“deliriously oblivious,” i thought as we passed the bees buzzing the dandelions on the trail. with no real idea of the state of the pandemic-battered world, these bees were just going about their bee-life. in some silly way, i was jealous.
much of the time right now i feel as if we are living in an alternate reality than others. we shop with masks; many wander about fresh-faced and seemingly unaware. we distance from others; we pass gatherings of people, clearly not related, all not even a smidge apart from each other. we walk in single file on the side of the trail as we approach others; groups of people swarm the trail, passing right by us, unmasked, unconcerned. we yearn to travel a bit, see our children, our families; others post about their gatherings or even trips. we patiently work by videoconference, technology reigns supreme these days waiting for a time when it is safer to venture out; crowds protest and push for heedless immediate re-opening. our hearts break for families losing loved ones to this dangerous virus; deaths are reported as cold numbers sans empathy. the weighing of losing more lives vs ‘opening up’ is posed as an actual question. it feels like we are on another plane of existence watching the world, abiding by different rules. truly.
and right here, in the middle of it all, the bees buzz from dandelion to dandelion, and soon flower to flower, seeking nectar. migratory birds return to the skies above and animals return to prowl about in warmer temperatures. in other parts of the country and the world, wildlife is enjoying a reprieve from people. in what must be a breath of fresh air for them, animals are freer to roam, freer to linger. their curiosity is taking them off the beaten path, out of their norm. i wonder if there is some kind of intuition that informs them; i wonder if they are somehow conscious of this looming threat to humanity. i wonder what they are thinking as they watch this play out, the impact of a pandemic on health, relationships, mindfulness, neighborliness, working in community together. i wonder how they, in the infinite wisdom of instinct, would decide if someone placed the words ‘health’ and ‘economy’ in front of them and made them choose just one.
there are moments i am convinced that dogdog and babycat know. i’m sure that they can feel the anxiety we hold. dogga, in particular, watches our faces for cues, his gaze is eye-to-eye-contact riveting. they hover about us, close by. perhaps unmindful of the pandemic, but certainly conscious of our emotions.
and as bumblebees begin to buzz in our backyard, the dog chases them. the birds begin to discover there is water in the pond again. the squirrels dance across the wires. the turkey lands on the roof. the sun rises earlier. the lettuce starts to grow.
we stopped there every time we rode our bikes past on the way to the beach or the harbor. north shore outdoor recreation center & school of skindiving was a shop downtown east northport, a couple blocks from the railroad tracks and across the street from the old auto parts store. our high school biology teacher jim owned it and we’d stop in and visit, looking around at gear and flirting with the just-slightly-older-than-us-guys who worked there.
when i was 17 i started working there after school and on weekends. i’d do office work, the newsletter, and sell scuba, archery and other outdoor-related sporting equipment. the fill tank, a pool of water in which oxygen tanks are immersed in order to fill them for use while diving, was just outside the office and i can’t tell you how many times i ended up sitting in it. until i got smart and carried extra clothes to work with me in the car, i had to drive home to change, sopping wet and glorying in it. i was the only girl there and these boys were brutal teasers.
the basement of the shop was formidable, dungeon-like; at the top of the stairs were a sliding chain lock and the light switch. the gestetner machine (a copy machine that invariably spewed purple stuff all over you during use) was in that basement which meant i spent some good time down there wrangling this obstinate office contraption. from way down in the depths of this concrete cavern, i could hear the chain sliding and the click of the light switch, leaving me in the dark to feel my way back up the steps and stand at the door, pounding to be released from yet another prank. yes, brutal stuff.
crunch was in charge which left jimmy and ollie and i under his thumb. much more a rule-follower, crunch was a task-master and was the one who turned down the blasting stereo of ‘heart’ singing ‘barracuda’ in the workroom. he wagged his fingers at us to sweep or organize regulators, but he was right-in-there, shortchanging me with the growing-boy deli orders they sent me on, leaving notes on my little vw about town-noon-whistle-blowing-timeliness, not setting me free from the front sidewalk window when i, during christmas-eve-day last-minute-shopping-hours, dressed as an elf and, coerced to fix something in our christmas display, was locked in, forcing me to grin and bear it and stand with plastic-santa, waving at people walking by and the crowd that gathered at the auto parts store. but we all did good work together, the dives were organized, people had the right gear and the shop was a place customers loved to come and linger in.
