I could watch Gretchen and her pups all day. Good breeders are like good rescue people – a joy to behold.

A lot of people talk about hard times and suffering these days, and there is a lot of suffering, anxiety and uncertainty. Watching the news requires psychological centering and health. I watch my little stock roll up and down every day, and think of it as animate, a signal out to the world, fragile and buffeted by global forces, company earnings, government statistics,  and crazy politicians.

History is my hobby, though, when I’m not writing and taking pictures and hanging out with Maria (my favorite new extracurricular activity). And reading it, I wonder sometimes about American notions of hard times. I read a novel about the British during World War II last week. And before that, two books about Russia in the 21st century, where tens of millions of people were slaughtered, imprisoned, starved to death.

I read a novel about a Polish family chased and murdered all across Europe. And one about Europe during the plague. There are actually few cheerful history books, fewer upbeat novels. I want my short stories to be uplifting, not depressing. One can’t draw too much solace from the fact that other people suffered more. If you lose your job or business and are struggling to keep your home and pay your bills, those are hard times. Not for anyone to say they are not.

Still, history is important to me for my own perspective, it’s important to know human history. My grandmother would laugh at the idea that these are hard times. She saw much of her family killed, and was smuggled out of Russia in a chocolate barrel. Whenever we took a walk, and she saw a police car, she would throw herself in front of me to hide me from the authorities. I never did persuade her that I wasn’t in danger.

And then, there is Haiti. And the horrible tragedies of Africa. Nothing much I can add to that.

There is a great deal of hardship and anxiety. It is all around. And times are very hard for very many people. But perspective is important too. I feel strongly that we can affect our lives in many ways that people before us could not. And perspective is important to me. Good times follow bad ones, as light follows darkness. One makes the other possible. Reading history has taught me that.