Renaissance man

I hear people saying they are bored or feeling trapped because they must shelter in place and while I know this is not easy there are things to be learned.

We have an entire generation who equates living with running around from one place to another, eating out, competing, trying to impress our peers and please our bosses. And while it is good to be fit and social, the world did not get where it is by people doing only that.

In the past the people who frenetically worked day in and day out were the serfs, the peasants, the factory workers whose children began work at eight years old and expected to spend the rest of their lives trying to survive by running from work to home and trying to please their "betters."

The more fortunate ones had time to read and study, paint, create, write poetry and plays, invent things, discover scientific wonders and maybe live comfortably, sleeping and eating at will.

Libraries are closed, but many of us have the internet and computers. We have places to live comfortably and are blessed to be relatively healthy right now. Let's take advantage of that and thrive where we are.

Protagoras said, "Man is the measure of all things."

Become the new Renaissance person.

The invisible killer

With a best case scenario approaching 100-200,000 dead from this virus, I don't think people in small towns across America are really taking this seriously.

They seem to look at it like a curfew for teenagers. How can I get around this and get my haircut, or have dinner with my family who live in different homes?  Or I only have one friend over today.

I heard one woman say she is worried about the kids socialization! She doesn't think it's healthy for them to be at home so long! We were on the phone so I asked her if she thought they would be better off dead. Her answer?

Maybe.

What kind of thinking is this? If there was a fire burning all around her would she feel the same way? What if rabid dogs were overrunning the country? Just because we can't see this virus, or it appears to be far away in Chicago or New York does not make it less dangerous. In fact it makes it more dangerous to have an invisible killer, one you may not even know you are carrying around.

I heard that all but one town in New York has cases now and NYC will be fining people $500 for not applying social distancing.

Each time one of us breaks that social distancing we are exposing ourselves to not just the person we are with, but with every person they have been with and all the people those people have been with. It is Russian Roulette with the lives of our loved ones.

It is really hard, but we all really have to try harder.

After while crocodile

As we move into another week of sheltering in place, I am beginning to feel the first real unease. I have been at home now for over three weeks minus voting and two trips to the store. I am not bored. I have plenty to do, but it is starting to feel real.

We are looking at a vastly different world ahead of us if we do this right.

The virus will not be gone in a month, or even a few months. This is one of those sci-fi events where the truth is bigger than most of us will like and we can't opt out.

Businesses are going to have to really consider what work at home looks like for them. It may be our new way of life for a considerable amount of time.

This isn't fear mongering. It is preparing for adaptation, for evolution, for the ability to deal with what is and learn to thrive.

Crocodilians have been around for 85 million years. We have not.

We don't have to become teeth gnashing, rotting meat eaters, but we will have to adapt.

As I lay dying

Every little sneeze, every little ache becomes the coronavirus now and if you run a temperature too? It is double the concern.

Fortunately the advice is the same in the beginning. Stay home. Don't contaminate others. Do all the healthy things you can.

That was my day today because last night I had a headache, every part of my body hurt and I had a very slight temperature.

Today I feel fine and have no temperature at all.

But I am taking no chances. My age and my health, both make me very vulnerable.

I did wonder last night. As I lay dying, or so I thought I might be, I wondered if our hospital had ventilators, if I am one of those patients they would choose not to treat, if this was my final few hours before the end.

It turned out to be a lot of drama about nothing, but that doesn't mean I should yield to that wild feeling that this is not real, or for some reason it won't touch me.

Feelings

My body seems to like this sheltering in and I am retired, so you might think it would be pretty much the same. but I woke up feeling good this morning. Good as in no real aches and pains, no depression, no bad dreams. I just felt like I did when I was ten.

I am trying to figure out what is different in my life besides sheltering in.

I quit drinking Diet Coke about a month ago. I quit taking a drug to increase my thinking processes about the same time. I stopped wearing any makeup or using face creams. I have been eating more salt and carbs than usual which, I'm sure, must be bad for my diabetes and kidneys. I am allowing myself to nap whenever I want and not getting as much exercise as they say I should.

And yet I feel so much better! My fingernails are growing. My skin seems clearer.

Whatever is going on, it feels right even if it seems wrong.

“The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.” ― Kalu Ndukwe Kalu

Our lovely leader is doing what he does best.