an older italian couple lived above the shop and luigi was not as loud as his wife. without the benefit of air conditioning, the windows and lack of thick insulation in the walls made it easy for us to hear her rapid-fire italian admonishments of her husband, always punctuated by a shrill “luigi!” in our first-hand innocence of marriage-challenges we’d voice, “poor luigi.” i don’t think i ever knew his wife’s name. i wonder about their lives. where did they go? their rows weren’t nearly as loud as ‘barracuda’ or the sounds of boisterous laughter coming from the back storage/workroom of the shop. they were simply a part of the story, a part of the history of that place, a sound-artifact i can still hear.
during one of his college classes, crunch, who ended up one of my very best friends, for a psych class project, decided to glue a a few coins onto the sidewalk out front and hide in the tent displayed in the front window, capturing passersby reactions to money-for-free. they always went for the quarter and it was predictable how earnestly they would try to pry this off this sidewalk, invariably stopping to rub at their fingertips, digging in backpacks or purses for pens or keys to pry with. nevertheless, the superglue held and the coins remained on the sidewalk for a long time to come. i don’t know when they finally disappeared.
for those of us who actually think coins count as money, it’s natural to stop and pick up coins when you see them, the whole find-a-penny-pick-it-up-thing. the little jar at home fills up and is, surprisingly, a good sum of money when it’s up to the tippy-top. so when we passed the two pennies in the UPS parking lot, david bent down to pick them up. one heads-up, one tails-up. i immediately yelled, “no! don’t touch them!” it was the very beginning of the pandemic and touching ANYthing without sanitizer nearby was a formidable act. it was too late; david had picked them up. so he brought them over to the sidewalk by the UPS store and laid them on the window ledge. i wonder if they are still there.
the quarter was on the trail when we were hiking last week. it made me stop; it’s a quarter, after all! i looked at david, pondered, then shrugged, and, against every reflex, left it there and hiked on. the not-picking-up-free-money-guilt set in but not enough to break the don’t-touch-it-pandemic-rule. i wonder if it is still there.
in this time of so-much-change and the use of so-much-technology, i find myself thinking of those times, over four decades ago now, when things seemed simpler. coins counted, ink-laden-copy-machines slowed us down. i think about the relics that were left behind.
and i wonder, forty years from now, when i am 101, what will those relics from this time, this time of pandemic sweeping our world, look like? what will they be?
we don’t go into any store without a mask on. the way we understand this – is that this is essential. in an effort to curb the spread of this pandemic, protect others and do our part to ‘flatten the curve’ we need to follow simple protocol.
at the risk of redundancy, which i have been accused of before, we have been appalled at the lack of people wearing masks. it’s not like you are being asked to undergo a colonoscopy before entering the grocery store (or worse yet, the prep for one); it is a simple request: wear a mask. yet, there we are, in the store and we can feel the now-familiar tightness-in-our-chest-anxiety rising as we attempt to move away from people who seem to care little about distancing or breathing their aerosols our way. what-on-earth-is-so-hard-about-this??
david went to a small grocery the other day. he had his mask and he had brought disinfecting wipes with him. neither of these were burdensome to him. he walked into a somewhat crowded store and found that he was the only one wearing a mask. what?!
wwmrd? (what would mr. rogers do?): be a good neighbor. (i’m betting he’d wear a mask.)
we live in wisconsin so it would seem prudent to look up what the department of health services has to say about this:
When should I wear a cloth face cover?
