Things are ever increasingly dire, it seems, but we must not lose heart. As they say, “Joy is resistance.” And in a cosmic way of thinking, the focus of our energy is important. If we are despairing, we are energetically fueling the fireball from hell currently circling the globe.

Some say things have always been screwed up on our planet. But I say: the planet was never melting before. For one thing. And US democracy? Come on. This is unprecedented.

Yes, dire: it’s been absolutely boiling at the French tennis open and elsewhere. Less dire: what’s with Americans wearing their jammies all over the place? While getting your mail on Saturday, okay. But mowing the lawn? Flying commercial? Come on, people, let’s pull it together. There’s no need to attend a sporting event in your onesie. Tighten it up.

But I curb my grumbling, dear Reader. It’s been proven that bad moods are contagious. One glum person can bring down several others who were actually in a fine mood. So if you have to unload, unload on someone who is just as down as you? I know exactly whom to call when I want to grouse, and whom to call when I want to laugh. Let us now strive now for the latter. 

Thoughts to uplift (and separate):

They now make better underwear for all sexes. Bras, too (the Bro/Mansiere).

It’s the time when mulching still looks fresh and pretty across the Land.

Farmers markets have begun!  Music, neighborly merriment, delicacies.

Renewed interest remains in ukes, accordions, and tubas. Next up: Sousaphones. (A girl can dream, can’t she?)

Tech still has merits. If you go to the ocean, you don’t have to call your friends with the beach hours and amusingly peculiar, if tedious, list of what is not allowed — you just text a photo of the sign with that info. And Shazam the infectious song heard in a shop. Boom.

They make better makeup now, just in the years when some of us need same, all “cruelty-free” – not that we want to know just what this means. Try the “liquid matte” lipsticks. Brilliant!

During Covid, little kids seemed generally wary (due to … masked humans? … an atmosphere of doom and paranoia?). If you smiled at them, they scowled. Now I encounter kiddies being downright friendly. Do you?

Those terrible colognes that turned teenagers into human air fresheners are on the decline.

At present, there is no pandemic here. We need not “follow protocols” around masks, distancing, OCD-caliber handwashing, or donating money and time here. Let our energies shift instead to Ebola in Africa (and Hantavirus worldwide; stay tuned), with the insane dissolution of USAID and bizarre governance of the CDC likely leading to predicted 9 million+ avoidable deaths by 2030. Geez, Americans were doing so much good, and we didn’t even know it, most of us. In what other ways are we still doing good that we don’t know about, I wonder? Let’s spread that news.

‘Tis spring! We must not devolve willingly. Put up a fight, people. Let us endeavor together to think pleasant thoughts, early and often. Contact someone who might get us out of the hole with outstretched arms and a bucket of laffs. Be that person for someone else.

Let’s pray for the scientists solving contagion threats, shall we? And for nations to change behaviors around global warming. And for humanity in general to evolve and be less grabby and mean, using religion as an excuse to torture and kill. And to allow all people equal freedoms.

Consider this: today’s Modern Tymes becomes tomorrow’s Olden Tymes – let us create something now for us all to become (eventually) nostalgic about, shall we? Good day.

Ann Aikens’ comical, uplifting book of advice, A Young Woman’s Guide to Life: A Cautionary Tale, is available online and in Vermont shops, the audiobook on Amazon.  She has written her Upper Valley Girl column since 1996. Find more of her writing at uppervalleygirl.com; speaking events/radio show info at annaikens.com.