Chilly morning after a frigid windy night – sounded more like the prairie than the forest.
DEEP THOUGHTS ON A COLD MONDAY: I started training for this years ago, this social distancing, and every day I settle further into what I know is true. Being a loose cannon in a big extended family makes you figure out who you are or get run over, and you learn that self-defense is a waste of energy. It is what it is. It will be what it will be. My goals haven’t changed… live well now, inside myself, and head for a happy old age.
We’ve heard of at least one Lawrence church congregation that met together yesterday. We’ve been at 39 virus cases here for a few days… we’ll see where we are in two weeks…
Churches aren’t being attacked or persecuted, they’re being asked to live out what they say they believe in – love. Care for other people. Solid stewardship in the world. So yeah… what made me stay so long at the fair?
This must be a Monday. I should eat something and go to work on the hours…
Highly resembles my view of home for the first two trimesters of my life, until we moved to the great greenway of NE Kansas. Social/physical/metaphysical distancing is in my DNA – I can do this ’til the cows come home. Stating facts, not bragging about being a weirdo, although if you wanna compare notes…
Yesterday was a hit-the-wall day – after Kim’s brief flurry of git ‘er done, it was a big space-off. We did mark and mail our primary ballots, so we were productive – this is no time to become expendable.
Amazon is starting to ship nonessential goods as they’re able, and we got a little speaker for the balcony yesterday that does not disappoint. The breakfast cook is out there with his coffee, soaking up the sun and providing a soundtrack for the yard guys. Every day there are moments to put in the bank…
It’s been a month, but feels like about half that – weekends roll around at a crazy pace… how can it be Saturday again already? Mental engagement feels like a challenging but crucial factor. Can’t afford to drop out… I might not ever make it back and I’d be pissed about that.
Kimmers and I are uncharacteristically (that word looks endless!) out of sync on this 29th day of the siege. He woke up full of energy and purpose, showered and dressed, hit some house chores, and he’s been playing guitar for a couple of hours now. I’m sitting at my desk in yesterday’s pjs, drinking coffee and wondering if the sense of limbo ever wears off. I’ve been up for five hours and have barely stirred my bones. Need spring to settle in – the sun’s shining but it’s only 42º on the balcony and feels 39. Not whining, just observing.
My involuntary prickliness is starting to take a toll on relationships and only further distancing helps to mitigate that effect. We’re all isolated and insulated, to a degree, each wrapped in our cocoon of thoughts and feelings – we’re bound to start knocking the rough edges off things eventually. But we need each other and when this is over we’ll need each other even more. I try to remember that when the abject cruelty makes me want to reach out and hurt somebody back.
Ate stuff. Played computer games. Left the news on, avoiding city hospital segments.
Folded laundry, paid bills, looked out the windows. Gray skies again.
Balmy afternoon, sans sunshine.
The minutes ticked by, the sun went down, we gave it up again.
*****
… Day 26 – 04/07/2020
The fine line between tuning out and DROPPING out is blurring a little. Yesterday had a never-ending quality to it and I thought far too many thoughts. Not having the answers to the simplest questions is a form of torture…
Being labeled an essential worker doesn’t make you expendable. But maybe we have an endless supply of dedicated humans to feed into the maw, so essential protections for the essential members of society are not an essential part of the picture. There’s no place to hide from that knowledge.
Knowing that nothing under the sun will ever change the conversation in America weighs heavy. It would be a well of strength if we were all in this together… but we can’t hook it up where it counts in a crisis. We’re fighting the virus, the unknown, our fears, ourselves, and each other while Americans of all ages die in a battle they can’t win. If this strikes you as being political, well… point made.
So that was yesterday, my diary friend. This morning is beautiful so far… biscuits & gravy in a bit… and here’s a puppy…
Yesterday baby sis, who lives across town, had a story to tell me that was too long for text, so we made the weird decision to use our phones for TALKING to each other. The belly laughs and the sound of her voice were good juju. I needed exactly that.