You should wear a cloth face cover when you are outside the home conducting essential activities such as going to work, to the grocery store, pharmacy, banking and enjoying outdoor activities while maintaining physical distancing.
that seems relatively clear. embracing redundancy once again: “you should wear a cloth face cover when you are outside the home conducting essential activities such as going to work, to the grocery store, pharmacy, banking and enjoying outdoor activities while maintaining physical distancing.”
down the street the state of illinois is requiring face masks. ahhh, you say with a cavalier smirk unhidden by a face mask. that state has a democratic governor, you point out as you enumerate the many ways that the government is taking over your personal life by issuing coronavirus guidelines. i’m not a biologist or an epidemiologist but i suspect that this pandemic is not stopping to discern the difference between democrats and republicans. and a face mask, worn by you or the people you encounter in a day, just might protect you, your family members, your friends, your colleagues, the people-who-you-don’t-know-at-the-grocery-store-but-who-count-anyway.
so why are the vast majority of people not wearing masks? why are so many folks not social distancing? why are people announcing vacations on facebook? vacations? are we even encouraged to do that right now? (because who wouldn’t love to go merrily on a vacation for a while?) one sweet person, who lives in another state, replying to a text of mine that bemoaned missing my children asked me if we were on “house arrest”. everything is confusing.
one of the funniest, albeit a tad off-color, clarifications of the what-would-mr-rogers-do approach i read said: “having some states locked down and some states not locked down is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.” no exponential brainpower needed there. i would think that swimming-pool-water-rule applies to most all the guidelines. seems pretty clear to me.
i guess i’m just saying i don’t understand. this is a global pandemic. despite a plethora of conspiracy theories distorting reality, there is medicine and there is science. i, for one, would rather place my trust in the people immersed in those than in self-aggrandizing politicians or propaganda-pushers, each ignoring medical science in their own creative ways. there is a difference. “america strong” reads the flag we pass on 7th avenue. strength and resilience are found in unity, not division, in working together, not apart, in being neighborly.
as the country begins to prematurely open up and disregard the CDC’s guidelines as “overly restrictive” we will likely download that multi-page guide. we would like to see more specifically how we can do our part . thinking they might actually protect us, we want to see the ‘overly restrictive’ restrictions. we want to participate in a responsible way. we will follow these guidelines as best we can. we will social distance. we will cough into our elbow. we will not gather. we will not pee in the pool.
and we will freaking wear masks, even if we are the only ones.
in the wee hours of the dark night, long island sound is quiet. crunch and i would sit in his boat, inky skies punctuated by a million stars and the lights of the shore, our fishing together comfortable, a thermos of coffee to share, some conversation. treasured memories now, i was adrift with one of my best friends and completely at ease.
we were probably 12 or 13 when the sunfish sailboat we were in became becalmed. sue and i sat out in the middle of the big pennsylvania lake and, with no wind from any direction, started laughing. we were in no danger; we had already capsized a couple times and had survived that. but we were a distance from the shore and i don’t remember there being any paddles in that little sailboat. at some point my uncle must have realized our predicament and came out in his speedboat with a towrope. the sunburn decades-faded, i was adrift in that lake with one of my best friends and completely at ease.
as we sit in the middle of this pandemic, this time of change and this time of no-change, we feel motionless, even stranded. we are learning patience, we are learning to slow down; we are learning. we are changing our expectations and our measurements of success. we are marooned in a vast water, drifting, unsure, way out in the deep. but all around us are others who are generously sitting with us, sharing, nurturing us, also drifting. our sails are buoyed with winds of kindness, our anchors a steadfast dedication to the well-being of all. we are grateful for the goodness of brilliant minds, the commitment and sacrifice of front-liners, the respect and honoring of that which keeps us all safer and healthier.
and one day, as we look back at this time, for surely it will someday be a memory, we will see that we were adrift with our best friends and, though trusting and in the care of each other, it truly was a time of unease, the shoreline was not visible and the fathomless water in which we were stranded was way bigger than us.
