Sitting in the cafe of the Boston Public Library last Friday for the broadcast of Boston Public Radio Live, it was hard not to be excited when David Hogg Zoomed in for an interview with Jim Braude and guest host Andrea Cabral. Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland High School mass shooting of 2018, co-founder of March for Our Lives and Leaders We Deserve, spoke eloquently and convincingly of the importance of enlisting and working to elect a new generation of leaders in local, state, and federal government positions.

There is excitement in the air while a new figure takes center stage as the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. The race seems very close right now, and the results may likely hinge on voter turnout – specifically, on the turnout of women and young people in battleground states.

Whatever our reaction to the current state of affairs, we can’t complain of boredom! Every day seems to bring more surprises, some frightening, some exciting. Many, as we’ve noted before, totally out of our control.

By the time you read this letter, President Biden may still be the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, or he may not. Whether that decision is still being made is likely a topic of many conversations among your family members and friends, but how you feel about it will have no effect on the ultimate decision. There will be no vote about whether or not Joseph Biden remains the Democrats’ nominee. That will be decided by Joseph Biden, his family, and his advisers, pushed by members of Congress and the media. We have absolutely no say and no recourse. That leaves many of us feeling at sea.

We’ve lost a lot of sleep during the last few days. Our anxiety levels have been high as we’ve struggled with feelings of helplessness about our country’s political situation. The post-debate angst and confusion made us even more frightened and nervous about our future.

There are less than five months, 145 days, or about 3,480 hours, until Election Day 2024: November 5. What are we each going to do until then to try to make a difference? How many of us are feeling energized by the latest developments, domestic and international? How many of us are bone tired and discouraged?

This may not be on your Spring reading list, but it’s worth at least a few minutes of our time. The National Urban League’s 2024 report on the state of Black America focuses on The Civil Rights Act of 1964, 60 years later.

Most of us know who will get our vote in the presidential election, and, therefore, whose campaign we may contribute to. But what about the down ballot? Particularly in other states.

Last week, I watched the Oscar-nominated movie, Zone of Interest. It’s a Holocaust movie unlike any other Holocaust movie I’ve seen. And, trust me, I’ve watched more than my share of Holocaust movies. They are fodder for Jewish angst. What partially distinguishes this movie is that there are no images of concentration camp internees, no glimpses inside the gas chambers, no heart-wrenching cries of children torn from their mothers’ arms as they debark the trains upon arrival at Auschwitz.

Super Tuesday is over and now our attention is focused on the November elections. The dye is firmly cast and the race will all but surely be between former president Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden. Polls show the race as close; pundits are floating various theories about the outcome.

We have good news and bad news.

Bad news first.

While I was walking through a beautiful flower garden last week with my five-year-old granddaughter (in a land far away from New England), she asked to pick one of the pink blooms. Just one, she insisted. I, of course, gave the standard line about how if everyone picked even just one, soon there would be none for people to see and enjoy.

On Sunday, March 3rd, Leading Ladies will have our first appearance at a brewery. We will be at Night Shift in Everett with a table full of materials designed to encourage the young patrons to register to vote and show up at the polls. We of gray and white hair are bringing along some younger souls to give us added credibility.

Admit it. What are the first images that come to mind when you hear the words affordable housing? The very first thoughts, before your politically correct filter edits your response? Unkempt backyards? Crowded apartments? Lowered property values? Deteriorating schools?

We tried. We really tried to take a break from the news during the holidays. We limited watching MSNBC, listening to NPR, reading the Globe and the New York Times. One of our phones even reported screen time down almost 30 percent.

Nonpartisan, according to Merriam Webster Dictionary, means “not partisan, especially: free from party affiliation, bias, or designation.” Disinterested, dispassionate, equitable, impartial and indifferent are a few of the suggested synonyms. Leading Ladies was founded with the promise that we would be nonpartisan by not endorsing any candidate or political party. We would take a stance on issues, however, and those positions might sometimes, and even often, ally with particular candidates, and even one party, more than another.

Everyone has an opinion about statistics. There are those who stake their lives on them and those who ignore them summarily. Mark Twain is famous for reputedly saying, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics,” though he attributed the words to British Premier Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

“The reality is that people with mental illness account for a very small proportion of perpetrators of mass shootings in the U.S., says Ragy Girgis, MD, associate professor of clinical psychiatry in the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, in a recent issue of the Columbia Psychiatry News.

At least a handful of mobile phones lit up last Wednesday night with news of an in-progress mass shooting in Maine while our audience at The Cabot listened to a panel of experts speak about the US gun violence crisis. As if on cue, and as if we all needed a reminder of how frequent and devastating mass shootings are, a lone shooter was killing at least 18 people with a semi-automatic rifle (AR-15 style) in a bar and a bowling alley less than three hours north of us.

This week, it is difficult to think or write about anything other than the war in the Middle East.