Sister Señorita Margarita Rita has called me her second mommy a lot of times since 1995, but she’s also returned the favor more than once, and she helped me take something off my plate yesterday that I wasn’t dealing with in a good way. Perspective… wisdom… and somebody with skin on besides Kim, saying words to me, making me laugh, letting me feel the lub. There was peace when I put my head on the pillow last night.💗
It’s sobering to know how much we need each other as humans and how much we generally despise each other, globally-speaking, on a daily basis. Those things are under there all the time, but we aren’t aware of them moment by moment because life streaks on and we make sure there’s no time for introspection, examination of facts, or new doors leading to unsettling change. We’re all so VERY human.
Solitude is my jam, but with the great world hum dampened to a murmur, I’m lonely for voices… life… people. Watching East Lawrence come alive in shades of green, white, and pink is conducive to sweeter moods, but the absence of all the walkers with their dogs and babies, the missing shouts of kids skateboarding, riding bikes and chasing each other down the street, makes the air feel a little ponderous and not quite real.
Not complaining, just observing. We never know what we have ’til it’s gone, and that holds true for all of life. We figure out how much it meant when it isn’t ours anymore. Stupid human pet tricks.
Fourth weekend of sheltering in place – Kim’s been out for groceries, wearing nitrile gloves and now a mask, and for solitary walks and bike rides, but I haven’t been further than the balcony since we shut the door. It’s okay, staying in isn’t a problem.
Just really not all about humans right now. For instance, I’d rather not know that in today’s economy certain people are considered too costly to save. The coronavirus effort is eating into the 1%’s share of the pie, and the worker bees, who are strictly Not Our Kind, are wasting, by which we mean utilizing in the name of life and death, “our” supplies. The supplies paid for with worker bee tax dollars and stockpiled for the use of the elites, not the states, most especially not the blue ones. Somebody forgot to tell Jared and his father-in-law how this whole “united states” thing works.
I’m not mad, bro, just doing a little self-healing… trying to accept the facts. It’s no surprise that the lives of boomers and other slackers mean nothing to gazillionaires, I know that in my bones. And since the man who would be king is incapable of accepting blame for anything… anything… he’s landed on the medical community as a scapegoat for this virus he said wouldn’t be happening here. I guess he and his tribe will never have need of those heroes. But even that new strain of cruelty isn’t shocking – we’ve seen everything he’s done and said for the past twelve years and longer.
What I’m still sorting is that people I love – and thought were intelligent, caring, compassionate, empathetic people – supported him, voted for him, haven’t backed off their fealty in any measure, and will brook no criticism of him. There’s a word for it.
I may have snipped an inch off my hair… more or less… here and there… I am killing at this stay-in-your-cave game.
That’s okay, I just came to talk, you don’t have to do anything…
Sleep – never my best friend, always kind of a flirty elusive thing – is messing with me again. We became BFFs after I married Kim sixteen years ago, and I slept nine or ten hours a night like magic, plus an afternoon nap. My brain shut off when my eyes closed, no worries, and out I went. Not liking this new normal where I lie down and my brain and body fight me and each other for the next foreseeable hours. So yeah, just thought I’d get that off my list…
I keep expecting to wake up one of these mornings and find that my focus has come back, some oomph, a hint of drive, but the opposite is happening… my give-a-shit is experiencing technical difficulties. Write a few words, read a page or two in a book, play Words with Friends, again, some more, work a jigsaw puzzle, stare out the windows. Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure there are a couple of bills buried on my desk, or on the dresser whose load never lightens while the little stacks become bigger stacks and get overly friendly with each other until nobody knows what’s what anymore. It was still looking slightly purposeful before all this hit, so I could pretend not to see it, but it’s time to sort it out…
Starting to sort the metaphysical aspect. It is what it is. It will be what it will be. People have made their choices, from the top down, and the wheels are in motion. No amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth will slow its roll. A Mariana Trench full of human tears won’t alter its course. The only unknown is how bad. Saw this morning that the Pentagon has ordered another 100,000 body bags.