ty cobb’s career batting average over 24 seasons was .366. this is the number of hits divided by the number of at-bats. i know that is an extraordinary batting average and yet my math-brain looks at that and thinks, “wow. that’s shy of 37%! only 37%!” what if only 37% of my recordings were complete? or 37% of dinners cooked all the way? or 37% of the work for our employers done? or 37% chance of wearing appropriate clothing outside our home? disregarding the possibility of grading on a curve, my school-brain thinks, “37% does not look like an A!” so when david went on about how his painting has been a miss, i thought, “well heck! you need to lower the bar a bit!”
artists are harsh. we are generally not self-congratulatory, although there is definitely a percentage that defies that. we have a vision of where a project is going and we will jump at the chance for perfecting it every time. there is a point when you know; the time has come to stop, start over, wipe clean the slate. (pfffft – can you hear lifting up the cellophane on those cool vintage magic slates made of cardboard and equipped with a plastic stylus?) david walks away from the easel, huffing. i walk away from the piano, sighing. the muse has left the room before us. at least that is what we invariably think, when it’s our own work.
and yet, it’s so often the case that i will stare at his work, downstairs on the easel and think, “wait! stop! don’t do ANYthing! it’s perfect!” but it’s his project and his creation and he fought with the vision he had in his head. they disagreed; they went to battle and the easel reigned supreme time and again as he walked away, disgruntled.
for me, the third iteration of this painting (see above) is the moment. he could have stopped right there and i would have loved it. it had a dreamy, surreal quality to it. it was graceful and lovely. i’d say at the very least a .375. ty would be proud.
delayed gratification. it’s something we are growing used to in these days of days. anticipatory glee. it’s all an exponential wait-for-it. as relatively impatient people, these are mostly new learnings. there is no date on which we can hang our all-will-be-normal hats. we must vamp until we know.
a long, long time ago, in the end of march, there was an opinion written by a woman with two teenage daughters who had a new appreciation for the way her grandparents lived. she expressed that these grandparents owned a tiny home and had simple furnishings. they took pleasure in the most basic of things: dancing in the living room, watching a bare minimum on tv, sitting on the porch, crossword puzzles, having conversation, walking the familiar sidewalks of their tiny town over and over again, handwashing the dishes. in the midst of this pandemic she could see their shining appreciation of the smallness, the stillness. she could see the brilliance.
it occurs to me that we are living elements of her grandparents’ lives; i hope the same wisdoms will be bestowed upon us. in the time after we have finished our work, we dance on the patio, watch little on tv, converse together, in texts, on the phone, on videoconferences, across driveways. we sit on the deck or in the sunroom and watch spring chuggingly arrive. we walk the same sidewalks we have walked together for years, noticing small changes: the heaved concrete or the bloomed daffodils, new mulch in gardens or new sturdy fencing. we cook dinner; we do the dishes. we are both quiet as we wait for what will come and we are just a little noisy in the moment.
to everything there is a season. a time to plan. where we will go, what we will do, who we will visit. gratification, yes, delayed, but sage learnings in the moment.
one of the memorable texts of this waiting-place was one from a friend. after some really serious life conversation, back and forth texting, she wrote, “let’s go out and have a drink.” before i could wonder when we could do that, her next text arrived, “next year,” she added.
in the meanwhile we’ll do the dishes by hand and walk the sidewalks, waiting and planning, yearning, vamping till the song starts.
because one can only lament so much about the current divisive atmosphere. and then it need cease. at least for a moment. for a breath.
we look around for randomness – arbitrary, non-thinking imagery, things that will effect little to no rise in blood pressure, little to no anxiety, no hot flash.
today, this image is ‘pear on wine bottle’, a still life depicting the ingredients of a 5pm cocktail hour. the time of day when maybe the pressures of the day are easing up a bit or the weariness of the day is catching up. a time of a deep breath, a long walk, an old-fashioned or sliced pear and a glass of red wine.
we are fortunate to have these moments at the end of the day when we can take a step back, sit in broken adirondack chairs on our patio and watch dogdog run circles around his roundabout sign in the garden.
we wonder, like you, when we can gather together again. we sigh, not knowing.
