SQ Diary… page 8

25 Mar 2020 1 Comment

Self-Quarantine Day 13 – 03/25/2020

Some sunshine this afternoon and a chance for fresh air, with the balcony door open. Kim’s heading off on a bike ride.

Our friend Ryann brought us two jars of Tacos Jalisco salsa from a trip out west, so Kim made the Saturday Breakfast for HumpDay. It tastes as good on Wednesday as Saturday, and we had a nice spa soak after because why not?

Still coughing, feel like an old sock, but life goes on. Everything’s relative… sooo very relative now.

Talked with John this morning ahead of his return to the hospital tomorrow. Lots of things we aren’t saying… and that’s okay. We are all here —-> X … and we’ll deal. He has a job to do and his skills are sharp. The mama’s job is to sit with it, and to hope he and his colleagues will have the tools they need.

2:30pm. Kim will get back here by four and we’ll sit outside while the temp holds. We’ll chop vegetables for the steamer, we’ll have a couple of drinks, we’ll catch up on whatever we haven’t watched yet… we’ll say words and think thoughts… and it will be nighttime and we’ll shut it all out to await another day.

Image by Judy Smith

SQ Diary… page 7

24 Mar 2020 4 Comments

Self-Quarantine Day 11 – 03/23/2020

Time’s starting to compress ever so slightly while I’m wrung out and still coughing my head off, but Kim, my everyday hero, is in fine form, inspiring confidence and peace of mind. Today is his 69th birthday, same cheeky kid I married 15 years ago.

He walked over to the barbershop first thing, figuring he’d better jump before the bridge closed, and not a moment too soon. He waited with a few other guys, widely spaced, while Mr. Jon, the lone barber, worked his way down the line. Somebody’d stick a head in the door… “One barber, 2-hour wait.” Phone would ring… “One barber, 2-hour wait.” So that’s how Kimmers spent his birthday morning, and came home looking GOOD. Hope he’ll be up for cutting mine for me ’cause I didn’t make it over there before Shelby hung it up for the duration. Yikes!

Life slows to the pace of still water, and only certain things cause a ripple. Only the things that matter.

Self-Quarantine Day 12 – 03/24/2020

Some sunshine would be… good. One gray day after another, sometimes rainy, often just nondescript, isn’t proving to be an invigorating backdrop to what’s spooling out in our midst.

Still draggy and coughing but I’m not ready for the system to dump my old bones, so recovery is the only option here.

Talked with John – all of his meetings have been canceled but he goes back on shift Thursday. Into the lion’s den armed with sheer boldness and knowledge of the job at hand. Get back, virus, in the name of Science.

…

On the home front… might make the bed tomorrow.

Image by Judy Smith

SQ Diary… page 6

22 Mar 2020 5 Comments

Self-Quarantine Day 9 – 03/21/2020

Woke up in the night with an elevated temp and raging sweats.

Out of it all day, sleeping nearly round the clock.

Self-Quarantine Day 10 – 3/22/2020

Yesterday feels like a chimera. Rough day, lots of sleeping, came to toward evening and started psyching for the climb back. Kim changed the sheets, I painfully showered and washed my hair, and I had text conversations with a medical friend about the wisdom of getting tested… or not. She suggested waiting until today, which will no doubt turn out to have been the best answer in light of events. There’s at least one drive-through test facility here in town, so that’s good to know.

Woke up sometime in the night last night, drenched, knowing a corner had been turned, and fell asleep again waiting for morning. I’m a noodle and my pee is orange, but my body knows life’s returning. So far, I’ve dipped toast in coffee and had several ounces of cold water, and that’s holding. Scary timing to get the regular flu in a town the virus is visiting, but the flu was here first so this isn’t a shock.

Kim went to Stabby Dillons to get Emergen-C and a few other supplies – he wears nitrile gloves inside the store. No TP – apparently they’re still letting people grab armfuls off the truck, which is piss-poor management and infuriating. Heard Dillons in Salina is still doing the same thing. Why???

Just need to get my head clear, some food in my belly, more liquids down, and rest. Things are starting to pile up around me, but they’ll have to simmer for a bit…

Please be careful, friends. If the virus is worse than the flu, and clearly it’s deadly for some, nobody wants it.

