May 26, 2020: Where I Sit -

You may remember the post on stance adverbials called Where You Sit Is Where You Stand.

It was all about how our stance on things is determined by our circumSTANCES, the things that surround us, the things that happen to us.

Still true, witness the numerous news pieces this weekend about an incident from two weeks ago, where a person in a store on Staten Island was “berated” by other shoppers for failing to wear a mask.  What made this event interesting is that Staten Island is two things at once:  the reddest of New York City’s five boroughs, and also the home of a lot of people who are service workers in the other boroughs, where the coronavirus has killed thousands of people.  

So those Staten Islanders who wanted their neighbor masked up were influenced both by the partisan divide, where in general Republicans are not masking as much as Democrats, and also by the proximity and visibility of a lot of death, and they, at least, went with what they were seeing and experiencing. Where they sat - or where they worked, and who they knew - influenced where they stood.

I now have a new place to sit, featured in the photo. I don’t mean that I am sitting out on the front porch, but rather that I am sitting in a brand new chair made by my talented husband, who took up woodworking with hand tools last year, just in time to have a hobby perfectly suited to sheltering in place..

Isn’t it a beauty? Look at the detail. 

Also, it was custom made, so it’s exactly the right length for my legs. (The chair legs had to be shortened twice to make this happen. It was exciting. And it all worked out.)

So I sit somewhere new – I am writing this post while sitting on my new chair - but so far, my stance hasn’t changed. I was pro-Rick before, and I am pro-Rick still.