a symbol of new life.

Today, in the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman wrote an amazing op-ed.
And he opens the piece with absolutely elegant writing.

Folks, we just survived something really crazy awful: four years of a president without shame, backed by a party without spine, amplified by a network without integrity, each pumping out conspiracy theories without truth, brought directly to our brains by social networks without ethics – all heated up by a pandemic without mercy.