Image by Judy Smith

SQ Diary… page 5

20 Mar 2020 Leave a comment

Self-Quarantine Day 8 – 03/20/2020

Hitting a wall this morning, no doubt the first of many. Haven’t been further than my balcony since LAST Friday, and the walls are starting to tilt inward a little. It’s cold and blustery outside, so Kim skipped his 6am walk… maybe later.

Most weeks I’m a hermit crab… don’t care if I stick my nose out all that often. But since this is now the status quo and my options have been squeezed down tighter, places and food around town are calling my name. Crazy humans…

Time to shake up the routine – things are devolving to a state not generally tolerated here for long. There’s laundry to fold, clutter to sweep away, and my desk is once again a sty by my standards. And always the little stacks of papers and junk mail to keep sorted. I have no focus yet – my head is off in the weeds, thinking thoughts I can’t recall a minute later.

It doesn’t help that I’ve been coughing for days and breaking out in sweats. No fever, just a steady reminder that I’ve tucked myself away for reasons – and I hope I did it soon enough. My general health platform has been compromised for years, and now we learn that people with Type A blood are the most susceptible to the virus. So yeah, hope that last trip to the therapy pool won’t stick with me in a bad way. We know now that C-19 has been loose in society for far longer than we were told, so the uncertainty hangs like the Sword of Damocles until the crisis passes.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Image by Judy Smith

SQ Diary… page 4

19 Mar 2020 3 Comments

Self-Quarantine Day 7 – 03/19/2020

Typing today’s date zips me back fifty years, to a hospital room, a long day of induced labor so we could outrun a blizzard, and a tiny blue-eyed, towheaded little guy.

That kid and his partner had booked a 10-day Paris vacation to celebrate his birthday this week, but the universe made other plans, so they found an alternate hideaway.

Fifty years. Makes me feel lightheaded. It’s been that long since my son was born… and I’d already lived a whole life before THAT happened. How is it possible to sit here in my same skin at 72… same on the inside except chill and settled now, understanding a tiny handful of things, knowing every one of those things in my life really happened, one by one… and acquiesce to a life spooling out. We’re candles.

Pouring rain this morning off and on… drippy… gray. I coughed all night, but that’s calming down now. Pretty sure it’s just from being closed up in this same air for days at a time. Our only windows are on the east side, so air flow is at a premium, and it’s been too cold to leave the balcony door open for very long. If spring arrives this year, it will never have been so welcome.

I wanted NOT to live in extraordinary times, but somehow knew I would… probably because my imagination formed stories from the things I learned, and the possibilities were out there.

And here we are. Making the most of the minutes while we have them.

Image by Judy Smith

SQ Diary… page 3 1/2

18 Mar 2020 Leave a comment

Self-Quarantine Day 6.5 – 03/18/2020

Kansas weather changes can give a rookie whiplash, and true to no form whatsoever, the day has turned balmy. The sun broke through the cloud cover for a dazzling minute, and the air feels friendly at 63º.

Kim rode his bicycle to Stabby Dillons for a quick backpack full of groceries, and more vodka from On The Rocks. He isn’t wearing nitrile gloves yet on these errands, but… he’s quick and doesn’t inhale. 😂

His PickleBall buddy and actual friend Marcelo called and said he’d be over to go for a walk, so they’re out there somewhere away from the madding crowds and 6 feet away from each other (ha!) while they talk nonstop. Good medicine.

With the door to the outside world standing open, trees leafing out, birds singing, the approaching gloom has been swept out of the house again. C’monnn, spring.

Where it (officially) stands today… we’re in one of those counties bordering the red one. So yeah, stayin’ in… stayin’ alive…

Image by Judy Smith

SQ Diary… page 3

18 Mar 2020 Leave a comment

Self-Quarantine Day 6 – 03/18/2020

We woke up to wet skies this morning and a hint of claustrophobia settling into the corners, but the rain has stopped for now at 7:45 and Legs is out there steppin’ ’em off. My beach bum isn’t used to being under a roof ’round the clock and I’m watching him wind a tad tighter every day, although I’m the only one who could tell so far. Warmer weather will help… he can ride his bicycle on the river levee, or anyplace else people aren’t. And we’ll be able to use our roomy 4th-floor balcony again, above the fray, thirty feet from any other overhang – that’s gonna be a big deal.