Beyond a couple of trusted news people, the only voices I care to listen to are Andrew Cuomo and Dr. Fauci. Governor Cuomo’s calm measured tones, telling us the truth morning after morning with no varnish on it, are like a security blanket. He makes me cry every day because he’s a real human, taking responsibility, trying to protect his people, speaking TRUTH. I can handle just about anything if you give me the facts and get out of the way. Once you lie to me or show me you’re all about the cya, I’m done. The governor is respecting his fellow humans by giving it to us straight in a low-key way, and he’s a life preserver.
Slept more hours than not last night, so there’s that. I’ve awakened my Sleeping Sciatic by spending most of my time at my computer, because sure, why not, so it has a say in everything right now including in the middle of the night. Would it kill me to at least FEEL good?
Haven’t yet worked my way past the basic divide in the pandemic issue… one side says it’s about people, the other says it’s about money. What’s being done to our medical community here in the U.S. is heartbreaking, infuriating, crazy-making. All I can do for now is try not to inflict myself unnecessarily upon the world until I can swallow the deeply-entrenched cruelty that’s been awakened in our society – lots of awakenings this morning, huh…
Maybe I just need to cut ’em slack? This from my friend Mylène AF in Quebec:
“Reading some people’s posts, I realize how many have not grasped the severity of this situation. The fact that we are in a time of exceptional circumstances where NONE of the old rules apply and only exceptional measures will do. Everything has changed forever. The world we knew before is gone. Let it go. Those rules don’t apply anymore. Move through the stages of grief if you must. There is a definitive before and after line here.”
**********************************
Jeff Bezos isn’t intellectually challenged, though, so this makes no sense. It strikes this farm girl as a no-brainer… If almost 9 million dollars per hour rolling onto your side of the ledger isn’t enough to take care of the people who make that money for you, there will never be enough. It will never happen. The poor(er) among us will never be cared for, ever. Today there is no one poorer among us than Jeff Bezos – I wonder if he’s even slightly embarrassed about telling us that.
But perspective helps. Kim’s been sending lush guitar notes through the house for the past hour and now he’s making the Saturday breakfast on Wednesday – he knows how to get me to make actual food part of my day, and the flavors are a mood-lifter – sloooow food, with the love cooked in, as my sweet cousin Lonnie Joe always said. Feeling better already.
So yeah, some food, more coffee, sunshine, birds, balcony, Kimmers is going for a walk after breakfast… I’ll accomplish one thing I can point to as participation in living… and we’ll find ourselves at the end of another day. We have only so many chances to get this right, by which I mean everything. We’ll either figure out how to help each other and survive as a species or we won’t, end of story.
Yesterday was Crash & Burn day. Encountered asshole-ishness all over social media nonstop, and by bedtime I gave in to the bruises and cried myself to sleep for the first time in about seventeen years.
My Pollyanna heart can never retain the fact that at least a third of my fellow citizens don’t want what I want. They prove in a crunch that what they want is chaos and license, and they’re making it harder for the rest of us to survive. And while we do what we can to protect ourselves and the people we love most, other Americans are calling us liars and accusing us of ganging up on their president.
Things like this don’t happen here, dammit, this is America. So somebody must be hoaxin’ us, right? Can’t be real.
SOMEthing real is happening. Medical personnel are dropping like flies – at least 51 doctors in Italy alone, I don’t know the current U.S. count – while they try to save the rest of us, without the tools they need. Wearing week-old masks (regs say to change after each infected patient) and draped in trash bags, slogging through hospital hallways clogged with patients on gurneys, hoping to save more people than they lose, and dreaming of just a couple of minutes to sit down somewhere. Or to pee – who knows when that last happened? Food? That was so two days ago.