Protecting his assets.

He and his loyal cohorts say that by continuing the shut down the shock to the economy could hurt the country more than deaths and the virus.

While we all know that part of this reasoning is that the man who would be king believes his money will be enough to protect him and those wealthy enough to contribute to his happiness.

Losing thousands of people would lower the numbers on Social Security and dispose of many of the poor whose worth is right up there with the machinery that washes his dishes and cooks his food.

Unemployment would shrink between those dying and the jobs they leave open for others,

Money he weeps for, but not people.

Here is a man who barely hides the fact that he cares for nothing more than himself.

His legacy will be:

Here lies the man who tried to destroy America the beautiful.

Shall I compare thee to

I feel as if I should have some great inspiring words to share during this dark time, or perhaps some funny anecdote to make you laugh.

But I do not.

My life has become one that my forbears would recognize right away.

Everyday I get up and do the same things until I go to sleep at night. I do not see anyone except the geese that fly over, or the occasional squirrel that sticks his nose out to see if winter is really over.

My great great grandparents and relatives lived this way on their farms, except:

They were surrounded by large numbers of their children and they never even dreamed that one day there would be lights that came on with the flip of a finger. Lights that did not have to be refilled, or cleaned of soot everyday.

The idea that they might be able to speak to someone not in the same room, or general area they were in never occurred to them.

The possibility that words they wrote would be read seconds after they were sent to someone would have blown their minds.

Believing that food could be kept cold in a box in their house on the hottest day of the year would have felt foolish to them.

Listening to music played by people far far away might have felt like a dream and the possibility of watching plays in their front room, a fantasy beyond comprehension.

On the worst day of quarrantine, my life is still better than theirs was who had already buried babies because of measles, mumps, dysentery, and pyloric stenosis.

Staying home is not as hard as it seems when compared to some things.

Angels and Demons

It is interesting to look at the way the world is slowly evolving to deal with life during the beginning of this pandemic.

First they asked people to stay in if they could.

Then they closed the schools followed closely by restaurants and bars.

Now our regional airport has let most personnel go except for security and a few necessary employees who deal with any incoming or outgoing passengers here.

Nursing homes have a no visitor rule, so people are becoming creative and skyping, or coming to windows and talking on their phones through the glass.

The hospitals are limiting surgeries and admissions to those absolutely necessary. They have closed their gift shops and are limiting any visitors to a rare exception like hospice.

One school unit's buses are delivering meals to kids who would go hungry without school meals.

Local businesses have provided food at given places around town for other children 18 and under.

Another business provided a hundred furnished apartments for students who cannot go home when the universities closed.

People are applying for unemployment and a few people who are entertainers are finding ways to use their home quarantine to continue making a small amount of money in donations from fans via Facebook Live.

Zoos and closed public aquariums are showcasing their animals for our entertainment and accepting donations to help subsidize lost revenue.

Most of the people in the world seem to be trying to help each other out and make do. In other words, they are exhibiting what Margaret Meade called "Civilization" or civilized behavior.

Of course there are always the few low lifes who jump in to take advantage of everyone else. Senators who sold stock before news of the virus spread. Men who bought up all the hand sanitizer so they could sell it at usurious prices to people wanting to live. People hoarding things they don't really need just to be sure no one else gets them, sometimes to take advantage of selling them at high prices and sometimes just because they can.  A United States President who tried to buy up the rights to a vaccine so other countries would not have any.

Our true colors never shine brighter than in times of crisis.

Horror

I have always been a fan of scary movies, from my two year old night terrors of watching my bed burn to being sweetly terrified that the shadows on my nursery windows were Santy Claus.

As a child the gentler versions of horror like Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, were monsters I felt sorry for. I got to stay up late and watch them with my Dad. Reading all the ghost stories or scary stories in my Dad's library was simply an extension of both my interest in them and a camaraderie with my father.

I was not, and am not, so much a fan of the horror my mother introduced into my life at the ripe old age of three when she informed me that she might not be who I thought she was. She might really be Santa Claus masquerading as my mommy. That was and is the fodder for many nightmares where people, especially my mother are really werewolves, or terrifying doppelgangers.

The idea of haunted houses full of secret rooms, hallways, attics and maybe ghosts lured me into every movie and book I could find. I am not surprised to realize that much of this might have simply been the haunted precursors to HGTV.