Not a lot has changed for me so far. I’m used to living in my head and my peaceful loft, and my books and writing are company enough for long hours. But even I’M starting to feel the effects of necessary distancing – it’s the knowledge that this is REQUIRED for the good of our social agreement as humans – I see I have to guard against feeling that my preset willingness is now being demanded of me. The human psyche is… endlessly revealing.

The weather’s been gray here – fitting for encroaching dystopia, but sunshine would feel like a gift right now. Light. Open skies. Warmth. Maybe a tease tomorrow, so guess I’ll hang in. Forecast shows a high of 73º (!!) and a peek of sunshine, but an 80% chance of continued rain, so… Kansas, yeah.

A few observations, not quite a week in:

  • The laundry sorter fills up very slowly now. Mostly underwear and towels.
  • The spa tub continues to be the best spot in the house.
  • Time is starting to slip its moorings a little. Easy to sleep later, crawl into bed earlier, eat when hungry rather than by the clock.
  • Dealing with the unknown takes everything humans can muster, so even though I’m not fearful, it requires energy to stay on top of this as it oozes forward, and I’m tuckered out by evening. Not a bad thing, just a notable part of the landscape.

And on we go.

Image by Judy Smith

Diary… page 2

17 Mar 2020 Leave a comment

Self-Quarantine Day 5 – 03/17/2020

Good morning, morning. Feels exaggeratedly still out… like a state of suspended animation.

Kim walked this morning while I was wrapped in dreams of a different world – his favorite trek, down one side of Mass Street and back up the other. He says most of the restaurants have signs in their windows reading “TAKE OUT ONLY.” Our hearts are heavy for them – how long can they hang on? People we know and love, count on in the community, half the reason we retired here – this very real place is going to hurt BAD. Made me think of this…

I guess statistics and projections caught up with everybody yesterday and Lumpy decided to participate, so the guidelines are changing by the hour now. My New York Times Daily Briefing helps in keeping things sorted as we go along since a pandemic pays no heed to plans or yelling, it just does what it’s built to do – rolls on while we scramble to catch it by the tail.

Watched Governor Cuomo’s stellar Fireside Chat this morning – ostensibly talking to the people of New York, but emerging as the de facto leader of the nation at this point. Clear, concise information, every word absorbable. Facts, possibilities, probabilities, necessary courses of action in order to flatten the curve if that’s still an option. Calm, measured, everything considered and truthful. People like to be trusted – just give us the facts and we’ll do the right thing.

The KIMN8R’s in work mode this morning, staving off the twitchiness. I’m still a cluster of cells trying to process fast enough to reconstitute. Also I’m lazy, so…

Image by Judy Smith

Diary of a Sea Change…

16 Mar 2020 Leave a comment

I think a really good person to #SociallyDistance with would be a guitar player who cooks and likes to read. 🖤💙Got one, let’s do this…

Self-Quarantine Day One – 03/13/2020

We stocked up a little today, preparing to shelter in place and stay out of the mainstream. No TP to be found in town, but most things are still available. Came home, ready to do what’s required. Not so different for me, I leave the house two or three times a week. For Kim, no daily PickleBall, and less popping in and out of businesses on errands, but he’ll still walk before dawn unless that much time outdoors becomes a no-no.

Day Two – 03/14/2020

Kimmers went foraging for TP at 6am and scored a 12-pack fresh off the truck. No hoarding, just a gracious plenty for now. We keep remembering little things we need from the grocery store, so the list grows.

When the Sports World went dark yesterday, people started waking up to what’s going on. “Oh crap, it’s real?” Thus, no toilet paper and no hand sanitizer. Panic shows its ugly head…

Day Three – 03/15/2020

Sunday. Starting to get acquainted with life as it now stands. A Saturday…and now a Sunday…with no live events except for an obscure car race. Night-time TV shows run with skeleton crews…and now going dark. Broadway – dark. NYC shutting down. State Governors taking the responsibility to close restaurants and bars. Anti-science citizens still insisting on full participation in order to preserve the economy. Market in free-fall.

Finding straight information on the pandemic takes determination, but it’s out there. The more two people with susceptibilities know about the threat, the more likely we can avoid some of it.