The mean-spiritedness from the doubters is incomprehensible. Somehow it’s the fault of the medical profession that we’re all leaderless and stumbling in the dark? It’s OUR fault as ordinary everyday citizens that we allowed ourselves to be lied to without end?
The worst part of the pandemic so far – until the body count shocks everybody out of their shoes – is getting to know who we share a planet with. The philosophical/political/cultural divides are revealing more than we may have wanted to know. We don’t all share the same values, that’s being made painfully clear, and we’ve forgotten how to lay the differences aside for the good of all.
We can’t seem to communicate with each other – the two conversations never come together. It’s all about anger and suspicion and ideologies that simply can’t mesh – there are things unleashed in the nation that are tearing us apart at the seams, things that can’t be reconciled with the concept of a republic, a democracy, a united group of states. Unity has been shattered and replaced with a veneer of arrogance, an “I’m right, you’re wrong” approach to all of life.
It all feels unbearably sad. An ignominious end to a fairly good idea. We’ll still be a nation when this is over, in some bright tomorrow… but we’ll never be the same. That’s either the best possible news or the worst. Hope we all get to stick around for the ending…
Had my first sleepless night since the pandemic broke. Couldn’t get comfortable, tame the aching, stop my thoughts. The person charged with overseeing the welfare of the nation is bullying blue-state governors, accusing doctors and nurses of theft, hoarding, and black market activity, because given the chance that’s what HE would do. My disgust and fury are off the chain. City ERs and ICUs are war zones, nobody’s working their own angle, for god’s sake! Their only aim is to stay alive long enough to make a difference.
Jeez, any wonder I can’t sleep? Top epidemiologists in the world and he consults Mr. Baseball…
I never really knew what hate feels like until landing in this era. I’ve seen its effects all my life, especially during the Civil Rights struggle, and I watched the white supremacists come out of the woodwork during Barack Obama’s time. SPOILER ALERT: They never left, they somehow gained influence and they’ve brought friends. I’ve been angry at people, furious, ready to fight to the end… but I’ve never known what it was to hate. I’ve learned. I despise every atom of Donald J. Trump with a white-hot cleansing fire. I find no honor in him, no respect, no character, no intelligence, no self-control, no class. It’s ALL about him, ALL the time. He displays not an ounce of empathy for another living thing on the face of the earth.
Family members, friends, their kids, the nurses and doctors of the world, are on the front lines doing what they’re trained and conditioned to do, with one hand tied behind their backs. They’re putting themselves at risk every hour they work, and they do it by choice because that’s who they are. For them to be slandered with accusations of theft and waste is so out of the norm it doesn’t bear thinking about. They’re reusing nasty old masks and other personal protection gear, strictly against regs, because there isn’t enough stuff lying around to STEAL in the first place!
Lumpy has no idea what those life-and-death hospital scenes look like – just as he has no clue what real Americans deal with day to day during GOOD times. Suit him up, send him in, let him stay on his feet for twelve hours breathing through a funky mask and standing in body fluids. And then send him back in there the next day and the next. With the same mask. And when he whines, slap him so hard his cousins fall down.
I’ve wondered over the years what it would take for me to get political on Facebook again and bring it to my blog. Answer: this. All of it since 2015. It finally reached critical mass and toppled of its own weight. It’s my battle and I’m up for it… but first you cry.
DISCLAIMER: SOME of the white people in red states.
First things first. Kim checked after sundown last night and our silent visitor had taken leave of us. He/she must have been waiting for the cover of darkness before traveling on – maybe just needed a brief rest along the way. My Black Hills trail-guide friend Mark identified the bird as an American Coot, a little out of its normal range, maybe, but we’re part of their breeding grounds. We both went to bed with lighter hearts knowing our new friend was likely not ill after all, just taking a breather. We’re in love with those amazing feet designed for efficient swimming, and if the story DIDN’T have a happy ending we were spared that knowledge, chickens that we are.