And there is still that attachment to my Dad, who when I asked him if there really were ghosts, simply said, "There might be and there might not."

I honestly don't think I really believe in any kind of supernatural things, so they are simply forms of novel escape for me.  (But that being said, I believe that nonbelievers might be the ones hardest hit if they ever did have a supernatural experience that was scary.)

And that being said, I have had enough strange experiences that were not scary at all to wonder if the scary stories are simply another way to deny the miraculous beauty in this world that we will probably never understand.

Also, just as a note to those who wonder: I prefer hauntings to blood and gore, so I'm not sure I am as much a horror fan as I am supernatural manifestation fan, but either way I love seeing what someone else's imagination comes up with.

Then I wonder how and why they did that and why you like it.

The Inconvenienced

I was reminded this morning of those who are struggling with more than a lack of toilet paper, which is honestly no small matter, especially if you have a household full of young children.

But also imagine mothers and fathers who must have that paycheck or face eviction from their homes, or having their utilities shut off.

Imagine people who can barely feed their families trying to make do while wealthier people are hoarding.

People who cannot afford to miss work, or pay for daycare so when school is cancelled they are in a quandary.

Those of us who can afford to buy the more expensive bread still available, who can substitute many things for the missing things, or who were fortunate enough to have the money to stock up before things were gone  are simply inconvenienced.

There are others who were already struggling to survive, not because of the coronavirus, but because of a country that pays people less than a living wage. Good people who work hard and count on both the meals and care their schools provide so they can work as hard or harder than everyone else for much much less.

It is easy to get caught up in personal problems and forget the life and death struggles that were already going on are now exacerbated.

Gratitude

I have had the urge to hibernate since around Christmas this year.

There was no great aha moment, just a feeling that I needed to withdraw that became stronger as the months wore on.

For the first time in my life I had very little desire to socialize. In fact, it became a little bit of a push to get myself to go to those things I was committed to.

I considered the fact that I might be becoming agoraphobic for some reason. That didn't feel right, but the feeling of not wanting to participate in public venues persisted.

Last week my sister came to visit and we went to the local zoo, which is honestly seldom very busy, but we also went out to eat and I remember feeling a great relief when the restaurant we went to was not crowded at all.

Then I heard that people were hoarding toilet paper because of coronavirus. I went to the stores and was both shocked and angered by the empty aisles. I called my sister who found it in her town and the next day I drove down there to pick it up from her. We went out to a crowded restaurant for lunch and I realized I was willing to leave if they couldn't provide us with a table. They did and all was well.

I don't particularly like booths in the best of times. They make me feel closed in, but it was stronger than that on Friday.

I know it is probably coincidence, but now that we are under voluntary quarantine here, I feel much more comfortable than I have for some time. I do go out when it is necessary: to vote, to pick up prescriptions, to the grocery store, but I feel justified in staying in otherwise.

I am disappointed to have my Cirque du Soleil tickets cancelled, but it seems like a small matter compared to people who are not working and not being paid, so they don't know how they will feed their children, or pay their bills, or people who have already lost loved ones.

It seems to me that we should just be grateful for what do have right now. There may be a time when we, too, wish our biggest disappointment is not going to Disneyworld, or the cruises we have planned for years.

Perhaps my body was just ready for this and perhaps I am just imaging that, but either way I feel fortunate that being voluntarily quarantined is pretty easy for me.

These are the days

Now is the hour. Look in the mirror and find out who you are.

Fearful or bold.

Humane or afraid.

Anxious or calm.

The soul leaking through the shell that suddenly feels so fragile can be an awful thing, or an awe-full thing.

People hoarding toilet paper and businesses providing free apartments for stranded college students.

People indiscriminately scooping up all the water and those delivering free food to children under eighteen.

Exploiters buying up all the hand sanitizer  and people singing to each other from their windows in Italy.

Canceled gatherings all over the world and those who send their refunds to the people no longer able to work because of this.

These are the times that show men's souls.

Pandemic

These are strange times I am living in.

I would have thought that in my seventy years on this earth I would have experienced most things, at least a little, once already, but that is not true.