Day Four – 03/16/2020

A changed world starts to adjust to changed circumstances. Reality bites. The characteristics of this virus are sobering in comparison to some of the others. Hard to detect and pin down. Spreads like wildfire once unleashed. A direct threat to people with heart/lung issues, among others.

Slept ’til 8am, woke up feeling groggy and blue. Same for Kim on the blues – he’s cut off from the physical world that keeps him clicking along. He walked before dawn again, but getting no court play will show up more and more in his mood…

A word can change the atmosphere. Got my feelings hurt this morning instead of letting it all roll off. Since we’ve spent most of our waking (and sleeping) hours together for the past 15+ years with minimal argument over anything whatsoever, it’s clear the unknown is taking a toll. We both know we’re vulnerable to the killer, and so are family members and friends we love… and so far nobody at the top is offering conclusive consensus as to what we’re dealing with, nor a desire to publicly confront it in crucial ways. Time is of the essence…

Rode with Kim to pick up prescriptions and we got fast food on the way home. He said the place was spotless and everything usually sitting out is behind the counter now. So far, Lawrence isn’t a hot spot but there are eight confirmed cases in Johnson County next door. Planning to ride this out to the end and move on.

… to be continued.


Image by Judy Smith

One moment, please…

10 Feb 2020 Leave a comment

don’t startle her, curled asleep, there on the edge of the abyss

the sun is shining and her guard is down

sore winners have worn her out

let her rest her soul as the day drains away

is it one strike you’re out game over

the greatest generation would rage and weep

so sleep on ’til dawn, weary Lady, but the fight won’t quit

***

America, you in trouble, girl…

JSmith 02/10/2020

Image by Judy Smith

Be the wild vine…

02 Feb 2020 Leave a comment

One thing the years can start kicking out of us is spontaneity. My little sister left me a message one morning last week asking if we wanted to go to a movie matinee with her. By the time I caught it I was knackered from the therapy pool and feeling done for the day so we took a rain check, which we’ll cash in today, Super Bowl Sunday. It’s okay, she’s getting her retirement legs under her and likes solitary movie-going, so my lack of spur-of-the-moment enthusiasm didn’t dampen any sweet family feelings, but I’d prefer to still be a ball o’ fire. My grandma at this age used to ask “Where are we going?” while she was putting on her shoes and grabbing her purse.

It was a gray, dreary day, and after it had been settled that we were staying home by the fire, I looked over to find Kim snuggling up by my side…

  • HIM: Would you go out on a date with me?
  • ME: I would. I feel like I’ve gotten to know you fairly well now.
  • HIM: We could go to a movie this week. Same one we’re not seeing today (1917 – we’d both wanted to see it since the first review we read). We could go over to KC and see it in a dine-in. (Something else we’d been meaning to do but never had, can you believe that?)
  • ME: That sounds really nice. I’d LOVE to go out with you as long as you get me home before dark.

Took him five minutes to make reservations on his iPad and we were in for lunch and a matinee the next day. Spontaneity takes a little longer now but we can still pull it off. Give us a little time to think about it, plan for it, sleep on it, and we’ll be spontaneous as all get-out.

“Spontaneity is a meticulously prepared art”

― Oscar Wilde

Perfect date, including the part where he opened my car door, took my hand to help me out, started to say something and belched instead. Good afternoon to spend indoors wrapped in the events of another era – gray and rainy outside, gray and grim in the realities of WWI on the big screen – and the movie did not disappoint.

We’re of course sold on the venue: recliners, food, drink, fairly intimate little space – there were eight of us in the theater by the time the main feature rolled. Pretty sure we’ll be genuinely spontaneous about going again.

NOW we psyche up for a house divided – the KIMN8R’s 49ers against the LOCAL FAV KANSAS CITY CHIEFS, YAY!!! (deafening crowd noise!!!) YAY!!!

And this time there WILL be the Little Sister. And food. I was told there’ll be food.

Image by Judy Smith

New decade who dis?

17 Jan 2020 Leave a comment

Hard rain against the windows, turning icy as it hits. Dark and gray, quiet and warm inside, and Kitchen Man has biscuits and gravy in the works. No early-morning walk for him, no PickleBall with the crew. He’ll be here playing guitar while I do that thing I do… that space-off thing.