It’s a gorgeous Sunday morning, cool, light breeze, temp headed toward 70º. Kim walked before the sun came up and now he’s on the balcony with his coffee and earbuds, having a workout with Paul Simon. I’m feeling a little better, little stronger, little less coughing every day. Ready for warm days and letting the sun soak into my bones.
A tiny epiphany just pinged my sleepy brain: I’ve spent a lot of the past twenty years saying to the world, in so many nonverbal ways, GO AWAY. Boys and girls, be careful what you ask for.
Just remembered that we regressed further into pioneer mode yesterday – no TV. Modem or box or whatevs likely needs replacing, but not on a weekend from a place that isn’t opening its doors for business right now. We miss the news and our car porn like Roadkill, Iron Resurrection, Mecum Auction. And sometimes the sound of other voices in this space is a bonus. So Kim was wandering down YouTube rabbit holes last night, and I had my nose in my iPad as usual. We will survive.
When hunger strikes, the KIMN8R will come in and make Sunday omelets, and the spa tub will get filled again, and we’ll keep rolling. It’s all fine in every way. LIFE… is good.
It was almost 60º when Kim went out for his 6:30am walk, and he’s been on the balcony catching rays since breakfast. The sunshine feels like a wonder drug.
This is my third Saturday on the inside, and I’m realizing I left the house a lot more often than I thought, even if it was just for a ride somewhere with Kim. Having the door and the blinds wide open is making the place feel a teensy bit bigger this morning and the sounds from outside are welcome. The freight trains are for sure still running.
There’s a sick bird on a window ledge just past our balcony and he’s breaking our hearts. Big, black with an ivory bill, huge feet. He stood planted in one place for hours and now he’s skooched himself into a corner and is breathing heavily. We feel ya’, buddy…
Hoping to stop coughing and get my energy back in time to capitalize on the down-time. All those sweet lil’ projects just waiting to be tortured into fruition and I sit here like a weenie. Warmer days should prove helpful in every direction.
So yeah, The Smiths at Home, not so very different except psychologically. One advantage to being joined at the hip or general vicinity for almost sixteen years is that we only get on each other’s nerves the usual amount, and we do still have separate corners we can retreat to. Mine’s up there behind the red chair.
Wondering if the nurseries will be able to open at all this year…
And it was night, and it was morning… fifteen days since I walked into our loft and shut the door. Kim’s in and out for necessities, but I haven’t even been in the hallways. I’ve been sick since we sequestered, but haven’t been tested. They’d just send me home to recuperate anyway. I cough and break into sweats ’round the clock, and in the night I wake up wondering if my next breath’s coming… but it always does.
On a far more critical front, moms of healthcare workers the world over are holding our collective breath, hoping our kiddos somehow get the protection and the supplies they need. It’s a limbo like this mama has never fallen into before and I’m not a nice person right now. Speak truth to me or get out of my face. Help or GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY. I’m not dying because of lies and I don’t want other people to either. But they are, dammit, more every day.
Food holds zero interest – I have to make myself eat. It feels counterproductive to tuning out. People are so very gullible and under-informed with their remarks – and so cutting – my belly’s doing flip-flops continuously. The hardest thing about the Trump Era is the cruelty.
Kimmers is filling the spa tub. We’ll soak and talk and I’ll probably cry and we’ll climb out feeling a little better somehow. So grateful not to be living this part of life alone… so many are, and dying without human touch to ease the transition. How much can hearts break and keep on beating?
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.
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…
PLAYING FOR TIME claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. Images on this blog are the property of their respective owners. If there is an image on this blog that belongs to you and you do not wish for it to appear on this site, please E-mail me with a link to said image and it will be promptly removed. Thank you.
Welcome to my weekly blog on life's happiness. We are all human and we all deserve to smile. Click a blog title or scroll down. Thanks for stopping by.
Creative humour, satire and other bad ideas by Ross Murray, an author living in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. Is it truth or fiction? Only his hairdresser knows for sure.
Playing for Time 
Join the conversation …