when the waning sun warms our faces out back this day, we will tip our glasses to each of you, sending you love, good health and a breath of peace.
the contagion is not merely the virus, although that is more than enough for this tenuous world to handle. the contagion is seeping into relationship, into communities, into cities and states. it exhibits as an inability for people to have conversation about this pandemic. it is a pestilence that hovers over the virtual aisle between us, waiting to swarm in locust fashion. it is pervasive. it is contention.
we took the helm of a performing arts center last year. when we started, we sat with the board of directors at our first official board meeting and told them that, in all things, we would be wearing our ‘what’s best for TPAC?’ hats. we would ask questions: what is best for the whole? what is best to move the organization in a progressive way? what is best to open the organization’s heart to embrace ideas in an equitable way, in a forward-thinking way, in a way that will keep the organization safe from harm and pushing toward better health. we have worn the ‘what’s best for TPAC?’ hats proudly, through thick and thin, for it is in the organization-as-a-whole that we are invested. we haven’t always been popular, and in fact at times have been shunned in silence by this same board, but we have stayed steady in our quest to keep the performing arts center and its needs central and not to get lost in self-serving contention that exhibits as peripheral arguments or sidelined motives. the possibilities of grand health and as a wildly successful place artists wish to be are all within reach for TPAC; all personal agenda need be left at the door and the wooden stage of this beautiful performing arts center will be filled with creating, performing, reaching audiences of all manner, flourishing, as the mission statement tagline reads.
our country sits smack in the middle of a global pandemic that demands we put on our ‘what’s best for ALL of us?’ hats. we are seeking health. and, though we as a world have not garnered all the information about this specific covid-19 disease that we need, it seems that the brilliant scientists and doctors, epidemiologists, researchers and public health experts have asked an abundance of questions and given us some guidelines. these guidelines, put in place and central, are not the stuff of popularity contests. they are the stuff of those ‘what’s best?’ hats, the stuff of steady leadership, the stuff of keeping people safe from harm and pushing toward bettering health. through thick and thin, and with sacrifice, it doesn’t seem too much to adhere to these guidelines as a means to an end.
but cavalier complaint, unrest and protest are rampant. and contention ensues. ‘we’ll have to agree to disagree’ we hear time and again. i wonder what it is we are disagreeing on? can we ask questions: is it the wish for all people to be well? is it cooperation with each other to that end? is it communal responsibility? is it adhering to recommended guidelines, among others: to stay home, maintain social distancing, wear a mask? these are not difficult asks and have proven to be effective at flattening the curve of this disease, a disease whose myriad symptoms exhibit in so many ways, in which dying is devastatingly painful and lonely, and one is suffocated with the pansy words ‘agree to disagree’, tentacles of irony and shameful smugness killing any chance of conversation. misinformation begets misinformation. it encourages loud dissension, infighting, uprisings bearing arms, people basing decisions on erroneous reports; it misguides. instead, misinformation guides people down paths of complacency, lazy inaction, self-serving-disregard-for-others the hat of choice.
we are living in a state of ‘agree to disagree’ and where has it gotten us? agree to disagree. at what cost? over 1.1 million americans have already contracted this virus and over 65,000 have died.
is there a chance we could agree to agree? can we ask questions: that perhaps over 64,000 in two months is too many deaths? that humanity – each of us – is not dispensable? that we cannot move anything forward without health, without living and breathing people, including an economy of any value to humankind?
what’s really ‘best for ALL of us’? can we ask questions: in this country touting that it is helping each of us, might it be possible to actually help each of us, instead of the not-so-hidden inequity sorely apparent even in the structure of stimulus bills and tax packages? might it be possible to recognize that goading people into angry protest is not a responsible re-election campaign strategy? might it be possible that angrily and aggressively bearing automatic weapons in public venues is unacceptable? might it be possible that bullying should not be seen as a substitute for incompetent leadership? that division is not a cure; it will neither heal or stimulate. division will further divide this indivisible-one-nation-under-God. “the ‘invisible enemy’, as the so-called leader of this country refers to coronavirus, is not the pandemic, but, rather, the malignancy in this current administration. in this country of hats, can we please wear the ‘what’s best for ALL of us?’ hats?