First we have our orange villain tweeting from the clouds somewhere above Washington D.C., or Mara Lago, Florida.  A United States President who just says whatever pops into his tiny mind at any given moment, trying to make life as difficult as possible for anyone who is not at least a white millionaire.

Now we have a pandemic following years when all precautions and preparations for such an event have been systematically eliminated. But the lemmings following the man who proudly brought us to this place are still blindly loyal.

People, lacking any proper guidance, have now created a shortage due to hoarding of nearly everything and as usual the poor will pay the highest price because they lack the resources to hoard as much as the wealthy.

Trump finally has us where he wanted us all along. Education is suspended. Any kind of protest is prohibited under the guide of no mass gatherings. Elections are postponed. Older people are at risk of dying from the virus. Children of the poor are at risk from malnutrition because they are no longer in school. People are quarantined in Georgia because they were on a cruise ship, but they are receiving no health care and minimal humane treatment.

These are scary times folks.  We may be watching the demise of our country as anyone has known it for over two hundred years.

They're singing my song

I hear the World Health Organization saying one of the dangerous things about the Coronavirus is that there are people who do not take it seriously.

Seriously, I don't think running out to the store and buying all the Clorox or hand sanitizers and toilet paper is going to make much difference, because if you deny other people the ability to protect themselves you're just upping the ante on who can spread it around. Like it or not, we all live on this world together and we will share some things whether we (like it or not.)

Someone said it's only going to kill 3%, which is nice sounding, but what if your child, or your mother are in that 3%? Then it becomes much more personal and real.

Now is the hour when we find out who the truly good people are. If you can downplay something because it is only killing starving children in Africa, or old people in India, what does that say about you?

How many people only care when it affects them personally? That is the true state of any union.

In the meantime, common sense dictates that we do whatever we can to contain this virus personally. Wash your hands. Cough into your elbow. Use hand sanitizers. Avoid large groups of people. Avoid travel for a while. Don't panic. Be reasonable. Stay informed.

True horror stories happen after the fact. A family of five cannot imagine disappointing their children so they take them to Disneyworld and come home to kill Grandma and fifteen of her friends. Why would anyone even consider letting something like that happen? Looked at after the fact it is a horror story. Before? Awwwww, it won't happen to us is the sad refrain.

Ruins

I love perfectly imperfect things and people.

Not just broken, or old. Not just chipped or scratched. Not ruined either.

I love the way some people, some places, some things are so perfect that their wrinkles or cracks make them even more interesting, more lovable, more more.

Those cracks let the truth shine through and that truth is not only rare, it is often filled with a light and wisdom and beauty that creates a love greater than love.

It is that momentary burst of light late in the day that becomes so enchanting I cannot tear my eyes away.

It is a gift.

In every form, it is a gift for the one who has the eyes to see it and the heart to hear it.

The Consummate

Today I met the woman I intended to be.

A woman who is much the same person I am, but infinitely more successful.

She is a patent owner, a world class speaker who has spoken at universities and top companies all over the world. An amateur archeologist who has been part of digs all over the world. A woman who paints divinely and sells her work quietly with no fanfare. A natural teacher, who dropped out of high school. A hugely successful woman, wife, mother of four and grandmother, who also stages homes for sale and helps people redecorate as well as designing and making her own unique clothing. She has designed the most adorable and intelligent play room for her youngest grandchild who she watches during the day right now. She is actually doing all those things I wanted to do or dabbled in and more.

She is an exquisite hostess drawing her guests into her home with activities and games and conversation, a consummate listener, a woman so kind and focused that she touches your center and sets you free before you know it.

I don't think I have ever met a kinder, wiser, humbler, more creative woman in my life. She is not a ball of energy. She is an endless pool of creative serenity.

Feelings

Some people go to counseling to get in touch with their feelings. That is one thing I've never had to do.

If I were any more in touch with my feelings I would not be able to function in this insane world we live in right now.

My feelings are not just part of me. It is more like I am part of my feelings, this powerful mass of impulses held back by reason and self restraint most of the time.

They even invade my dreams. Night after night my feelings take on the form of things I love and fear and haunt me in unimaginable adventures. No movie has ever impacted me more than the dreams I have nearly every night. Some are wonderful. Others are terrifying.

During the day I am impacted by the news popping up on my car radio or computer and sometimes it actually feels like it is knocking me around, slapping me in the face, ruining a beautiful day with words and images of the ugliness in this world.