It’s a cold, cruel world out there this morning. It can be a cold, cruel world everywhere you look… unless you know where to look. Like the story about the six-year-old who’s raised $100k so far for Australian fire relief through the little clay koalas he makes…

Or the rescue on Wednesday of a 68-yr-old woman with dementia, lost for six days in the California mountains, her car covered with snow, who looked at her heroes and said “I’m very cold, I hope you brought a blanket.”

That same afternoon, Massachusetts State Police stopped a car containing an 11-yr-old girl who’d been kidnapped when she stepped off her school bus, in something of a miracle rescue, where she was a total champion through the whole thing and gets to go home and live her life.

So as the little icicles lengthen on the balcony railing, I’m thinking what a nice round number 2020 is, one we’ll not see again in our lifetimes. We won’t make it to 3030 or 4040, possibly this Big Blue Marble won’t either, so plump 2020 strikes me as the year to say what we mean and mean what we say, we don’t have forever.

This feeler has always had a hard time leaving things behind… sentimental trinkets, cards, letters… relationships. But after so many years, Steven Wright’s philosophy comes into play: You can’t have everything, where would you put it?

Reality bites:

  • Only certain things matter on this trip between birth and death.
  • People head that list, family in bold lettering at the top.
  • Energy is finite so I’m sticking with the people who are sticking with me.

To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it against your bones
knowing your own life depends on it:
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

~ Mary Oliver
In Blackwater Woods

Image by Judy Smith

What scares you?

09 Jan 2020 Leave a comment

***

So what really scares you? Not BOOGA-BOOGA pants-crapping scared, where your skin crinkles up and makes little screeching noises with sparklers on the ends.  More like what are you AFRAID of … that fundamental sense of dread that a cog will drop into a random sprocket somewhere and life will change.  Fear of loss is a keen motivator — what else drives us with that same force?

But what if life changed and you lived through that?  And what if it happened over and over ’til you realized how brave you were and then you just started doing things and saying things you didn’t know you could do and say?  What if people didn’t get any of that and you didn’t care?  What if you just started kicking ass, including your own, and life really did change and you wouldn’t change it back if you had the chance?  WHAT IF?  Not the question I want to be asking myself when I’m gowning up for the choir eternal.  What if I’d done all those things I knew I could do?  What if I’d let myself be who I knew I was?  And to quote Captain Obvious, what if I’d just been nicer?  Regret, let’s not have to go there.

Holy balls, I’ve survived too long to let fear force me back into the box, and by now he’s like an old friend anyway, sort of.  You know, keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your powder dry.

“I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.”  ~Dawna Markova

**

**

*A previously published piece, lightly edited for re-post.

Image by Judy Smith

Ready to leap?

27 Dec 2019 Leave a comment

Once again our little gaggle of planets have turned and rolled and done that thing they do that brings us to another trip around the sun, the great flaming Ra that keeps us just toasty enough to neither freeze nor fry if we have a lick of sense whatsoever, which every trip proves some do not, although many, sadly, don’t have a choice.

Now commences the ritual of preparedness for the arrival of another clean start – those things we do, the purging, the cleansing, the making room for the new. The things we swore this time last year we wouldn’t be staring at again, yet here they are, taking up space, morosely mocking us, flashing a hardly deserved middle finger since they were complicit in the fact of their existence. They called to us, those online purchases, with their suspect but irresistible sale prices. They cleverly rode in on invisible coattails, those ubiquitous email subscriptions that accumulate in stacks on the daily (!!). The paperwork we don’t need, don’t want, don’t have the energy to file but don’t quite possess the total abandon to toss – guess that’s never going away after all, despite our dedicated green-ness. Our shallowness would make me weep, but greater things preceded it and my tears are temporarily dry.

I digress, boys and girls, we’re vamping for 2020 and we’d best be ready – I heard on the interwebs it’s gonna be a lulu. But then, we’ve been training, so…

And what I DID NOT KNOW until this very moment as I was musing on a title, is that 2020 is a leap year, yes it is, so let’s all stay on our toes! Very best wishes to all as we say goodbye to the old we’re not keeping and hello to the new we’re welcoming. It comes to us every year, ready or not, so pull up your socks and let’s go!

Image by Judy Smith

Waiting for the Wise Men

24 Dec 2019 Leave a comment

Image by Judy Smith

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