the wooden stage waits ad nauseam for all of us to have conversation, to ask questions, to work together, to agree to agree; it waits while we heal, while we ensure people can be well, while we take steps forward-thinking, while we leave personal agenda at the door, escape from the grasp of this viral pandemic and, maybe even more, from this corrupt nation-destructing contagion.
and then, bathed in a spotlight aimed at our ‘what’s best for ALL?’ hats, we will flourish.
and as yesterday passed into today and i drifted off to sleep i knew, despite that she is on a different plane of existence, my sweet momma was holding me close to her. it was bracing to think of the five year mark that has just passed now since she has been gone and the every-day-missing-her that goes along with that. no different with my dad. in a month it will be eight years and i can hear his “hi brat” in my heart. i have no doubt that he is right there, holding on tightly. both of them. forever and ever.
it is a fact. this parenthood thing is mind-bogglingly paramount. ever forward from the day they are born. it is all-consuming. in every good and every daunting way. every most-jubilant and every brutally-difficult way. every securely-confident and every tumultuously-distressing way. every way.
in this pandemic time of chaos we pine for a sense of normal which escapes us. anxiety barges in and replaces our regular routines; peace escapes us. we long to see each other. we feel tired; we feel restless. we sleep more; we cannot sleep. we are astounded by the surrealness of this; we are crushed by how real this is. and we worry. it is hard to be away from those whom we love and knowing that right now we cannot go to them compounds it. my heart needs to hug My Girl and My Boy and see that all is well. we feel anxious. our wishes go unfulfilled.
and yet as today passes into tomorrow and they drift off to sleep i know, despite how busy they may be or where they are in the world, that i am holding them close. that no doubt can exist – i am right there, holding on tightly.
and i hope, like you with your beloved children, that they can feel it. forever and ever.
anticipation. it’s the stuff of songs. the stuff of great love. the stuff of waiting for the worst to be over. the stuff of all moms everywhere.
we wait. we wait for them to be born. we wait for them to fall asleep. we wait for them outside the elementary school, gleefully skipping down the sidewalk toward us. and then we wait for them outside the middle school, hidden in the shadows down the road to avoid seventh grade embarrassment. we wait for them at the end of sport meets and music recitals, to congratulate or cajole. we wait for them after the day is done at school. we wait for them to return home in the family car. we lay awake, waiting for them a wee bit past curfew. we wait for them to return home from college. we wait for them to come home from afar. we wait for them to say, “yes, all is well,” and we wait for them to sound genuinely happy. we are not settled if they are not settled.
and now we wait – apart. all of us.
we all wonder what day it is and we wonder when this waiting will be over. we look to each other – on texts, on the phone, on social media, on videoconferencing – for words of wisdom, for encouragement, for reassurance, for a chance to say, “yes, i feel that way, too!” we need meet on common ground; we are alive and we are vested in staying well and staying safe. so we compare notes and share ideas and recipes and cartoons and articles and youtube songs and moments that make us weep.
and, like the day that your beloved child doesn’t tell you of their arrival ahead, surprises you and makes your heart swell with joy by walking in the front door, we wait for the hoped-for-but-unexpected. the flattened curve. the antibodies that prevail over the virus. the vaccine. the end of this profound worry, this herculean effort of medical workers, this exponentially terrifying pandemic. in our world, our country, our state, our community, our midst. in our circle.
we know one of these days this too shall pass. and in the meanwhile, we are honing our waiting skills. becoming adept at patience and being in the moment, not sure of what day it is exactly, but sure of the passing of days. time will bring us to a new day and one of these days, just like our grown child unexpectedly bursting through the front door, Next will burst in and exclaim, “surprise! i am here!” and our hearts will explode with gratitude.
reverse threading 