Once upon a time I protested, carried signs, made phone calls, canvased neighborhoods, worked hard to try and change things. Now I often feel like a turtle whose shell has been ripped off and is exposed to what is sometimes almost unbearable frustration and pain and disbelief.

Perhaps it is age, or the culmination of a life time of experiences, or maybe I am just worn out, but my feelings seem to be flowering in the midst of a new world order whose horror is beyond imagining and I just want to sink back into the darkness like the lotus and stay there until there is once more light and hope.

In not out

Sometimes one thing outweighs another and makes it worth giving up the other.

And sometimes that is just an excuse to give up something I don't want.

Lately I have found myself reluctant to go out and do things. I'm pretty sure it is nothing like agoraphobia, but you never know how these things start.

I think it might be more that my hair is in between growing out and being three shades of awful and my weight has ballooned over the winter and the world is not particularly appealing right now between the Coronavirus and our nightmare politics.

And going out just costs money that I could spend elsewhere.

Whatever it is that is keeping me home this week I'm not going to worry about it for a while yet. Instead I'm going to read books, watch television, draw pictures and write stories. Something in that mix ought to justify my staying home awhile.

Luck?

You can grow up in a multigenerational family, join a gym of older folks, study gerontology, do whatever you will, but nothing will prepare you for the actual impersonal harshness of growing older.

It is as random as grabbing a handful of mixed seeds and tossing them in a garden to grow. In the end it depends on where the seeds came from, where they land, and the quality of rain, sun, soil as well as the weeds around them that will determine nearly everything.

Once I thought luck was another factor, but I'm not so sure about that anymore. Luck may just be the end result of a bunch of decisions made by you or the people around you.

This is truly your life.The umbilical does not stretch far beyond the womb. And when it tries, the rotting rope that binds you will only hold you back. Even words of wisdom must be taken with a grain of salt, because the salt that seasons one life, destroys the kidneys of another.

The more educational and infomercials I watch, the more I realize how little most of us fit in the stereotypes people try to stick us into. Stereotypes are necessary in a commercial society where even aging is an opportunity to make money.

I could come up with a million little phrases that strike a chord in your choir, or pull the rug out from under your feet, but if it gets too cutesy or puny, let it go!

The truth is aging is as personal as it gets and no one knows better how you feel, either physically, or emotionally than you. You may not know why you feel a particular way, but sure as ….. know how it feels and until you find something that makes it feel better, it is not for you.

One of the perks of living a long time is in learning to trust yourself. Don't lose that.

The luck of the draw counts more if you're holding the pencil.

Thinks

The wonderful thing about people is people are wonderful things.

They come with ideas no one else ever had

And they thinks what no one else thinks.

The wonderful thing about people is that children are people too.

They grow up unique without even a blink.

And are loved no matter what they do.

Turning points

How all the eggs in one basket hatched out both butterflies and ants is beyond me.

One egg laying mother produced young that fly off searching for places filled with beauty and light, while her others burrow into the ground and swear they had no choice.

When did that lack of choice occur?

At what point did they designate themselves children of the dirt, children who get by on powerful demonstrations of how physically strong they are and proud proclamations of how ignorant they choose to be?

The search for truth and growth, whether it is found, or not, is better in my estimation than living in the dark.

There was a crooked line

Memories seem to be specific to each individual.

 I hear stories from people all the time that don't even come close to the way I remember things being and I suppose they do too. A lot of that depends on the circumstances. The rest probably hinges on how you viewed those circumstances then.

For example: As a small child I would sometimes see my Dad feeling very sick. My mother was mean to him and I couldn't understand why. Now I know that was before he stopped drinking. Perspective.

But when someone has a memory of me, or several that I have no memory of in any way -- no pictures of it in my mind, no memory of the words or actions in my head -- it really bothers me.

I can remember similar things on different occasions, or with other people, but not those specific ones and I don't understand how that could be? If I remember some, why not these in particular?

My life has often been chaotic, since the day I was born. Craziness runs in a crooked line through both sides of our family, so it terrifies me when I consider that I could possibly be a dot on that line.

Then I remember that just because someone else remembers something and I don't doesn't necessarily mean they are right and I am wrong. And that can give me peace of mind. At least for a while.